9. from the ark] Read (with LXX. and 1 Kings viii. 8) from the holy place. One standing in the Holy Place and looking towards the Holy of Holies could see the heads of the staves.
and there it is, unto this day] These words are taken over with the loss of one letter (which here makes the difference between singular and plural) from 1 Kings viii. 8, but they are out of place in Chronicles, for when the Chronicler wrote the Ark had long ago disappeared. The vessels which were brought back from the Babylonian captivity are specified in Ezra i. 9, 10, but the Ark of the covenant is not reckoned among them.
¹⁰There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb, when[¹] the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.
[¹] Or, where.
10. which Moses put there] Exodus xl. 20.
at Horeb] Deuteronomy v. 2.
11–14 (= 1 Kings viii. 10, 11).
The Descent of the Glory of the Lord.
¹¹And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, (for all the priests that were present had sanctified themselves, and did not keep their courses;
11. out of the holy place] The priests could remain neither in the Holy of Holies where they had deposited the Ark, nor even in the Holy Place, but were driven altogether out of the Temple building into the Temple court (compare verse 14).
11–13a. for all ... his mercy endureth for ever] a long parenthesis added by the Chronicler to intimate that the whole body and not merely the monthly “course” of priests and of Levitical singers were present (verses 11b–12); and to suggest the grandeur of the musical service (verse 13a).