(9) Chidon.--So one MS. of LXX. Syriac and Arabic, R?min. The Nachon of Samuel seems right. The Targum, Syriac, and Arabic of Samuel have, "prepared threshing floor (s)," treating n?k-n as a participle. Put forth his hand to hold the ark.--An explanatory paraphrase of the more ancient text, "Uzza put forth unto the ark of God, and held thereon" (Samuel). Stumbled.--Or, plunged. The margin is wrong. The verb is used transitively, in 2Kings 9:33, "Throw her down." Verse 9. - The threshingfloor of Chidon. For Chidon, the parallel place has Nachon; possibly these are two names of the same place, or one form is a corruption of the ether; but there is nothing to determine for us which. Owing to the meaning of Nachon being "prepared," the version of Aquila is "to the prepared threshingfloor," with which the Jonathan Targum agrees, and (for this Chronicles passage) the Joseph Targum gives אֲתַר מְתַקַּן. The threshing-floor was a circular plot of hard ground, from fifty to one hundred feet in diameter, on which the oxen trampled out the grain. Threshingfloors evidently often became landmarks, and helped to designate places (Genesis 50:10; 2 Samuel 24:16). The oxen stumbled. In the parallel place the Authorized Version renders "shook it." The Hebrew verb is the same (שָׁמַט) in both places. Its elementary meanings are "to strike" and "to throw down." Perhaps the meaning is near the Vulgate rendering, calcitrabant, and equivalent to the rendering, became restive. 13:6-14 Let the sin of Uzza warn all to take heed of presumption, rashness, and irreverence, in dealing with holy things; and let none think that a good design will justify a bad action. Let the punishment of Uzza teach us not to dare to trifle with God in our approaches to him; yet let us, through Christ, come boldly to the throne of grace. If the gospel be to some a savour of death unto death, as the ark was to Uzza, yet let us receive it in the love of it, and it will be to us a savour of life unto life.So David gathered all Israel together,.... The principal of them, even 30,000 select men, 2 Samuel 6:1.from Shihor of Egypt; or the Nile of Egypt, as the Targum and other Jewish writers, called Shihor from the blackness of its water, see Jeremiah 2:18 though some think the river Rhinocurura is meant, which both lay to the south of the land of Israel: even unto the entering of Hamath; which the Targum interprets of Antiochia, which lay to the north of the land; so that this collection of the people was made from south to north, the extreme borders of the land: to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim; where it then was, and had been a long time, see 1 Samuel 7:1, from hence to the end of the chapter the account is the same with 2 Samuel 6:1, see the notes there; what little variations there are, are there observed. See Gill on 2 Samuel 6:1, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Samuel 6:3, 2 Samuel 6:4, 2 Samuel 6:5, 2 Samuel 6:6, 2 Samuel 6:7, 2 Samuel 6:8, 2 Samuel 6:9, 2 Samuel 6:10, 2 Samuel 6:11 |