I'm slowly making my way through the Bible chronologically, and came across the story of Uzzah again. Here was a man who seemed to do something very reasonable and put out his hand to stabilise the Ark of the Covenant when the oxen transporting it stumbled. But for his act, he was struck dead. I was always a little shocked by that! David was too! In fact it scared him so much that for a long time the Ark stayed at a home nearby, instead of continuing the journey with him to be in Jerusalem. So why was such a harsh judgement metered out on someone who it seems was only trying to protect the Ark?
Firstly this - I'm not sure that God just lashed out in vindictiveness to kill Uzzah for touching the Ark. God has a pure holiness that none of us can really understand because our world is so far from that. And the awfulness of sin is so familiar to us that we often don't see it, let alone realise how abhorrent it is to one so pure! The holiness of God, to me is like controlled atomic energy. God knew we could not survive contact with that! So he gave specific instructions about how to store and carry the Ark before he ever allowed us near it! It was to be cared for only by Levites - men who had been carefully trained in how to deal with it. And it was to be carried using poles threaded through rings at its base - once again, by Levites only!, on their shoulders.
David and his men had become so "familiar" with the Ark they considered as "theirs", that they had disregarded these instructions and transported it themselves, on a cart, pulled by oxen. It's always a big mistake to disregard things God has specifically said. He says them for a reason. Usually to protect us! In this case, Uzzah wore the terrible results of familiarity and disregard of those words. He didn't die because God lashed out. He died because he disregarded instructions that were meant to protect him. I guess there's a warning in there for us too.
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