2 Samuel 6:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And they set the ark of God upon a new cart Which ought to have been carried upon the shoulders of the Kohathites, Numbers 7:9; for which reason, no wagons, were allowed to them, as there were to the rest of the Levites, to carry several parts of the tabernacle. “It is matter of astonishment to me,” says Delaney, “how David and all the priests and people could fall into so great an error, and deviate so strangely from the plain precepts of the law of God in this point, which expressly prohibited any but the priest to touch the ark, upon pain of death, Numbers 4:5; Numbers 4:15; and any but the Levites to carry it. The best apology that can be made for them is, that David now succeeded to the throne after a long irreligious reign, in which the ark, and every thing relating to it, were utterly neglected; especially after the massacre of all those priests whose peculiar business it was to attend the tabernacle, (all but one young man,) and who were, in all probability, the only priests of that realm that had ever seen it, or knew any thing of its rituals; and there was not then, probably, any one priest or Levite alive who had ever seen it removed. In short, the public worship of God had long been discouraged and neglected in Israel; and with that the study of the Scriptures, except so much as was absolutely necessary for the administration of the civil affairs of the state. Would to God Israel were the only nation upon which this sad truth could at any time be pronounced! Add to all this, that David and his people had now been for many years immersed in wars; and the voice of religion, as well as reason, is often drowned in the din of arms. It is true, the Philistines had, about ninety years before, removed the ark with impunity, 1 Samuel 6:17, in the same manner as the Israelites did now; but they forgot, that what was pardonable in the Philistines might be highly criminal in the Israelites;” because the Philistines were ignorant of God's laws; but the Israelites knew, or might have known, that the Lord commanded that the Levites should bear the ark upon their shoulders. But their present transports of joy, on account of the happy change of their affairs, and their greedy desire of having the ark of God removed, made them inconsiderate. In Gibeah Or on the hill, as 1 Samuel 7:1.