Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah - David's words after he had so far attained his wish, that the ark had been brought up to Zion. When we were at Ephratah (the old name for Bethlehem) - i:e., in David's youth, we knew of the ark only by hearsay (Job 42:5; Psalms 18:44): it was neglected and never visited. Gesenius takes "Ephratah" as Ephraim, in which tribe Shiloh was situated, the original seat of the ark; so in Judges 12:5, the Hebrew, Ephrathi, denotes an Ephraimite. But that is an abbreviation which can hardly have place here. "We heard of it in Ephratah" could hardly mean 'we heard that it was in Ephratah.' Rather, it is, 'we, being in Ephratah, heard of it' as a matter of mere hearsay. When it was in Shiloh it was not a mere matter of hearsay, and lost sight of, but it was the religious center of the nation openly.
We found it in the fields of the wood - i:e., in Kirjath-jearim (city of the woods), on the confines of Judah and Benjamin, where the ark was placed after its restoration by the Philistines. "We found it" implies that it was visually lost to Israel during the twenty years while it was in the suburbs of the solitary forest-town, Kirjath-jearim (1 Samuel 6:21; 1 Samuel 7:1; 2 Samuel 6:3-4). Maurer translates, 'in the fields of Jaar,' an abbreviation for Kirjath-jearim; as Hermon is put for Baal-hermon (Deuteronomy 3:9; Judges 3:3), Sheba for Beer-Sheba (Joshua 19:2).