Uzzah's Pride

Uzzah and the Ark
5 So David assembled all Israel from the Nile of Egypt to Lebo-hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim. 6 And David and all Israel went up to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim that belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the LORD who sits enthroned above the cherubim. 7And they carried the ark of God on a new cart, from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. 8And David and all Israel were rejoicing before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.
9And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen stumbled. 10And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. 11And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzza to this day. 12And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, "How can I bring the ark of God home to me?" 13So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 14And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-edom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that he had.

-1 Chronicles 13:5-14

My wife read this today and told me how it was her favorite story in Chronicles so far (she is reading the ESV Study Bible's reading plan, highly recommended). I agreed, but then thought how silly this might seem to someone who had not read RC Sproul's exposition of this story in his classic, The Holiness of God (also heile recommended). I thought it might serve for me to pass on this interesting story and how it relates to God's holiness.

As you can read above, the story is about David and friends moving the Ark back to David's hometown. The context is that Saul is on the downhill, and David is getting big, and David is reclaiming the Ark because Saul had neglected it. So we have this decently happy story about them going and getting it until verse 9. An ox trips, Uzzah tries to steady the Ark, and God kills him. God effectively ends the happiness in the story so quickly.

David becomes mad at God and even filled with fear. That is the way I want to respond as well. I want to explain Uzzah's actions to God. Surely if God knew that Uzzah was actually trying to help him, God wouldn't have reacted so harshly, I am tempted to think. But come now, let us take our gut-level responses to wisdom. God is all-knowing; he sees clearly our hearts. We are reading from his book, we are thousands of years removed from the story. And God is good, he doesn't react without wisdom or discernment or punish anyone unfairly.

So why did God kill this man who helped keep God's Ark from falling over? The Ten Commandments might have been once again broken! The Gold of the Ark might have been bent or scratched! Why kill this helpful man?

Pride. We live in the New Covenant age. We usually skip Leviticus and Exodus except for the occasional story. This man was close to David. He must have known the law. David must have known the law. How was the Ark to be moved? It had rods and priests were to carry them. David and Uzzah should have known better. They gave the Ark of the living God a "new cart." They must have justified it to themselves by comparison to Saul's neglect. "This isn't perfect, but it's really pretty good, God," they might have said.

Despite these nuances and justifications, the God that we and David and Uzzah serves is holy. Holy means set-apart, or other-than. God is different than us. He is a holy God, and we are sinful humans. Uzzah was prideful in that he thought that his sinful hands were better than the dirt God created. He thought in a material sense about dirtiness but he did not consider the dirtiness of his own sinful hands. This passage is a wake-up call to us when we are tempted to neglect the surpassing grace of God, holy beyond our touch, reaching out to us humans, sinful by birth and by action.

Two points of application:

1. Don't allow your thoughts about your relationship to God to take on a comparative form. David must have thought God would be okay with it since it was much better than God had been used to during Saul's reign. God demands holiness from us and perfect following of his law because of his holiness.

2. Be thankful for Jesus, who took our placed and was punished for where we fell short of God's law so that we might become accepted and loved and adopted by God! Use this thankfulness to kill pride in your heart as you reflect on how far we fall short but of God making a way for our sinfulness to be paid for so that we might dwell with him in perfect holiness.