1Ch 13:1-14:14 | KD | STEP | The introduction to this event is in and very brief; but according to our narrative, David consulted with the chief men over thousands and hundreds ( ), viz., with all the princes. The preposition ל before כּל־נגּיד groups together the individual chiefs of the people just named. He laid his purpose before “all the congregation of Israel,” i.e., before the above-mentioned princes as representatives of the whole people. “If it seem good to you, and if it come from Jahve our God,” i.e., if the matter be willed of and approved by God, we will send as speedily as possible. The words נשׁלחה נפרצה without the conjunction are so connected that נשׁלחה defines the idea expressed by נפרצה, “we will break through, will send,” for “we will, breaking through,” i.e., acting quickly and energetically, “send thither.” The construction of שׁלח with על is accounted for by the fact that the sending thither includes the notion of commanding (צוּה על). כּל־ארצות, all the provinces of the various tribal domains, is used for כּל־חארץ, , here, and and ; in all which places the idea of the division of the land into a number of territories is prominent. This usage is founded upon and , where the plural points to the number of small tribes which possessed Canaan. After ועמּהם, על or על נשׁלחה is to be repeated. The words דרשׁנהוּ לא in , we have not sought it, nor asked after it, are meant to include all.

‏ 1 Chronicles 13

The introduction to this event is in 2Sa 6:1 and 2Sa 6:2 very brief; but according to our narrative, David consulted with the chief men over thousands and hundreds (1Ch 15:25), viz., with all the princes. The preposition ל before כּל־נגּיד groups together the individual chiefs of the people just named. He laid his purpose before “all the congregation of Israel,” i.e., before the above-mentioned princes as representatives of the whole people. “If it seem good to you, and if it come from Jahve our God,” i.e., if the matter be willed of and approved by God, we will send as speedily as possible. The words נשׁלחה נפרצה without the conjunction are so connected that נשׁלחה defines the idea expressed by נפרצה, “we will break through, will send,” for “we will, breaking through,” i.e., acting quickly and energetically, “send thither.” The construction of שׁלח with על is accounted for by the fact that the sending thither includes the notion of commanding (צוּה על). כּל־ארצות, all the provinces of the various tribal domains, is used for כּל־חארץ, 1Sa 13:19, here, and 2Ch 11:23 and 2Ch 34:33; in all which places the idea of the division of the land into a number of territories is prominent. This usage is founded upon Gen 26:3 and Gen 26:4, where the plural points to the number of small tribes which possessed Canaan. After ועמּהם, על or על נשׁלחה is to be repeated. The words דרשׁנהוּ לא in 1Ch 13:3, we have not sought it, nor asked after it, are meant to include all. 1Ch 13:4-14

As the whole assembly approved of David’s design (כּן לעשׂות, it is to do so = so much we do), David collected the whole of Israel to carry it out. “The whole of Israel,” from the southern frontier of Canaan to the northern; but of course all are not said to have been present, but there were numerous representatives from every part, - according to 2Sa 6:1, a chosen number of 30,000 men. The מצרים שׁיחור, which is named as the southern frontier, is not the Nile, although it also is called שׁחר (Isa 23:3 and Jer 2:18), and the name “the black river” also suits it (see Del. on Isaiah, loc. cit.); but is the שׁיחור before, i.e., eastward from Egypt (מצרים על־פּני אשׁר), i.e., the brook of Egypt, מצרים נחל, the Rhinocorura, now el Arish, which in all accurate statements of the frontiers is spoken of as the southern, in contrast to the neighbourhood of Hamath, which was the northern boundary: see on Num 34:5. For the designation of the northern frontier, חמת לבוא, see on Num 34:8. Kirjath-jearim, the Canaanitish Baalah, was known among the Israelites by the name Baale Jehudah or Kirjath-baal, as distinguished from other cities named after Baal, and is now the still considerable village Kureyeh el Enab; see on Jos 9:17. In this fact we find the explanation of י אל ק בּעלתה, 1Ch 13:6 : to Baalah, to Kirjath-jearim of Judah. The ark had been brought thither when the Philistines sent it back to Beth-shemesh, and had been set down in the house of Abinadab, where it remained for about seventy years; see 1 Sam 6 and 1Sa 7:1-2, and the remarks on 2Sa 6:3. שׁם נקרא אשׁר is not to be translated “which is named name,” which gives no proper sense. Translating it so, Bertheau would alter שׁם into שׁם, according to an arbitrary conjecture of Thenius on 2Sa 6:2, “who there (by the ark) is invoked.” But were שׁם the true reading, it could not refer to the ark, but only to the preceding משּׁם, since in the whole Old Testament the idea that by or at the resting-place of the ark Jahve was invoked (which שׁם אשׁר would signify) nowhere occurs, since no one could venture to approach the ark. If שׁם referred to משּׁם, it would signify that Jahve was invoked at Kirjath-baal, that there a place of worship had been erected by the ark; but of that the history says nothing, and it would, moreover, be contrary to the statement that the ark was not visited in the days of Saul. We must consequently reject the proposal to alter שׁם into שׁם as useless and unsuitable, and seek for another explanation: we must take אשׁר in the sense of ὡς, which it sometimes has; cf. Ew. §333, a.: “as he is called by name,” where שׁם does not refer only to יהוה, but also to the additional clause הכּרוּבים יושׁב, and the meaning is that Jahve is invoked as He who is enthroned above the cherubim; cf. Psa 80:2; Isa 37:16. - On the following 1Ch 13:7-14, cf. the commentary on 2Sa 6:3-11.

‏ 1 Chronicles 14:1-14

1Ch 14:1 David’s palace-building, wives and children, 1Ch 14:1-7; cf. 2Sa 5:11-16. Two victories over the Philistines, 1Ch 14:8-17; cf. 2Sa 5:17-25. - The position in which the narrative of these events stands, between the removal of the ark from Kirjath-jearim and its being brought to Jerusalem, is not to be supposed to indicate that they happened in the interval of three months, curing which the ark was left in the house of Obed-edom. The explanation of it rather is, that the author of our Chronicle, for the reasons given in page 170, desired to represent David’s design to bring the ark into the capital city of his kingdom as his first undertaking after he had won Jerusalem, and was consequently compelled to bring in the events of our chapter at a later period, and for that purpose this interval of three months seemed to offer him the fittest opportunity. The whole contents of our chapter have already been commented upon in 2Sa 5:1, so that we need not here do more than refer to a few subordinate points. 1Ch 14:2-17

Instead of נשּׂא כּי, that He (Jahve) had lifted up (נשּׂא, perf. Pi.), as in 2Sa 5:12, in the Chronicle we read למעלה נשּׂאת כּי, that his kingdom had been lifted up on high. The unusual form נשּׂאת may be, according to the context, the third pers. fem. perf. Niph., nisaa't having first been changed into נשּׂאת, and thus contracted into נשּׂאת; cf. Ew. §194, b. In 2Sa 19:43 the same form is the infin. abs. Niph. למעלה is here, as frequently in the Chronicles, used to intensify the expression: cf. 1Ch 22:5; 1Ch 23:17; 1Ch 29:3, 1Ch 29:25; 2Ch 1:1; 2Ch 17:12. With regard to the sons of David, see on 1Ch 3:5-8.

In the account of the victories over the Philistines, the statement (2Sa 5:17) that David went down to the mountain-hold, which has no important connection with the main fact, and would have been for the readers of the Chronicle somewhat obscure, is exchanged in 1Ch 14:8 for the more general expression לפניהם ויּצא, “he went forth against them.” In 1Ch 14:14, the divine answer to David’s question, whether he should march against the Philistines, runs thus: מעליהם הסב אחריהם תּעלה לא, Thou shalt not go up after them; turn away from them, and come upon them over against the baca-bushes; - while in 2Sa 5:23, on the contrary, we read: אל־אחריהם הסב תעלה הסב אל־א לע, Thou shalt not go up (i.e., advance against the enemy to attack them in front); turn thee behind them (i.e., to their rear), and come upon them over against the baca-bushes. Bertheau endeavours to get rid of the discrepancy, by supposing that into both texts corruptions have crept through transcribers’ errors. He conjectures that the text of Samuel was originally אחריהם תּעלה לא, while in the Chronicle a transposition of the words עליהם and אחריהם was occasioned by a copyist’s error, which in turn resulted in the alteration of עליהם into מעליהם. This supposition, however, stands or falls with the presumption that by תּעלה לא (Sam.) an attack is forbidden; but for that presumption no tenable grounds exist: it would rather involve a contradiction between the first part of the divine answer and the second. The last clause, “Come upon them from over against the baca-bushes,” shows that the attack was not forbidden; all that was forbidden was the making of the attack by advancing straight forward: instead of that, they were to try to fall upon them in the rear, by making a circuit. The chronicler consequently gives us an explanation of the ambiguous words of 2 Samuel, which might easily be misunderstood. As David’s question was doubtless expressed as it is in 1Ch 14:10, הפל על האעלה, the answer תּעלה לא might be understood to mean, “Go not up against them, attack them not, but go away behind them;” but with that the following וגו להם וּבאת, “Come upon them from the baca-bushes,” did not seem to harmonize. The chronicler consequently explains the first clauses of the answer thus: “Go not up straight behind them,” i.e., advance not against them so as to attack them openly, “but turn thyself away from them,” i.e., strike off in such a direction as to turn their flank, and come upon them from the front of the baca-bushes. In this way the apparently contradictory texts are reconciled without the alteration of a word. In 1Ch 14:17, which is wanting in Samuel, the author concludes the account of these victories by the remark that they tended greatly to exalt the name of David among the nations. For similar reflections, cf. 2Ch 17:10; 2Ch 20:29; 2Ch 14:13; and for שׁם ויּצא, 2Ch 26:15. The Bringing of the Ark into Jerusalem - 1 Chronicles 15:1-16:3

In the parallel account, 2Sa 6:11-23, only the main facts as to the transfer of the holy ark to Jerusalem, and the setting of it up in a tent erected for its reception on Mount Zion, are shortly narrated; but the author of the Chronicle elaborately portrays the religious side of this solemn act, tells of the preparations which David had made for it, and gives a special enumeration of the Levites, who at the call of the king laboured with him to carry it out according to the precepts of the law. For this purpose he first gives an account of the preparations (1 Chron 15:1-24), viz., of the erection of a tent for the ark in the city of David (1Ch 15:1), of the consultation of the king with the priests and Levites (1Ch 15:2-13), and of the accomplishment of that which they had determined upon (vv. 14-29).