A Revelation of David's

Then David again gathered all the elite troops in Israel, 30,000 in all. ² He led them to Baalah of Judah to bring back the Ark of God, which bears the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim. ³ They placed the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it from Abinadab’s house, which was on a hill. Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab’s sons, were guiding the cart as it left the house, ⁴ carrying the Ark of God. Ahio walked in front of the Ark. ⁵ David and all the people of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, singing songs and playing all kinds of musical instruments—lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals.
⁶ But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied the Ark of God. ⁷ Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.
⁸ David was angry because the Lord’s anger had burst out against Uzzah. He named that place Perez-uzzah (which means “to burst out against Uzzah”), as it is still called today.
⁹ David was now afraid of the Lord, and he asked, “How can I ever bring the Ark of the Lord back into my care?” ¹⁰ So David decided not to move the Ark of the Lord into the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-edom of Gath. ¹¹ The Ark of the Lord remained there in Obed-edom’s house for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and his entire household.
¹² Then King David was told, “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s household and everything he has because of the Ark of God.” So David went there and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David with a great celebration. ¹³ After the men who were carrying the Ark of the Lord had gone six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. ¹⁴ And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. ¹⁵ So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.

 ―2 Samuel 6:1-15

Wow... there's so much here...
I've had this story in my bible memory banks for a long time. When I first read it, I was struck with confusion. "God, I don't understand.... You're a God of love. Why would You not show mercy to Uzzah? Sure, he disobeyed your holy law that said that even those specific Levites designated to handle the ark and other holy materials were never to directly touch them. But his heart seemed to be in the right place..." Confusion can sometimes be the best grounds for growth because, at times, the LORD will tear down old thoughts to build up new ones. In my case, my perceptions of God were being challenged. Over time I had no choice but to accept that this is who the LORD is. "It's in His word. It's what He did. Yes, He is love, but He is also holy and to be respected. And even if the sons of Abinadab were set apart by the LORD to do this type of holy work this close to the LORD's presence, even they had restrictions. And point blank, Uzzah didn't follow them." What do we do when God does something we don't expect Him to do? Do we honor it? Do we ask Him about it? Do we pretend like it never happened? Or do we hold it against Him?

How did David react to this?
He reacted similarly to the way most of us would initially. The text says two things. It says he was angry which can be translated as furious, kindled, or heated. It also says he was afraid which can be translated as in awe, reverencing, or respecting. After reading this passage recently, I got some new revelation about how David handled things afterward that we can learn a lot from.

For his entire life David knew the LORD to be a God of protection. 
God protects His people. God protected the Israelites through David when battling Goliath who defied the "armies of the living God." God protected David while he was on the run from the kingdom of Saul. David knew God as protector, so seeing Uzzah perish at the hand of the LORD's judgment may have shaken this foundation of his understanding. While the truth of God "the protector" never stopped being true, what David had not seen yet was how God holds His holy people Israel accountable to a holy standard (at this time the law of Moses). It was not until David's promotion to king that he began to see these new facets of God that would test him and stretch his perception.

So after the event, David takes the Ark of the LORD to the house of Obed-edom of Gath saying "How can I ever bring the Ark of the Lord back into my care?" But while God's presence rests on the Ark there, God blesses Obed-edom's house. The report David receives about the LORD blessing Obed-edom's house after these 3 months must have reaffirmed to him who he knew his God to be before the incident with Uzzah. David then takes the Ark back with rejoicing just as before, but this time there were some differences. The main thing to note here is that David did not hold so tightly onto what he knew before that he could not embrace the new. He expressed his new reverence for God by:

• having the men of Israel praise specifically "with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet" instead of "all kinds of instruments"
• having the men of Israel sacrifice bulls and calves after six steps of carrying the Ark
• wearing a linen ephod (a priestly garment)

And at the end of the day this new reverence of God blessed his praise. Christians really like that quote that says we should "dance like David danced" when in the presence of the LORD. Well, it turns out that what elevated his praise to that level was what he learned that day at "Perez-uzzah."