* The text of 1 Sam. vi. 21, vii. 1, gives the reading Kirjath-jearim, whereas the text of 2 Sam. vi. 2 has Baale- Judah, which should be corrected to Baal-Judah.  Baal-Judah, or, in its abbreviated form, Baala, is another name for Kirjath-jearim (Josh. xv. 9-11; cf. 1 Ghron. xiii. 6).  Similarly, we find the name Kirjath-Baal (Josh. xv. 60).  Kirjath-jearim is now Kharbet-el-Enab.

     ** The transport of the ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem
     is related in 2 Sam. vi. and in 1 Ghron. xiii., xv., xvi.

He “was afraid of the Lord that day,” and “would not remove the ark” to Jerusalem, but left it for three months in the house of a Philistine, Obed-Edom of Gath; but finding that its host, instead of experiencing any evil, was blessed by the Lord, he carried out his original intention, and brought the ark to Jerusalem.  “David, girded with a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the Lord,” and “all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.”  When the ark had been placed in the tent that David had prepared for it, he offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and at the end of the festival there were dealt out to the people gifts of bread, cakes, and wine (or flesh).  There is inserted in the narrative* an account of the conduct of Michal his wife, who looking out of the window and seeing the king dancing and playing, despised him in her heart, and when David returned to his house, congratulated him ironically—­“How glorious was the King of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants!”

* Renan would consider this to have been inserted in the time of Hezekiah.  It appeared to him to answer “to the antipathy of Hamutal and the ladies of the court to the worship of Jahveh, and to that form of human respect which restrained the people of the world from giving themselves up to it.”

David said in reply that he would rather be held in honour by the handmaids of whom she had spoken than avoid the acts which covered him with ridicule in her eyes; and the chronicler adds that “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."*

     * [David’s reply shows (2 Sam. vi. 21, 22) that it was in
     gratitude to Jehovah who had exalted him that he thus
     humbled himself.—­Tr.]

The tent and the ark were assigned at this time to the care of two priests—­Zadok, son of Ahitub, and Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, who was a descendant of Eli, and had never quitted David throughout his adventurous career.* It is probable, too, that the ephod had not disappeared, and that it had its place in the sanctuary; but it may have gradually fallen into neglect, and may have ceased to be the vehicle of oracular responses as in earlier years.  The king was accustomed on important occasions to take part in the sacred ceremonies, after the example of