1 Chronicles 15:1-3

David Brings the Ark to Jerusalem

15:1 David constructed buildings in the City of David; he then prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it. 15:2 Then David said, “Only the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord and to serve before him perpetually. 15:3 David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem ¹  to bring the ark of the Lord up to the place he had prepared for it.

1 Chronicles 15:25

15:25 So David, the leaders of Israel, and the commanders of units of a thousand went to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the house of Obed-Edom with celebration.

Psalms 24:7-10

24:7 Look up, ²  you gates!

Rise up, ³  you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king ⁴  will enter! ⁵ 

24:8 Who is this majestic king? ⁶ 

The Lord who is strong and mighty!

The Lord who is mighty in battle!

24:9 Look up, you gates!

Rise up, you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king will enter!

24:10 Who is this majestic king?

The Lord who commands armies! ⁷ 

He is the majestic king! (Selah)

Psalms 68:24-27

68:24 They ⁸  see your processions, O God –

the processions of my God, my king, who marches along in holy splendor. ⁹ 

68:25 Singers walk in front;

musicians follow playing their stringed instruments, ¹⁰ 

in the midst of young women playing tambourines. ¹¹ 

68:26 In your large assemblies praise God,

the Lord, in the assemblies of Israel! ¹² 

68:27 There is little Benjamin, their ruler, ¹³ 

and the princes of Judah in their robes, ¹⁴ 

along with the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali.

Psalms 132:6-8

132:6 Look, we heard about it ¹⁵  in Ephrathah, ¹⁶ 

we found it in the territory of Jaar. ¹⁷ 

132:7 Let us go to his dwelling place!

Let us worship ¹⁸  before his footstool!

132:8 Ascend, O Lord, to your resting place,

you and the ark of your strength!

[15:3]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[24:7]  ² tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).

[24:7]  ³ tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Or “king of glory.”

[24:7]  ⁵ tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[24:8]  ⁶ sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.

[24:10]  ⁷ tn Traditionally, “the Lord of hosts,” a title which here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle.

[68:24]  ⁸ tn The subject is probably indefinite, referring to bystanders in general who witness the procession.

[68:24]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text has simply “in holiness.” The words “who marches along” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[68:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “after [are] the stringed instrument players.”

[68:25]  ¹¹ sn To celebrate a military victory, women would play tambourines (see Exod 15:20; Judg 11:34; 1 Sam 18:6).

[68:26]  ¹² tn Heb “from the fountain of Israel,” which makes little, if any, sense here. The translation assumes an emendation to בְּמִקְרָאֵי (bÿmiqra’ey, “in the assemblies of [Israel]”).

[68:27]  ¹³ sn Little Benjamin, their ruler. This may allude to the fact that Israel’s first king, Saul, was from the tribe of Benjamin.

[68:27]  ¹⁴ tc The MT reads רִגְמָתָם (rigmatam), which many derive from רָגַם (ragam, “to kill by stoning”) and translates, “[in] their heaps,” that is, in large numbers.

[132:6]  ¹⁵ tn Rather than having an antecedent, the third feminine singular pronominal suffix here (and in the next line) appears to refer to the ark of the covenant, mentioned in v. 8. (The Hebrew term אָרוֹן [’aron, “ark”] is sometimes construed as grammatically feminine. See 1 Sam 4:17; 2 Chr 8:11.)

[132:6]  ¹⁶ sn Some understand Ephrathah as a reference to Kiriath-jearim because of the apparent allusion to this site in the next line (see the note on “Jaar”). The ark was kept in Kiriath-jearim after the Philistines released it (see 1 Sam 6:21-7:2). However, the switch in verbs from “heard about” to “found” suggests that Ephrathah not be equated with Jair. The group who is speaking heard about the ark while they were in Ephrath. They then went to retrieve it from Kiriath-jearim (“Jaar”). It is more likely that Ephrathah refers to a site near Bethel (Gen 35:16, 19; 48:7) or to Bethlehem (Ruth 4:11; Mic 5:2).

[132:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “fields of the forest.” The Hebrew term יָעַר (ya’ad, “forest”) is apparently a shortened alternative name for קִרְיַת יְעָרִים (qiryat yÿ’arim, “Kiriath-jearim”), the place where the ark was kept after it was released by the Philistines and from which David and his men retrieved it (see 1 Chr 13:6).

[132:7]  ¹⁸ tn Or “bow down.”