Uzzah struck down for touching the Ark.

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

The individual believes that God is unfair because He struck down a man named Uzzah when the cart carrying the Ark of God (also referred to as “Ark Of The Covenant”) was jostled by stumbling oxen and Uzzah stretched out his hand to steady the Ark. The account can be read in 1 Chronicles 13:9-12 and 2 Samuel 6:1-7.

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

It was a tragedy waiting to happen. The Ark was to represent the place of God among the Israelites. And God had given special instructions as to how to make it, its care and maintenance and how to transport it. He also tells of the consequences for disrespecting the Ark, or essentially, His throne.

Exodus 25:12-15 talks of the 4 gold rings on the Ark the 2 gold poles were to be inserted through and left in, and this is how the Ark was to be transported. Numbers 4:15 explains who is to transport the Ark and the consequences of touching the Holy Things of the Tabernacle, of which the Ark is one.

The Ark had become more of an afterthought to the Israelites. It had sat, pretty much unused by the people since the Conquering of Canaan. Although the men doing the work probably did not know of the technicalities of working with the Ark, they certainly recognized the Ark as being from God. They should have thought reverently about the task that they were about to undertake. Instead, it seems from the 2 passages that they were treating the Ark as just a religious artifact. The Priests should have known what to do as the Ark was entrusted to their care.

If we read the whole account, David took men to get the Ark. That was the first mistake. Perhaps the Priests tried to stop him and David wouldn’t listen to them in his enthusiasm. Perhaps the Priests got caught up in the excitement and just went along with it. Perhaps, they just let David do as he pleased since he was the king of Israel. My guess is that the Priests just didn’t have the proper respect for the Ark since they were out of practice of doing their job.

Second, the Ark was to be carried by the Leviticus family of Kohath , it was not to be placed on a cart. Third, the Ark was to never be touched.

Next we find the Ark being pulled by the oxen, which stumble, and Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark, touching it. It seems innocent enough and was. Except for they were not acting as if they were in the presence of God. And God has given strict instructions on how to be in His presence if you are impure. And since Jesus had not paid the penalty yet, everyone was impure.

The penalty for touching a Holy Thing of the Tabernacle was death, except for the tending Priest who could perform the functions of his job before the Lord. Uzzah may or may have not known about the penalty, but either way, he was responsible and guilty of breaking the command. Uzzah was put to death.

Clearly, there was a lot of blame to go around. However, God should not be blamed as He clearly laid out the rules. David and those with him were angry at God for this action and then began to fear Him as 1 Chronicles 13:12-13 states. David ends up not getting back to Jerusalem with the Ark. He does later return for it and bring it back to Jerusalem.

So the individual making the claim against God is correct that it is a stern punishment for the incident, the people involved were clearly to blame for the results. The individual is also making an assessment of the punishment based on what he thinks it should be.

And what is it about the individual that makes him an authority of punishment distribution and morality. Essentially, he is making himself god, taking ownership of the situation from God, and pronouncing judgement on God because it is not the way that he wants it to be.

Really, that is not only the crux of the individual’s arguments for each of the “fallacies of God”, but is the root of all of our sins. We want it our way. We want to be god. We want to set the rules and not be accountable to anyone, especially God.

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