(8) Played.--Were dancing (to music).

With all their might, and with singing.--So LXX. and Syriac. Samuel has "with all woods of cypresses;" a strange expression, probably due to confusion of similar letters, and transposition. The LXX. there has "in strength."

Cymbals and trumpets.--Samuel (Hebrew) has sistrums (a kind of rattle) and cymbals. The former word only occurs there. The Chronicle has a later term for cymbals (meciltayim for cilce?lim).

Verse 8. - Played before God. The Hebrew word is the Piel of שׂחק, the root of which, from the simplest meaning of "to laugh" (and with the two appropriate prepositions used for laughing with an expression of derision or contempt), through the two further meanings of "sporting" and "jesting," passes to the signification of dancing" (1 Samuel 18:7; Jeremiah 31:4). Its deepest idea seems to be "to make merry," and to savour of the very same ambiguity attaching to that idiom with ourselves. The parallel of this passage exhibits "before the Lord." With all their might. See the evident mistake of the parallel ("on all manner of instruments made of firwood," literally, with all firwoods) through similarity of the Hebrew characters. Cymbals and... trumpets. Of the five names of musical instruments, the same in number in both passages, the first three are the same in the Hebrew, but these last two are different words, וּבִמְצִלְתַּיִם וּבַחֲלֺצצְרות here for וּבִמנַענִעים וּבְצלְצליִם A variation of this particular kind again indicates with some decisiveness the different character and the number of the sources from which the writers of the Books of Samuel and those of Chronicles took.

13:6-14 Let the sin of Uzza warn all to take heed of presumption, rashness, and irreverence, in dealing with holy things; and let none think that a good design will justify a bad action. Let the punishment of Uzza teach us not to dare to trifle with God in our approaches to him; yet let us, through Christ, come boldly to the throne of grace. If the gospel be to some a savour of death unto death, as the ark was to Uzza, yet let us receive it in the love of it, and it will be to us a savour of life unto life.So David gathered all Israel together,.... The principal of them, even 30,000 select men, 2 Samuel 6:1.

from Shihor of Egypt; or the Nile of Egypt, as the Targum and other Jewish writers, called Shihor from the blackness of its water, see Jeremiah 2:18 though some think the river Rhinocurura is meant, which both lay to the south of the land of Israel:

even unto the entering of Hamath; which the Targum interprets of Antiochia, which lay to the north of the land; so that this collection of the people was made from south to north, the extreme borders of the land:

to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim; where it then was, and had been a long time, see 1 Samuel 7:1, from hence to the end of the chapter the account is the same with 2 Samuel 6:1, see the notes there; what little variations there are, are there observed. See Gill on 2 Samuel 6:1, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Samuel 6:3, 2 Samuel 6:4, 2 Samuel 6:5, 2 Samuel 6:6, 2 Samuel 6:7, 2 Samuel 6:8, 2 Samuel 6:9, 2 Samuel 6:10, 2 Samuel 6:11