1 Chronicles 13:1-4--The Ark Brought from Kiriath-Jearim

1 Chronicles 13:1-4
English Standard Version
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The Ark Brought from Kiriath-Jearim
13 David consulted with the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, with every leader. 2 And David said to all the assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you and from the LORD our God, let us send abroad to our brothers who remain in all the lands of Israel, as well as to the priests and Levites in the cities that have pasturelands, that they may be gathered to us. 3 Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.” 4 All the assembly agreed to do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.

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This may seem to be an insignificant story in the biography of King David, but the purpose of this book is not a biography of King David, it is a book about how God used a man, David, and his son, Solomon, to build the Temple of the LORD.  A key component to building the Temple was to have the Ark of the Covenant returned to Jerusalem where they knew it was at and put it under the care of the priests.  This way, the Ark would be ready to go into the Temple when Solomon built it.  However, David states his spiritual reasons for wanting the whole nation of Israel to be involved in seeking for the Ark and bringing it to its new home in Jerusalem.  For all the years of Saul's reign, the people did not seek the Ark after the Philistines stole it.  David has the right motivation here, but he's going to do it the wrong way (he's going to borrow technique from the Philistines who sent the Ark back to Israel instead of reading the way the Law prescribed that the Ark of the Covenant be transported).  It seems even the priests were ignorant of the Law in this regard as no one would speak up to correct the king, but something will happen in our next passage that will get everyone's attention and will drive them back to the Scriptures to see what went wrong and how they were supposed to correctly handle and transport the Ark of the LORD.