What Does 2 Samuel 6:10 Mean?
So David would not turn the ark of the LORD aside to himself into the city of David, but David turned it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
So David would not remove the ark of the LORD unto him into the city of David: but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “carried it aside” means to incline or turn, so David changes where the ark is received rather than ending its movement.
THE MEANING
David does not bring the ark into his city; its direction turns toward another household. The verse holds a refusal and a continued arrival together: what cannot be received at one place is received at another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that when the holy is refused at the expected center, it has disappeared. Here, refusal changes its route; the ark remains present.
THE ROOT
וַיַּטֵּהוּ
vayyattehu
GROWS FROM
נטה
נטה (natah): stretch out, incline, turn aside.
“turned it aside” in this verse is vayyattehu. This root names movement that changes direction: stretching out, inclining, and turning aside belong to its range. David’s refusal does not remove the ark from the story; the turn places it in another household.
ALSO GROWS
natah: Stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
The verb can describe extending what reaches outward; here, the ark’s movement extends toward a different receiving place.
neteh: Incline or turn toward; an imperative form of the same verb.
נְטֵה
This form makes the root’s directional sense plain: a turn redirects what is moving, as the ark is turned toward Obed-edom’s house.
THE PATTERN
The sacred is received in concrete places, including ordinary households.
And the ark of God settled with the family of Obed-edom in his house for three months. And the LORD blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that he had.And when she was immersed, and her household, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me steady in the Lord, come into my house and stay there. And she pressed us.THE THREAD
He bends the heavens and comes down, and thick darkness is under his feet.“Bowed” comes from the same Hebrew root, נטה (natah), as “carried it aside” here: both describe an inclining that changes direction. In one verse the heavens bend toward descent; in the other the ark turns toward a house.
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