King David wanted the Ark of the Covenant of God near him.  He therefore arranged for it to be brought into Jerusalem on a cart as part of a large celebration, but the oxen pulling the cart stumbled and the ark wobbled.  Tragically, a man called Uzzah who was driving the cart put out his hand to steady it and was struck dead by God.  The celebration was cancelled and the ark was moved into the nearby house of a man called Obed-edom.  This event is the subject of a micro-tale split across two issues of the Bible Tales Newsletter in February/March 2019.

Since I wrote that story, several people have asked me various questions about this man, Obed-edom.

These questions have revolved around who Obed-edom was, his nationality and possible genealogy.  The reasoning behind the questions seems to be that David would not be likely to put the Ark of the Covenant in the care of a man who was not even an Israelite.  As an intriguing follow-up to this idea, a search of the Bible shows that the name Obed-edom is not unique, but we’ll get to that later.

Let’s start with the question of nationality.

Obed-edom is described as a “Gittite”, so let’s look at what that means.

“Gittites”
 

In the English Standard Version (ESV), the description “Gittite” is used of three individuals and one group of people:

In the King James Version (KJV or AV), the word is also used for another group of people:

The ESV translation of this as “those of… Gath” seems to be an interpretation of “Gittite” in the original, although it is a reasonable assumption given the context.

The common understanding is that Gittites come from the Philistine town of Gath.  A look at the list above seems to support that idea also, particularly when we look at the verses in their context.

Some have asked why David would have Gittites with him at all, and further, why Gittites would live in Jerusalem.  The details given in 2 Samuel 15 seem to answer this question, but we need to look at some background first to be able to understand it. At one stage, king Saul chased David all around the south of Israel until finally David decided that if he didn’t leave the country completely, he would not be able to escape Saul’s determined pursuit. So David fled Israel and went with his men to Achish, king of Gath (1 Samuel 27:2), and stayed in the land of the Philistines for 16 months (1 Samuel 27:7).  He only left when the Philistines sent him away just before the battle in which Saul was killed.  When David returned to Israel, 600 Gittites followed him, and Ittai was one of those.  What an amazing leader David must have been to attract 600 men – from another nation – to leave their homes and follow him!

In 2 Samuel 15, we see David, now the king of Israel, once again having to run for his life, this time because his son Absalom was trying to take over the kingdom.  David was leaving Jerusalem, and the Gittites were leaving Jerusalem with him, so presumably they lived in or near Jerusalem.  Obed-edom may also have been one of the 600 who had followed David years earlier.

 

 

 

Some (possibly beginning with J J Blunt in “Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences”, Part 2, Section 8 (https://biblecourses.com.au/blunt/)), have suggested that “Gittite” could also refer to someone from Gath-rimmon, the name of at least two towns in Israel: one in Dan (Joshua 19:45; 21:24; 1 Chronicles 6:69) and one in Manasseh (Joshua 21:25).

 

While this may be true, there is no evidence that it is – nor any reason to believe that it would be.

Based on the usage of the term “Gittite” in the Bible, the most obvious conclusion is that Gittites were people who came from the Philistine town of Gath.

However, we also mentioned the intriguing situation with the name “Obed-edom”, so now let’s take a roundabout look at that.

Caring for the ark

Some say that the ark would never have been left in the house of a foreigner.  Obed-edom, they say, was a Levite, in fact, a Kohathite – one of the men who were meant to look after the ark.

How many Obed-edoms?

Firstly, we need to acknowledge that there is more than one man called Obed-edom in the Bible.  This is shown in 1 Chronicles 16:38, which lists two Levites called Obed-edom: one who was to minister regularly before the ark, and one (the son of Jeduthun) who was to be a gatekeeper.  Two Obed-edoms in one verse is clear proof that the name was not unique!

The name “Obed-edom” occurs 20 times in the ESV, so let’s see if we can tell how many people are referred to in those uses.

The Obed-edom we are looking at (“Obed-edom the Gittite”) is referred to in 2 Samuel 6:10, 11 (twice), 12 (twice); 1 Chronicles 13:13, 14 (twice) and 15:25.  The other 11 times refer to at least three men, but maybe more.

Here is a list of descriptions of the men these verses refer to:

So how many different Obed-edoms are there?  We'll try to answer that in two weeks' time.