To every officer. This means: [David] called to every officer to consult with him.

Nifreṣah nishleḥah (=let us send far and wide) to our kinsmen. This means: Let us send messengers in all directions, to every place, as in “u-paraṣta (=you shall spread out) to the west and to the east” (Genesis 28:14): [the root prṣ] always has the sense of something spreading far. This is what the text means when it says in the book of Samuel, “David again assembled” (2 Samuel 6:1); that is, just as it says here, he gathered additional Israelites, beyond those who had been with him when he became king.

For during the days of Saul we did not seek Him. For he wiped out Nob, the city of the priests (1 Samuel 22:19), and the text says concerning him, “and he did not seek the advice of the Lord” (1 Chronicles 10:14).

For the proposal yashar (=was well received) by the people. This is a verb in the past tense, because the latter syllable has a pataḥ.

To Baalah, to Kiryath-jearim. Kiryath-jearim is also called Baalah, as it says in the book of Joshua, “Then the boundary curved to Baalah—that is, Kiryath-jearim” (Joshua 15:9), and also, “to Kiryath-baal—that is, Kiryath-jearim—a city of the Judahites” (Joshua 18:14). Similarly, it says in the book of Samuel, “from Baalim of Judah” (2 Samuel 6:2). It is there that the Ark stayed for twenty years (1 Samuel 7:2), from the time it returned from the territory of the Philistines until David brought it up from there.

Which was called “Name.” In the book of Samuel the text explains that “attached to [the Ark] was the name of the Lord of Hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim” (2 Samuel 6:2): that is why it was called “Name.” The reason the Ark is called this here and not elsewhere is that when it was in the land of the Philistines, the name of the Holy One, blessed is He, was sanctified in connection with it (1 Samuel 5:1–12).

To the threshing floor of Kidon (=Chidon). In the book of Samuel (2 Samuel 6:6) [this is called] “the threshing floor of Nacon”: it had two names. It might be that it was called Kidon because Uzza died there, in the sense of “Let his eyes see kido (=his ruin)” (Job 21:20).

Because [Uzza] laid a hand on the Ark—for he was not a Levite. That was David’s mistake; for he should have had it brought by Levites, not on a cart, as it says, “But to the Kohathites he did not give any [carts]: because theirs was the service of the [most] sacred objects, their porterage had to be by shoulder” (Numbers 7:9). Accordingly, when he confessed his sin, he decreed that only the Levites should carry the Ark of the Lord (1 Chronicles 15:2), and he said, “the Lord … burst out against us, because we did not show due regard for Him” (ibid. v. 13). The reason David made this mistake—despite an explicit biblical verse—is that he thought there would be no infraction to carry it on a cart, even though it says “their porterage had to be by shoulder.” For he reasoned that it was for that time, in the wilderness, that God had commanded this: because the Tabernacle was transported on carts, He commanded that the Ark be carried by shoulder to show that the sanctity of the Ark is greater than the sanctity of the Tabernacle. But, [David] thought, should there come a time when there would be no Tabernacle with it, there would be no infraction to carry it on a cart. Furthermore, it had come by cart from the territory of the Philistines. This, then, was his mistake.

Hekh (היך) can I bring here. This is equivalent to ekh (איך; =how), because the letters alef, hei, vav, and yod interchange. “Hekh can this servant of my lord” (Dan 10:17) also features a hei.

The house of Obed-edom the Gittite. He was a Levite, among the gatekeepers, as it says, “Obed-edom and Jeiel the gatekeepers” (1 Chronicles 15:18). Yet the text calls him a “Gittite,” because he made his home in Gath.