ake away the sins
of the world." However, that which is put into brackets can hardly be
supposed the genuine words of Josephus, as Dr. Hudson well judges.

[6] It deserves here to be remarked, that Saul very rarely, and David
very frequently, consulted God by Urim; and that David aimed always
to depend, not on his own prudence or abilities but on the Divine
direction, contrary to Saul's practice. See sect. 2, and the note on
Antiq. B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9; and when Saul's daughter, [but David's
wife,] Michal, laughed at David's dancing before the ark, 2 Samuel 6:16,
&c., and here, sect. l, 2, 3, it is probable she did so, because her
father Saul did not use to pay such a regard to the ark, to the Urim
there inquired by, or to God's worship before it, and because she
thought it beneath the dignity of a king to be so religious.

[7] Josephus seems to be partly in the right, when he observes here
that Uzzah was no priest, [though perhaps he might be a Levite,] and was
therefore struck dead for touching the ark, contrary to the law, and for
which profane rashness death was the penalty by that law, Numbers
4:15, 20. See the like before, Antiq. B. VI. ch. 1. sect. 4. It is not
improbable that the putting this ark in a cart, when it ought to have
been carried by the priests or Levites, as it was presently here in
Josephus so carried from Obededom's house to David's, might be also
an occasion of the anger of God on that breach of his law. See Numbers
4:15; 1 Chronicles 15:13.

[8] Josephus here informs us, that, according to his understanding of
the sense of his copy of the Pentateuch, Moses had himself foretold the
building of the temple, which yet is no where, that I know of, in our
present copies. And that this is not a mistake set down by him unwarily,
appears by what he observed before, on Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46,
how Moses foretold that, upon the Jews' future disobedience, their
temple should be burnt and rebuilt, and that not once only, but several
times afterward. See also Josephus's mention of God's former commands
to build such a temple presently, ch. 14. sect. 2, contrary to our other
copies, or at least to our translation of the Hebrew, 2 Samuel 7:6, 7; 1
Chronicles 17:5, 6.

[9] Josephus seems, in this place, with our modern interpreters to
confound the two distinct predictions which God made to David and
to Nathan, concerning the building him a temple by one of David's
posterity; the one belongeth to Solo