“And David was unwilling to move the ark of the LORD into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. Thus the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household” (2 Sam 6:10-11).
Talk about an unsung hero. Who has ever heard a sermon about Obed-edom? Obed-edom is from Gat, a Philistine city and home to the infamous giant Goliath (2 Sam 21:19). The Gittites were foreigners (see 2 Sam 15:19). And yet God honored the house of this Gittite by making it his Holy of Holies for a period of three months! And if this isn’t shocking enough, the book of Chronicles tells us that Obed-edom became a gatekeeper of the ark in the tabernacle/temple, a job which was supposed to be limited exclusively to the descendants of Levi (see 1 Chron 15:4-18, 15:21, 24-25; 16:5, 38).
While I’m not sure how God was able to treat a foreigner’s house as his holy temple and how he permitted a Gittite to serve as a “Levite,” I stand in awe at his amazing grace to a man who may have even been Goliath’s neighbor. And this extraordinarily unique exception to the rule during the period of the Sinai Covenant has now has become the glorious rule. For all those who were once strangers to the covenants and excluded from the commonwealth of Israel have, through the shed blood of Yeshua the Messiah, been brought near. Where there was once enmity, now there is peace. Where there were once barriers, now there is unhindered access. Obed-edom serves as a glorious prototype of every unclean Gentile who, through faith in Yeshua, is transformed into a fellow citizen, a co-heir, a living stone, and a saint.
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:19-22).
