My thoughts:
Numbers 4:15 And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it: but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation.
The sons of Kohath were Levites. Uzzah was the son of Abinadab and brother of Eleazar who was anointed to keep the Ark.
1 Samuel 7:1 And the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord.
Only Levites who had sanctified themselves were given authority to handle the ark on pain of death. While Eleazar and not Uzzah was anointed to keep the ark, Uzzah paid a hefty price for having touched it. But being of the same family, there is no doubt in my mind that he understood the Lord's commandments regarding its handling. But the blame is not Uzzah's alone.
1 Chronicles 15: 11 And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab,
12 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
13 For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
14 So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel.
15 And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord.
So David acknowledges that he erred in the sight of the Lord, or rather placed the charge solely on the Levites for the breach. In other words, he put the blame squarely on the priests for their dereliction of duty. The rest is history. So who has the greater evil? David, their king for not following proper procedure or the Levite priests for not calling him on it? What does the spirit tell you? The Spirit tells me loud and clear that I am to obey God before man, regardless of his anointing.
D&C 3:7 For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words—
Continuing...
Uzzah's priesthood leaders themselves were not following the scriptures. This conclusion is based on three items in the text:
1. King David, not Uzzah, was the responsible party, was in error, and later admits it.
2. Uzzah did what his leaders asked him to do, rather than what the scriptures said he should do, both in moving the ark, and in keeping it from falling. Thus, Uzzah’s core error was following his priesthood/political leaders rather than the scriptures.
3. Underlings were often killed for a king’s misbehavior, further supporting the idea that David, not Uzzah, was at fault; the Lord’s actions were meant primarily as a lesson for David.
Let’s look at the specifics that support this.
First, David is the one at fault. He takes 30,000 soldiers (or more, per the Chronicler) and decides to move the ark to his own city. However, instead of following the prescribed way of moving the ark, that is, by using Levites to carry it on their shoulders (Ex 25:12-14; Num 4:5-6, 15), David follows the example of the Philistines in using a cart to move the ark. He admits his error later, as documented in 1 Chronicles 15 (especially v 13), and when he decides a second time to move the ark, he is careful to follow the prescribed formula. (So, by the way, is Solomon when he moves the ark even later in 1 Kings 8.) David’s expression of fear right after Uzzah’s death and unwillingness to move the ark is further evidence that he knows that his own actions were not right: had this been only Uzzah’s sin, David would have had nothing to fear. I’ve been told that the writer of Chronicles typically works hard to make David look good; the presence of this admission of guilt in Chronicles therefore further attests to its importance and veracity.
Recognizing that the ark was not to be moved on a cart a la Philistins but by Levites on their shoulders then logically leads to the second point: Uzzah, whose family had been ‘sanctified’ (1 Sam 7:1, meaning consecrated) to take care of the ark 20 years earlier, should have been and almost certainly was familiar with rules concerning the ark and its movement. But when his political and priesthood leader asks him to do something, rather than correct David by pointing out relevant scriptures, he acquiesces to David’s wishes. This prioritization of human command over scriptural command was Uzzah’s first error.
Furthermore, some interpreters point out that when the oxen stumbled and the ark tipped, this was not an accident but might well have been a sign that the Lord was NOT happy with the move: remember how earlier cattle knew exactly where the Lord wanted the ark moved back in 1 Sam 6:7-12. The cattle may have been trying to get the ark to stop moving. Since the 1 Sam 6 story describes how the ark ended up at Uzzah’s home, Uzzah could hardly have been ignorant that story or therefore of how when cattle move the ark, the cattle might be under divine influence. So his second error is, possibly, missing the hand of the Lord.
Instead of listening to the scriptures and to this perhaps indirect voice of the Lord, Uzzah seeks to carry out the will of his leader, that is, to keep the ark moving to its new home, despite the incorrect nature of the transport. To meet this leader-imposed (not self-imposed) goal, he naturally reaches out to keep the ark from resting or falling. Touching the ark was prohibited by anyone but Levites, on pain of death (Num 4:15). Perhaps Uzzah did not know this; more likely he did know it but felt that following the commandment of his king was more important at the time. At Uzzah’s touching the sacred ark, the Lord’s anger bursts out against the touching, and possibly the moving process, and Uzzah is killed. (Perez-uzzah means “the outburst against Uzzah”.) This was a surprise to David, who did not previously understand that such an action was worthy of death, and so the move is halted.
David’s surprise, anger, and fear — and later admission of error and change of behavior – provide strong evidence that the Lord’s outburst was not just against Uzzah but against David as well. Importantly, the idea that Uzzah was being punished for David’s guilt is supported by the story told in 2 Sam 24, where 70,000 innocent people die because of David’s sinful decision to conduct a census. Many times in the Old Testament, kings are held responsible for leading their people astray into sin, and in 2 Sam 24 the sins of a king are directly the cause of the death of many people, by the hand of the Lord. Uzzah’s death may be one more example of this principle: David, after all, is the responsible adult here, not Uzzah, but 2 Sam 24 shows that David’s culpability doesn’t necessarily mean David directly suffers for his sins. By the converse, Uzzah’s death doesn’t mean he is the only one at fault, or even the principal one at fault.
The message, then, is that if one blindly follows our priesthood leaders rather than being aware of God’s word and following it, one could be struck with death.