Psalms 132:6

6. Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah Although “of” is not in the original, yet the sense requires it, as in the similar form in Jeremiah 46:12, “The nations have heard thy shame,” they have heard “of” thy shame. That Ephratah is Bethlehem is certain from Micah 5:2; Genesis 48:7; Ruth 4:11. Some suppose it to be the same as “Caleb Ephratah,” a place in the tribe of Ephraim, so called after Caleb and Ephrath his wife. 1 Chronicles 2:19-24. Gesenius thinks it the same as Ephraim. But either view is too improbable to be entertained. Hengstenberg has given the only intelligible explanation to this obscure clause. The suffix pronoun “we” must be understood of David and the people when the former was yet a youth. The feminine suffix, rendered “it,” which is the object of the verbs heard and found, has “ark” for its original, not mentioned till Psalms 132:8, but here poetically anticipated, and all along implied as the theme of the psalm, especially in Psalms 132:5, in the phrases “place for the Lord,” “tabernacles for the mighty God of Jacob.” It must be considered that the ark was at Kirjath-jearim about eighty years, (eighty-two, according to Dr. Hale,) from the judicature of Eli (l Samuel Psalms 7:1) to the eleventh year of David’s reign. During all the reign of Saul (who was remiss as to this matter) no access was had to it. 1 Chronicles 13:3. The people knew of it only by report. See notes on Psalms 88:9-10; Psalms 88:16-18. The clause should read, “We, in Ephratah, heard of it” [the ark.] The form is analogous to Matthew 2:2, “We have seen his star in the East,” that is, “We in the East have seen,” etc.

We found it in the fields of the wood Jaar, here rendered “wood,” is to be taken as a proper name, same as the plural Jearim, a poetical abbreviation of Kirjath-jearim, the forest city, or city of groves, where David found the ark. 1 Chronicles 13:5-6