And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart: Since there is a reference to the cherubim at the end of the previous verse, it is possible that there could be some confusion in certain languages regarding the referent for the pronoun they at the beginning of this verse. This pronoun clearly refers to “David and all Israel” mentioned at the beginning of verse 6. Contemporary English Version makes this explicit by saying “David and the crowd,” and New Century Version has “The people.” In light of what follows in the next chapters, the pronoun does not refer specifically to the priests and Levites.
Carried is literally “caused to ride.” Revised English Bible uses two verbs, “mounted … and conveyed,” while several modern versions have the more logical verb “transported” (New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). When the Covenant Box was moved from Ekron to Beth Shemesh it was also transported on a new cart (see 1 Sam 6.7). It was probably out of respect for the Box that the people of Israel wanted to use a cart that would not have been ritually contaminated by any other load. Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje says more precisely “new ox cart.” For a good description of a cart, see WTH, pages 366-367|fig:WTH.cart, wagon.366-367.html.
From the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart: According to 1 Sam 7.1, the Covenant Box had been left at the house of Abinadab. Abinadab had two sons named Uzzah and Ahio, who helped with the moving of the Box. The Hebrew word rendered Ahio may be understood as a person’s name (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, and most other versions) or it may be understood as the Hebrew word for “brother” plus the third person singular masculine suffix “his” (so Luther, Braun). As the parallel passage in 2 Sam 6.3-4 makes clear, Uzzah and Ahio were not seated on the cart, but were walking in front of it and steering it along the way. Translators should take care to select a verb for were driving that conveys this meaning rather than one that would give the impression that the men were seated on the cart; for example, Good News Translation and several other modern versions say they “guided” the cart. It is not clear from the Hebrew here whether they were walking in front of the cart or beside the cart.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .