Psalms 132:6

We heard of it; of the place or habitation for the Lord last mentioned. At Ephratah; either,

1. In Bethlehem, which is called Ephratah, Genesis 35:19, Genesis 48:7 Micah 5:2. So the sense is either this, We heard a rumour at Bethlehem among David's relations, that the ark should be removed to a new place, and that David had pitched upon it; or this, We heard that Bethlehem would be the place for it, because it was the city of David. Or rather,

2. In the tribe of Ephraim, which was called also Ephratah or Ephrathah, as is manifest, because the men of Ephraim were called Ephrathites, as Judges 12:5, in the Hebrew text, though in the English it be Ephraimite. So Jeroboam is called an Ephrathite, 1 Kings 11:26. So the sense is, We heard it from our fathers, that the ancient place of it was Shiloh, which was in the land of Ephraim; whereby he covertly intimates that God rejected and forsook that place, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, as it is said, Psalms 78:67, that so he might make way for Zion, which was the place chosen by God for it, as it follows here, Psalms 132:13. We found it; afterwards we found it elsewhere. In the fields of the wood, i.e. in a field, or in one of the fields of the wood; for that little spot of ground in which the tabernacle or temple was built was not likely to be in several fields. Thus Jephthah was buried in the cities of Gilead, Judges 12:7, i.e. in one of them. This is meant either,

1. Of the Mount Moriah, which might possibly be called the field of the wood, as being anciently a place full of wood, Genesis 22:13, or of the threshing-floor of Araunah, of which see 2 Samuel 24:18, which before the building of the temple is said to have been a woody place. Or rather,

2. Of Kirjath-jearim, which signifies a city of woods, in the field or territory whereof the ark was seated for twenty years, as we read, 1 Samuel 7:1,2. And from this place it was removed to Zion, 2 Samuel 6:1, &c.