Perez-Uzza

Perez-uzza is the name David gives to the threshing-floor where Yahweh struck Uzzah for steadying the ark. The name is a memorial of the breach itself, fixed to the ground where it happened and preserved "to this day" in both narrative records.

The breach at the threshing-floor

When David first attempted to bring the ark up to Jerusalem, it was loaded on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio driving (2Sa 6:3). The journey ended at Nacon's threshing-floor: "And when they came to the threshing-floor of Nacon, Uzzah put forth [his hand] to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Uzzah; and [the Speech of] God struck him there for the error; and there he died by the ark of God" (2Sa 6:6-7). David's response is named: "And David was displeased, because Yahweh had broken forth on Uzzah; and he called that place Perez-uzzah, to this day" (2Sa 6:8).

The Chronicler's parallel

The Chronicler tells the same incident with the threshing-floor renamed Chidon and the ark's keeper spelled Uzza, but lands on the same place-name: "And David was displeased, because Yahweh had broken forth on Uzza; and he called that place Perez-uzza, to this day" (1Ch 13:11). The fuller Chronicles account holds together the chain — the new cart, the stumble, the hand on the ark, Yahweh's anger, the death, and the naming — as a single etiology for the site (1Ch 13:7-11).

The name itself encodes the verb of the story: Yahweh "broke forth" on Uzzah, and the ground is called by that breach.