1 Chronicles 6:7

Was kindled. Man sees only the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. To those accompanying Uzzah it might have seemed as if Uzzah’s intentions were perfectly honorable — he was only trying to assist when he stretched forth his hand to steady the ark. But his heart was not right with God. His act of touching the ark was one of presumption. A sinful being should not have dared to touch that which symbolized the presence of God. The Lord could not permit to pass unnoticed this flagrant disregard of His express command. If Uzzah’s sins had been allowed to go unpunished, his guilt might have involved many others. Those who knew of Uzzah’s defections would have become greatly emboldened in sin if they had been allowed to conclude that faults like Uzzah’s could go uncorrected and the offender be accepted of God. Uzzah’s death served as a warning to many that the Lord is a righteous God, who requires strict obedience from all.

God smote him. Some have regarded the death of Uzzah as a judgment of disproportionate severity. The incident took place, however, in a theocratic regime, when civil penalties covered religious infractions and the death penalty was inflicted for offenses for which it is no longer applied (Ex. 22:20; Lev. 20:2, 9, 27; Num. 15:32-36; cf. Acts 5:1-11). Severe penalties are necessary to deter evil. If our present stringent laws against crime were relaxed, there would be a tremendous upsurge of lawlessness.

Uzzah had been so long in the presence of the ark that familiarity had bred in him a spirit of irreverence. He had been guilty of rash and foolhardy presumption, and the Lord had dealt with him accordingly. The startling catastrophe caused the assembled hosts of Israel to realize the importance of God’s express commands and the awfulness of the sin of irreverence.