According to the Tanakh

Tanakh

The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...

, Uzzah (fl.

Floruit

Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 1010 BC) was an Israelite

Israelite

According to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...

 whose death is associated with touching the Ark of the Covenant

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...

. He was the son of Abinadab

Abinadab

Abinadab may refer to:# A man of Kirjath-jearim widely identified as a Levite , in whose house the ark of the covenant was deposited after having been brought back from the land of the Philistines . It remained there twenty years, until it was at length removed by David . It has been argued that...

, in whose house the men of Kirjath-jearim placed the Ark when it was brought back from the land of the Philistines

Philistines

Philistines , Pleshet or Peleset, were a people who occupied the southern coast of Canaan at the beginning of the Iron Age . According to the Bible, they ruled the five city-states of Gaza, Askelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, from the Wadi Gaza in the south to the Yarqon River in the north, but with...

. With his brother Ahio

Ahio

Ahio - brotherly.# One of the sons of Beriah .# One of the sons of Jehiel the Gibeonite .# One of the sons of Abinadab. While his brother Uzzah went by the side of the Ark of the Covenant, Ahio walked before it guiding the oxen which drew the cart on which it was carried, after having brought it...

, he drove the cart on which the ark was placed when David

David

David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...

 sought to bring it up to Jerusalem. When the oxen stumbled, Uzzah, in direct violation of the divine law, steadied the ark with his hand, and was immediately killed. The place where this occurred was then called Perez-uzzah. David feared to proceed further, and placed the ark in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.