Deeper Commentary
2Ch 7:1 Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came
down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the
glory of Yahweh filled the house-
Fire coming down from Heaven (e.g. 2 Chron. 7:1) to consume acceptable
sacrifices probably refers to the Angels being made a flame of fire (Ps.
104:4) to consume the sacrifice. In 2 Chron. 7:1 this would
be by the Angel dwelling in the temple. The same
scenario was probably seen in Eden, when the Angel cherubim consumed the
sacrifices. God accepted the temple. Even though this
wasn't His ideal path with man, just as He accepted a human kingship. He
works with man on a sub optimal level, just as the Lord Jesus would have
accepted the one talant man putting his talant into a bank to get interest
which was forbidden under the law. There are different levels of service,
resulting in one star differing from another in glory; for different people
make different amounts from God's truth, the seed on the good ground brings
forth different levels of fruit. The Lord's sacrifice achieved salvation "to
the uttermost", "that great salvation". And we likewise should naturally
seek the highest level and not be minimalists.
2Ch 7:2 The priests could not enter into the house of Yahweh, because the
glory of Yahweh filled Yahweh’s house-
This was as at the erection of the tabernacle. The idea was that
Yahweh's glory was far above the mere religion of the temple system. The
glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle when it was erected (Ex. 40:34), as it
would later fill the temple (2 Chron. 7:1). But it was God's intention that
His glory should fill all the earth; the same words are used in Num. 14:21.
The apparently intense manifestation of Himself in a specific place was only
a foretaste of what He wished to bring about in "all the earth". And yet
Judaism misread this as meaning that His glory was there alone in a specific
holy place. They failed to perceive that it was merely a localized foretaste
of His intention to make this a universal experience, and the tearing down
of the veil at the Lord's death was evidence enough of the progression of
this plan. When exiled from the sanctuary, David in his Psalms often
perceives that God's glory fills and shall fill all the earth (Ps. 72:19;
Hab. 2:14).
2Ch 7:3 All the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and
the glory of Yahweh was on the house; and they bowed themselves with their
faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and gave thanks to
Yahweh saying, For He is good; for His grace endures for ever-
Comparing with 1 Kings 8, it seems that the cloud of glory had
already come down, and now fire came down to consume the sacrifices.
The grace of it was that God was counting them righteous,
sanctifying them, and coming to live amongst an unclean people. They
sacrificed in response to that grace (:4). And this is to be our response,
as the temple in which He now dwells by His Spirit.
2Ch 7:4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before Yahweh-
We again see the connection between Solomon and "all Israel", whom he
considered to be as perfect as he was; see on 1 Kings 8:61.
2Ch 7:5 King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of
cattle, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the
people dedicated God’s house-
The usual pattern of sacrifice was sin offering (obtaining
forgiveness), burnt offering (promising complete dedication to God) and
then peace offering, celebrating the resultant peace with God then
experienced. But Solomon has no sense of personal sin, and
considered himself dedicated to Yahweh by reason of being David's son. And
so he only offers the peace offerings. The huge numbers of sacrifices were
not at all what God wanted. But unlike David, he had not been brought to
realize that God wants broken, repentant hearts and not offerings (Ps.
51:16). Mic. 6:7 perhaps references Solomon's huge numbers of offerings,
again commenting that God doesn't want them; just as He didn't want a
physical temple. And yet God went along with Solomon, as He does with us
so often, even on the basis of our misplaced idealism. For His glory
appeared within the temple and He in that sense agreed to dwell there,
just as He agreed to work through a human kingship, even though it meant a
degree of rejection of Him as Israel's king.
2Ch 7:6 The priests stood, according to their positions, the Levites also
with instruments of music of Yahweh, which David the king had made to give
thanks to Yahweh, when David praised by their ministry saying, For His
grace endures forever. The priests sounded trumpets before them; and all
Israel stood-
Compare Neh. 12:9 "Also Bakbukiah and Unno, their brothers, were over
against them". This is the same Hebrew in 2 Chron. 7:6, "The priests
sounded trumpets before them", the idea perhaps being that they answered
the Levites in choral praise (see Neh. 12:24).
There is a link between the name Yahweh, and praise- because the Name
epitomizes the characteristics of God. Halle-lu-YAH is saying that for the
sake of the Name Yah, therefore praise Him. David sat down and
designed musical instruments because of the Name (2 Chron. 7:6). The
Psalms often make the link explicit, e.g. "...give thanks unto Your holy
name, and to triumph in Your praise" (Ps. 106:47). The Name and praise are
paralleled.
Solomon's zealous organization of the temple worship was an exact fulfillment of the order laid down by his father David (1 Kings 7:51; 2 Chron. 7:6; 8:14). Solomon wanted God to bless the temple as a sign of His pleasure with David his father (e.g. 2 Chron. 6:42). Solomon's personal enthusiasm for service to God became subsumed by the huge psychological spiritual dominance of his parents. His zeal for the temple was almost purely a result of living out his father's expectation; he almost admits as much in 1 Kings 8:20: "I am risen up in the room of David my father... and have (therefore, in the context) built an house for the name of the Lord".
2Ch 7:7 Moreover Solomon made the middle of the court holy that was
before the house of Yahweh; for there he offered the burnt offerings, and
the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had
made was not able to receive the burnt offering, and the meal offering,
and the fat-
The huge numbers of animals required more altars, which were
presumably placed in the middle court. Although we wonder on what basis
Solomon as a non-Levite had the right to declare the court holy. We also
wonder as to whether the huge laver, and the ten smaller lavers, were only
built with a view to this opening dedication. For the huge laver was too
large for normal usage, and there was surely no need for 10 lavers when
the tabernacle had only had one. We wonder whether this sudden erection of
more altars was also as it were a design fault, and indicates that what he
was doing was not according to God's command, but rather his flawed human
initiative. See on :8 for another possible design fault.
2Ch 7:8 So Solomon held the feast at that time seven days, and all Israel
with him, a very great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook
of Egypt-
The dedication coincided with the seven day feast of tabernacles (see
on 2 Chron. 5:3), and to that was added this seven day feast of dedication
(:9). God's law is not a chain, a leash, for man is not a dog.
Legalism teaches minimalism. But God's law is rather a springboard to
deeper dedication. Rather like Boaz redeeming Ruth and allowing gleaners
to glean not at the edge of the fields but in the middle of them, among
the ears of grain. There
were representatives from the very borders of the land promised to
Abraham, implying these areas had been settled by Israelites; or perhaps
those who attended from those places were Gentile proselytes.
2Ch 7:9 On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly; for they kept the
dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days-
As explained on 2 Chron. 5:3, the dedication of the temple had been
made to coincide with the feast of tabernacles.
2Ch 7:10 On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people
away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the grace that Yahweh
had shown to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel His people-
Israel's blessing was dependent on Solomon's obedience (1 Kings
6:12,13); their joy was because of the honour God had given Solomon (2
Chron. 7:10). The blessing of others can be dependent upon a third party
(e.g. Mk. 2:5). 1 Kings 8:66: "For all the goodness that Yahweh had shown
to David His servant, and to Israel His people". The people rejoiced that the promises to David had been fulfilled in the
temple and in the prosperity of the nation. But they had only uncritically
accepted Solomon's narrative. For this was not at all the fulfilment of
the promises to David. They "blessed the king" because they assumed it was
Solomon who had brought about this fulfilment; and that was exactly what
he thought. And they had bought into that false narrative.
2Ch 7:11 Thus Solomon finished the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house.
He successfully completed all that came into Solomon’s heart to make in
the house of Yahweh, and in his own house-
The way the record of Solomon's house
follows straight on from that of God's house (1 Kings 6,7) seems to
highlight the similarity between them. The house of Yahweh and Solomon's
house are often spoke of together (e.g. 2 Chron. 7:11; 8:1;
9:11).The Temple was smaller than Solomon's house' he took nearly twice as
long to build it. Clearly he spent more effort at housing his own glory
than he did housing God's. The comparisons are intended to show this. They
are listed on 2 Chron. 9:11.
His building of the temple was "all that came into his heart", or "all
Solomon's
desire which he
was pleased to do" (1 Kings 9:1). He later admits in Ecc. 2
that he did these building projects from a desire to indulge his fantasies
about architecture and building. At this point, he served God in ways that
were convenient to him and reinforced his own natural interests. There is a semantic connection between
the Hebrew words for "desire" and "pleased" - the point of which is to
emphasize that Solomon's work for God was only an expression of his own
zest for self-fulfilment; he served God in ways which only confirmed his
own natural inclinations. Appreciating the spirit and blood of Christ, his
own weakness, the grace of God, and the subsequent desire to live a life
of self sacrifice, of carrying a cross in ways we wouldn't naturally
chose- this was all foreign to Solomon. And is it so foreign to us?
Solomon's materialism and self-fulfilment are sure warnings to our age.
2Ch 7:12 Yahweh appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard
your prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for a house of
sacrifice-
Clearly God was aware that Solomon was going wrong, refusing to realize
the conditional nature of the promises made to David about his son, and
not personally applying the wisdom given to him in the first vision. So
God's response to Solomon's arrogant, mistaken prayer of 1 Kings 8 was in
fact to appear to him and warn him that he needed to be obedient, or else
the promises would not in fact apply to him. The clear implication was
that Solomon's statements in his prayer that the promises were fulfilled
in him... were wrong.
God said that He accepted the temple not so much as a place to dwell in (as Solomon assumed it was) but as a place facilitating sacrifice, prayer etc., for the glorification of His Name through these things; He emphasized that He dwelt amongst His people (1 Kings 6:13; 2 Chron. 7:12-16). There are several other places where God’s response to Solomon’s words seems to be corrective rather than affirmatory. See on :14.
Chronicles is clear that the temple was not God's original
intention. But He went along with David and Solomon's insistence on
building it, just as He does with so many misplaced ideals.
"Shall you
build me a
house for me to live in?" (2 Sam. 7:5) is
turned by Chronicles into the indicative,
"You shall not
build me the
house to live in," (1 Chron. 17:4). "I
declare to you YHWH shall build
a house for you"
(1 Chron. 17:1O).
This grace was as it were unwanted by David and Solomon; they insisted
upon doing the works, and glorying in them. And God in the end gives man
what he really wants, as in the Father giving so much to the prodigal son,
surely knowing what he would do. And if our heart desire is for the
Kingdom, He will grant it.
2Ch 7:13 If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command
the locust to devour the land, or if I send plague among My people-
These things clearly allude to the curses for breaking the covenant
in Dt. 28. But those curses were to be lifted by repentance and renewed
faithfulness to the covenant, and their lifting was not predicated upon
the existence of the physical temple and praying in it or towards it. This
is now made clear by God in :14.
2Ch 7:14 if My people who are called by My name shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I
hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land-
Solomon says that God will hear the prayers of His people because the
temple is called by God’s Name; but God’s response is that “my
people, which are called by my name” would pray to Him themselves and be
heard, quite apart from the temple (2 Chron. 6:33 cp. 7:14). He sees them
as bearing His Name rather than the temple building, as Solomon perceived
it.
See on :12 for another example of God now correcting Solomon's
assumptions.
Solomon had asked that God forgive His people for their sins if they prayed in or toward the temple: "If Your people Israel be struck down before the enemy because they have sinned against You, and shall turn again and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this house; then hear from heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel... because they have sinned against You; if they pray toward this place, and confess Your name and turn from their sin, when You afflict them; then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants... [hear] prayer from this place" (2 Chron. 6:24-27,40). But God is careful to respond that He will forgive them if they pray- and carefully omits reference to the temple, "in this house". Solomon says 'If they do [ABC] and then [DEF] happens and they pray in / towards this place, then please do [GHI]'. God responds according to the same rubric, repeating what Solomon says, but carefully omitting the central point- if they pray in / towards the temple. The omission is glaring. And it is tantamount to ignoring what was for Solomon the central object of his prayer- to legitimize the temple as the source of efficacy for prayer. His 'religion' was replaced by God's focus on personal spirituality and His response to that.
Jonah learnt this- in the belly of a great fish, he needed forgiveness. He had no access to the temple and didn't know which direction to pray towards. He says that he prayed towards the temple, following Solomon's words rather than God's correction of them. But the grace of it all is that God heard him anyway.
2Ch 7:15 Now My eyes shall be open and My ears sensitive to the prayer
that is made in this place-
"Sensitive / attentive" is the word used by Nehemiah in
Neh.
1:11
"Lord,
I beg You, let Your ear be attentive now to the prayer of Your servant".
"Attentive" is s.w. 2 Chron. 6:40; 7:15, where we read of God being
"attentive" to prayers offered in the temple. But Nehemiah
was praying in
exile, not in the temple. The desperation of the situation made him learn a
lesson- that God wasn't only accessible in the temple. This may sound
obvious to us, but it wasn't for those used to the temple cult. The lesson
is that God uses punishments for sin, hard situations, to break our
paradigms and lead us to a greater spirituality- if we will follow. S.w.
also Neh. 9:34- Israel weren't "attentive" to God's word, but in their
time of need they hoped He would be "attentive" to their word of prayer.
And He was. His grace isn't 'measure for measure'; He treats us out of
proportion to our attentiveness to Him. We must show the same grace.
2Ch 7:16 For now have I chosen and made this house holy, that My name may
be there forever; and My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually-
It has been argued that the Hebrew olahm, "forever", really
means 'a period'. But I am unpersuaded of that argument in every case.
Rather I would think that the context in this case requires that we
understand God to be saying that He would indeed dwell in the temple
"forever", and His particular sensitivity would be found in that place,
His eyes and heart. But as He makes clear in 1 Kings 9:4-7, that was all
conditional upon obedience. This highlights the tragedy- that eternity was
at stake. So much depends upon human freewill decisions; for that is how
much He respects us and our freedom of choice.
God's Name, eyes and heart were not for ever focused upon the physical temple. In :20 He states that He can cast the temple out of His sight and special awareness. The temple was destroyed, and the possibility of that is mentioned in :21. But He also says here that His intense presence and sensitivity will always be there. One resolution of this is to recall that God's response to the desire to build the house / temple was to say that He would build a house / temple for David. And that temple was His Son and all in Him. For both the Lord Jesus and all in Him are described as God's temple. The Divine promise here remains true- through His definition of the temple. His special awareness and sensitivity is not now focused upon a small plot of land in Jerusalem, but upon us. Whoever touches us, touches the apple of His eye. His presence and involvement in the temple could only be because He had chosen and "made this house holy", He had sanctified it, counted it as holy / righteous. And this is exactly what Paul says He has done to us His people- elected / chosen us, unto sanctification by Him. The ideas of choosing and sanctification run together in Paul's thought. We are the temple. "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13). "According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy/ sanctified" (Eph. 1:4). Peter likewise: "Elect [chosen] according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit" (1 Pet. 1:2). And the Lord Himself: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained / sanctified you" (Jn. 15:16).
2Ch 7:17 As for you, if you will walk before Me as David your father
walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My
statutes and My ordinances-
This was a hard act to follow, for David was chosen as being a man
after God's own heart. Solomon considered that he was acceptable with God
just because of his father, whereas Go wanted him to personally attain his
father's spirituality. We note in passing God's high estimation of David,
despite David's serious but out of character failings. God constantly warned Solomon about the conditionality of the promises,
before the building started (2 Sam. 7:14), during it (1 Kings 6:11-13) and
immediately after completing it (1 Kings 9:2-9). Solomon reinterprets this conditional promise in Prov. 20:7: "A
righteous man walks in integrity; blessed are his children after him".
Solomon has here his own agenda of self justification in view. The man who
'walked in integrity' is without doubt David (s.w. 1 Kings 9:4; Ps.
26:1,11; 101:2). Solomon assumed that because his father had walked in
integrity, then he as his child would automatically be blessed. But he was
choosing to misunderstand the conditional nature of the promises to him in
1 Kings 9:4; if he walked himself in integrity "as David your father
walked", then he would be the prophetically blessed son of David.
Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (1 Kings 2:4; 1 Chron. 22:13; 2 Chron. 7:17); but he didn't preserve of observe them (1 Kings 11:10,11); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (1 Chron. 29:19). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (Prov. 2:8; 3:26), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (Prov. 4:4; 6:22; 7:1; 8:32; 15:5), preservation was through following the example of the wise (Prov. 2:20); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (Ps. 145:20).
2Ch 7:18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, according as I
covenanted with David your father saying, There shall not fail you a man
to be ruler in Israel-
This is the same quotation made in Ps. 132:12. But God is picking up
on Solomon's claims in 1 Kings 8:24 that God had already fulfilled this. He
is pointing out that this promise was conditional, and Solomon had
overlooked that. The promise of "a man" suggests one individual; but
Solomon was wrong in assuming this referred to himself. He could
potentially have been the Messiah, just as various individuals could have
been. Indeed the Old Testament is littered with failed Messiahs- all
building up to the wonderful climax of the one true Messiah.
2Ch 7:19 But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments
which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and
worship them-
This is what Solomon did finally do, and already at this stage he had
married Gentile women, whom the law of Moses had warned would lead his
heart away from Yahweh to "other gods". But that apparently inevitable
process could still be arrested- if Solomon responded in humility to this
appeal. We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal
ends in :22. But there is silence; see on :22. This verse is
addressed to Solomon personally. If he fell away, then Israel would suffer
and the temple would be destroyed (:20). This is the nature of sin- that
it affects others. Men can to some degree be saved by third parties (Mk.
2:5) but they can also suffer and lose relationship with God because of
third party behaviour. This highlights the huge importance and
significance of how we live life. For no man is an island, no man lives or
dies unto himself. Despite the claims of the individualistic, postmodern
culture in which we live.
2Ch 7:20 then I will pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I
have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for My name, I
will cast out of My sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among
all peoples-
Solomon had wrongly reasoned in 2 Chron. 6 that the grandeur of the
temple would attract Gentiles to become proselytes to Yahweh. But God
warns him that the very opposite could happen, and the ruined temple would
become the biggest possible disadvertisment for Yahweh and His people.
Solomon had prayed, and in that prayer taught Israel, that if they sinned
even in captivity, then all they had to do was pray towards the temple and
they would be forgiven. He saw in that building some kind of atonement for
sins. He lost sight of the importance of the blood that made atonement; he
replaced the blood of Christ with a work of his own hands. God’s
response to the dedication of the temple here corrects what
Solomon has just said. He says that if Israel sin then He will cast the
temple too out of His sight; which is rather different to how Solomon
instructed the people to gain forgiveness for the sake of the temple if
they were in dispersion. He saw the temple as a talisman- the need for
real, meaningful change and repentance and spiritual mindedness to enable
the dwelling of God went unperceived. He failed to perceive the real
possibility of the eternal potential he and Israel could miss. They really
could be cast out of God's sight in condemnation. Jonah recognized “I am
cast out of Your sight” (Jon. 2:4), the very language
of condemnation used at his time (2 Kings 17:20; 21:2; 23:27;
Jer. 7:15).
2Ch 7:21 This house, which is so high, everyone who passes by it shall be
astonished, and shall say, ‘Why has Yahweh done thus to this land, and to
this house?’-
God parallels the temple and His people in 2 Chron. 7:21,22,
saying that if He punishes the temple He will punish the people. Solomon
seems to have thought that the temple would still stand favourably in
God’s eyes even if the people were punished. The record records that the
temple was “perfected” whereas Solomon’s heart wasn’t perfect [s.w.] (1
Kings 11:4 cp. 2 Chron. 8:16).
This is God's commentary upon the implications in Solomon's prayer that the temple and God's presence within it was to be eternal. Solomon had willfully misinterpreted the promises to David to mean that the temple was the fulfilment of the promise that the seed would build an eternal house. That house David had built was not the house in view, and could easily be destroyed and even become a curse rather than a blessing- if Solomon were disobedient.
2Ch 7:22 They shall answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of
their fathers, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and took
other gods, worshipped them, and served them. Therefore He has brought all
this evil on them’-
We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal
ends; but there is silence. Solomon had blanked out from his perception
any idea that he might fail or was less than perfect. His narrative was
that he was the son of David, and the promises about David's son were now
fulfilled in him. And he refused to allow anything, not even an appeal
from God, disturb that internal narrative.
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