2 Chronicleschapter 5
14 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: (for all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course:
It stands in One voice of praise, and a cloud the priests cannot stand in, verses 11 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The work is finished, David's dedicated silver and gold brought into the treasuries, and the ark comes up from Zion in the seventh month. The staves stay in place, and nothing is in the ark 'save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb.' Then the moment the Chronicler has been building toward for two books: the Levite singers in white linen with cymbals and psalteries and harps, a hundred and twenty priests with trumpets, all sounding 'as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah,' and the refrain 'for he is good; for his lovingkindness endureth for ever'. And the cloud fills the house so the priests cannot stand to minister.
Context
History · Ezra · 2 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 5The history
The chapter belongs to Solomon and to the elders, tribal heads and family leaders he summoned, about 959 BC.
The timing is deliberate. The ark is brought up in the seventh month at the feast, which is the autumn festival of Tabernacles, when the harvest was in and the whole nation was already travelling to Jerusalem. A dedication was set for the week the crowds would be there anyway.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The place is the temple court and the inner room, and the ark comes up from the city of David, which the chapter calls Zion.
A first hearer knew what the details meant. The Levites carry the ark and the priests bring it into the innermost room under the wings of the great cherubim. The poles are left in place, and their ends could be seen from just outside the veil and not from the outer court. The detail is recorded because a worshipper standing in the holy place could see them.
The note that the ark held the two stone tablets Moses put there is a statement about what the whole house was built around.
Then the music. A hundred and twenty priests with trumpets stand with the singers of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, at the east end of the altar. The phrase used of them is that the trumpeters and the singers were as one, to make one sound. At that moment the cloud filled the house so that the priests could not stand to minister.
What it meant to them
Ezra 3:10 to 13 describes the founding of the second temple with the priests in their vestments and trumpets. The Levites of Asaph stood there with cymbals, singing the same refrain, while old men wept and young men shouted.
That is the ache under this chapter for its first hearers. The trumpets were the same and the cloud did not come. The writer sets down what happened once, and leaves the longing where it belongs.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Books of the Chronicles
Where the chapter sits
2 Chronicles 5 falls in Solomon's reign (chapters 1–9). Wisdom at Gibeon; temple construction and dedication; the Queen of Sheba; Solomon's riches and death. Parallels 1 Kgs 1–11 with temple emphasis.
After it: Kings of Judah: Rehoboam to Ahaz, chapters 10–28.
The whole shape of 2 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. The ark carried in, with nothing in it but the two tables
1. (v. 1)
2 Chronicles 5:1
“BRINGING UP OF THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. Then Solomon assembled . . . in the feast which was in the seventh month--The feast of the dedication of the temple was on the eighth day of that month. This is related, word for word, the same as in 1Ki 8:1-10.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 5:1
“This chapter contains one important addition only to the narrative of Kings (see the marginal references); namely, the account of the circumstances under which the manifestation of the Divine Presence took place 2Ch 5:11-13.”
Thus all the work that Solomon made: Solomon's finished work closes the building record that began at 3:1, and the verse matches 1 Kings 7:51 almost word for word: the parallel discipline holds here, since Chronicles is not retelling a different building but the same one. What crosses into the treasury is David's own dedicated silver and gold, the gifts he laid up in 1 Chr 18:11 and 26:26-28, finally entering the house they were kept for. Barnes notes that this chapter's real contribution over Kings is not this verse but the scene the trumpets and singers bring at the chapter's end.
2. (vv. 2-3)
2 Chronicles 5:3
“The feast - “That is, the feast of tabernacles, which was held in the seventh month.” - Targum. See 1Ki 8:2.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes: Solomon summons the elders, tribal heads and family chiefs to Jerusalem for the feast of the seventh month, Tabernacles, the same assembly 1 Kings 8:1-2 records. The city of David is named Zion here, the older stronghold's title carried forward into the new temple's dedication, and the whole leadership of the nation is gathered before a single vessel is moved. The nation, not the king alone, brings the ark up.
3. (vv. 4-5)
2 Chronicles 5:4
“The Levites took up the ark - i. e., such of the Levites as were also priests (compare 2Ch 5:7; 1Ki 8:3).”
2 Chronicles 5:5
“Those were not alienated, because they had been dedicated to God, were not altered or melted down for the new work, though there was no need of them; but they were carefully laid up as monuments of antiquity, and probably as many of the vessels as were fit for use were still used. This was done with great joy.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the Levites took up the ark: Where 1 Kings 8:3 says the priests took up the ark, Chronicles specifies the Levites took up the ark, the wording 1 Chr 15:2 laid down after Uzza's death, none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites. Priests are themselves of Levi's tribe, so the bench divides over how sharp a distinction is meant, but the Chronicler's word choice matches the doctrine he stated at 15:2 and 15:13 and answers the disorder of chapter 13. The tabernacle and its holy vessels come up with the ark, retired rather than discarded, kept as monuments the temple honors instead of melting them down.
4. (v. 6)
could not be told nor numbered for multitude: The sacrifice is left unnumbered on purpose, sheep and oxen beyond counting before the ark even reaches its place; the same excess marks 1 Kings 8:5, and Chronicles changes nothing in it. Worship this lavish before the ark is set down previews the chapter's own argument, that what happens after matters more than what is spent.
5. (vv. 7-10)
2 Chronicles 5:9
“From the ark - Or, according to a different reading here and according to 1Ki 8:8, some read, “the ends of the staves were seen from the Holy place.” There it is unto this day - This should be corrected as in the margin.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 5:9
“To this day - When this history was first written; not when it was reviewed by Ezra: for after the return from Babylon, neither staves nor ark were any more seen.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 5:10
There was nothing in the ark save - The Chaldee paraphrases thus: “There was nothing put in the ark but the two tables which Moses placed there, after the first had been broken on account of the calf which they made in Horeb, and the two other tables had been confirmed which were written with writing expressed in the Ten Words.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
unto his place, to the oracle of the house: The priests carry the ark into the oracle under the cherubim's wings, matching 1 Kings 8:6-8 in every detail, down to the staves drawn out just far enough to be seen from the holy place and no further, and the record's own aside, there it is unto this day, meaning the day this history was first written. Verse 10 narrows the ark's contents to the two tables Moses laid there at Horeb, the covenant document and nothing else. What the tabernacle and the ark carried across from the wilderness enters the new house unchanged.
B. One voice of praise, and a cloud the priests cannot stand in
1. (v. 11)
2 Chronicles 5:11
“By course - According to David's appointment, 1 Chron. xxiv, 1-31, xxv, 1-22, which was only for the ordinary service, but in extraordinary solemnities, such as this, they all came together.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 5:11
“When the singers and musicians praised God, then the house was filled with a cloud. This is very observable; it was not when they offered sacrifices, but when they sang the praises of God, that God gave them this token of his favour; for the sacrifice of praise pleaseth the Lord better than that of an ox or bullock, Ps. lxix.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
did not then wait by course: The parenthesis breaks from Kings to explain something 1 Kings 8:10-11 does not: the priests present had sanctified themselves and did not wait by course, the rotation David set up in 1 Chr 24 for ordinary service. On a day this size every division serves together rather than the one course whose turn it was, an arrangement Chronicles alone bothers to explain because Chronicles alone built the courses it is explaining.
2. (v. 12)
2 Chronicles 5:12
“The station where the priests were sounding with trumpets was apart from that of the other musicians; for while the Levite singers occupied an orchestra east of the altar, the priests stood at the marble table on the southwest of the altar.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 5:12
“As there is one saying oftener repeated in scripture than this, his mercy endureth for ever (twenty-six times in one psalm, Ps. cxxxvi. , and often elsewhere), so there is none more signally owned from heaven; for it was not the expression of some rapturous flights that the priests were singing when the glory of God appeared, but this plain song, He is good, and his mercy endureth for ever.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
being arrayed in white linen: The singers are named by house, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun, the three founders of the choirs David organized in 1 Chr 25 to prophesy with instruments, arrayed here in white linen and standing at the altar's east end with cymbals, psalteries and harps. A hundred and twenty priests sound trumpets beside them, and Chronicles gives this scene weight Kings never mentions: the temple's music enters the dedication record for the first time.
3. (vv. 13-14)
2 Chronicles 5:13
Even the house of the Lord - Or, according to another reading (Septuagint), which removes the superfluousness of these words - “The house was filled with a cloud of the glory of the Lord.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 5:13
“Christ revealed things unto his disciples as they were able to bear them, and in parables, which wrapped up divine things as in a cloud. Thus he would affect all that worshipped in his courts with holy reverence and fear. Christ's disciples were afraid when they entered into a cloud, Luke ix.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 5:14
“The priests could not stand - What a proof of the being of God, and of the Divine presence! What must those holy men have felt at this time!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 5:14
“Glory of the Lord - And this beautified it more than all the gold with which it was overlaid, or the precious stones with which it was garnished. Yet even that was no glory, in comparison of the glory of the gospel-dispensation.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
were as one, to make one sound: Verse 13 is Chronicles' own addition to the scene in 1 Kings 8:10-11: the trumpeters and singers were as one, one sound, and only then, at that moment, the house was filled with a cloud. The refrain they sing, for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever, is David's own line from 1 Chr 16:34, planted at the ark's first procession and now answered at the ark's final rest. Henry reads the timing as the chapter's whole doctrine, that the glory came not when the sacrifices were offered but when the praise became one voice, the sacrifice of praise pleasing the Lord more than an ox or bullock. Verse 14 completes it in language Exodus 40:34-35 used of the tabernacle, the glory of the Lord filling the house of God so thick the priests could not stand to minister.
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 5. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. H. Bennett, The Books of Chronicles (Expositor's Bible).