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2 Chronicles

2 Chronicleschapter 7

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Speaks with:2 Chronicles 6×51 Kings 8×42 Chronicles 5×32 Chronicles 7×31 Kings 9×2Leviticus 26×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Fire comes down from heaven and consumes the burnt-offering, the glory of Jehovah fills the house, and all Israel bow with their faces to the pavement, worshipping and saying that his lovingkindness endureth for ever. The dedication runs seven days and the feast seven more, with sacrifices past counting. Then Jehovah appears to Solomon by night with the promise most quoted from this book: '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' (7:14). The warning is just as plain, forsake him, and this house so high shall be an astonishment.

Context

History · Ezra — 2 Chronicles overview

  • A. 1–3 Fire falls, glory fills, and Israel bows on the pavement
  • B. 4–11 Fourteen days of feasting and glad hearts sent home
  • C. 12–22 If My people humble themselves, and the warning if they turn away

The outline

  1. A.Fire falls, glory fills, and Israel bows on the pavementvv. 1 to 3

    Read vv. 1 to 3 →

  2. B.Fourteen days of feasting and glad hearts sent homevv. 4 to 11

    Read vv. 4 to 11 →

  3. C.If My people humble themselves, and the warning if they turn awayvv. 12 to 22

    Read vv. 12 to 22 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The work finished, and the glory come down

Pattern

The close of the tabernacle account echoes the close of creation, beat for beat: the work finished, the maker looking on all of it, a blessing spoken. Then the glory fills the finished house, and the same scene returns at Solomon's temple, twice.

The echo is visible in the English and needs no argument added. When the work is done as God commanded, God moves in, and the sign is the same in the wilderness and in Jerusalem: a glory so heavy that Moses cannot enter and the priests cannot stand to minister. The pattern gives a reader the reason the building chapters are written the way they are.

  1. Genesis 2:1-3

    The heavens and the earth finished

    Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and God blessed the seventh day.

  2. Exodus 39:43

    Moses looks on all the work

    And Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the LORD had commanded, and Moses blessed them.

  3. Exodus 40:33-35

    The glory fills the tabernacle

    So Moses finished the work, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle, and Moses was not able to enter.

  4. 1 Kings 8:10-11

    The cloud fills Solomon's temple

    The priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, as Moses could not enter the tent.

  5. 2 Chronicles 7:1-3 you are here

    Fire and glory at the dedication

    Chronicles adds the fire from heaven, and the glory fills the house again.

The world behind this chapter

2 Chronicles 7
When
The dedication accepted; the conditions stated · c. 959 BC, with God's night answer some years later
Where
The temple courts during a fourteen-day festival, then a night vision given to the king
Who first heard it
A returning people asking whether God would hear them again

The history

Fire falling from heaven to consume the offering was the recognized sign that God accepted a sanctuary. It had happened when the tabernacle was dedicated and again at the threshing floor when David built the altar on this very rock. Here it falls a third time, and the glory fills the house so the priests cannot enter.

The offering totals — twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep — are far beyond what one altar could handle, and the text says so: Solomon had to consecrate the middle of the court and offer there because the bronze altar could not hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat.

The calendar is spelled out. Seven days for the dedication, then the seven days of the feast, then a solemn assembly on the eighth, and the people sent home on the twenty-third day of the seventh month. Two weeks of national feasting, with the meat of the peace offerings feeding the crowd.

God's answer comes later, at night, and it has two halves. The first is the promise attached to this house: if my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. The second is the warning: if you turn away and serve other gods, I will pluck you up out of my land, and this house which is high shall be an astonishment to everyone who passes by.

What it meant to them

The first hearers had seen the second half come true. The high house had become a ruin that travelers pointed at, exactly as promised, which meant the promise was reliable in both directions.

So the first half was not a comforting slogan to them; it was a live instruction with a track record. Humble yourself, pray, seek his face, turn — and the land can be healed.

Sources cited

  • Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles
  • Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 7. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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