2 Chronicleschapter 7
22 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a people rebuilding after judgment and asking whether God would hear them again. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. The dedication reaches its answer in two scenes, one in public before the whole nation and one at night with the king alone. Listen for the sign that God has accepted the house. Then listen closely to the night answer, which comes in two halves, a promise and a warning. The first hearers had lived through one of those halves, and so they could trust the other.
Context
- Who
- A returning people asking whether God would hear them again
- What
- God's acceptance of the temple by fire and glory, the great feast of dedication, and His night answer to Solomon's prayer.
- Where
- The temple courts in Jerusalem through the festival, then the king's own night after the house was finished.
- When
- The dedication and the feast of the seventh month, about 959 BC.
- Why
- To give God's own terms for the house, that He hears a people who humble themselves and turn and uproots a people who turn to other gods.
Historical context
The chapter belongs first to the whole congregation and then to Solomon alone, at the dedication of about 959 BC. The dossier's timeline anchors the answer at 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The place is the temple court for the first half and the king's own night for the second.
The occasion is acceptance. Fire falling from heaven to consume the offering was the recognised sign that God accepted a sanctuary. It had happened when the tabernacle was dedicated at Leviticus 9:24, and again at the threshing floor when David built the altar on this rock at 1 Chronicles 21:26. Here it falls a third time, and the glory fills the house so the priests cannot enter.
A first hearer could weigh 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.
The night answer has two halves. The first is the promise attached to this house, that a people who humble themselves, pray, seek his face and turn from their wicked ways will be heard, forgiven and healed. The second is the warning, that turning to other gods will see the people plucked out of the land and this high house made an astonishment to everyone who passes by.
Significance
The first hearers had seen the second half come true. The high house had become a ruin that travellers pointed at, exactly as promised, which meant the promise was reliable in both directions.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
So the first half reached them as a live instruction with a record behind it. Humble yourself, pray, seek his face, turn, and the land can be healed.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. The fire from heaven and the night answer to Solomon are met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The service at the dedication Rashi reads through the orders David had already set. The priests stood on their watches as David had divided them, twenty-four watches each serving its week. The Levites stood on twenty-four of their own (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:6:1, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). He names the psalm of thanksgiving the Levites recited with their instruments (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:6:2).
The consecrating of the court at the seventh verse opens a dispute Rashi reports without settling. The Sages differ in Zevachim. Rabbi Judah holds that Solomon gave the floor of the forecourt the sanctity of the altar, so that offerings could be burnt on it. The copper altar was too small for the number of sacrifices. Rabbi Jose answers him from arithmetic. Moses' altar held a pyre of one cubit by one, and Solomon's held twenty-four by twenty-four, which makes Solomon's "576 times as large as that of Moses" (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:7:1). On Rabbi Jose's reading the verse means only that the stone altar was set into the floor and fastened there. Rashi adds a note on the wording itself, that the phrase about the altar being unable to contain the offerings speaks of the altar Moses made (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:7:2).
The night answer is read as a structure rather than as a single promise. Rashi ties the three judgments of the thirteenth verse to the three things asked in the prayer. Heaven shut up, the locust commanded, and pestilence sent each answer to one part of the sentence that follows, hearing, forgiving and healing (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:13:1). The promise on this reading belongs to the people praying toward this house, answering the prayer Solomon has just prayed. The eyes and heart set on the house he reads through the Targum of Jonathan. The presence rests there on a condition, "if My will is performed there at all times" (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:16:1). The warning that follows he reads against the covenant warning in Leviticus, where sanctuaries are made desolate (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:20:1). The passerby astounded at the ruin he glosses from the vocabulary of Job (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:21:1).
Two notes handle dates and places. The entrance of Hamath is in the north of the land of Israel (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:8:1). The dismissal on the twenty-third day stands against the eighth day in Kings, and Rashi gives three ways to hold both. He may have given leave after the feast and sent them the next morning. He may have dismissed on the eighth day only those living within the Sabbath limits, and the whole people on the day after. Genesis Rabbah explains that they took their leave, waited a day, and took leave a second time (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:10:1). The appearing at night he reads as a vision of the night (Rashi on II Chronicles 7:12:1).
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 7:1:1, 7:3:1, 7:11:1, 7:14:1, 7:15:1, 7:18:1 and 7:22:1. Radak on II Chronicles 7:3:1, 7:9:1 and 7:19:1. Malbim on II Chronicles 7:1:1, 7:4:1 and 7:17:1. The corpus carries no English text for any commentator on the fourteenth verse, so every reading of it named here comes through Rashi on the verse before it.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The fire falling at the first verse draws seven. They are Bamidbar Rabbah 14:3, Bereshit Rabbah 60:4, Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:2:26, Jerusalem Talmud Makkot 2:6:12, Kohelet Rabbah 4:3:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 24:15:1. The seventh is a chapter of the Learning to Read Midrash volume on David's heart, whose full ref stands in the sources of this card.
The people falling on their faces at the third verse draws seven more. Four are talmudic, at Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 4:1:5, Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 3:3:3, Shevuot 16b:8 and Shevuot 17a:6. Three are midrashic: Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 10:2:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 9:23:1, and Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Chuppat Eliyahu Rabbah 207.
The sacrifices and the feast carry the next run. The fifth verse carries the twenty-two thousand oxen and the hundred and twenty thousand sheep. It draws Bamidbar Rabbah 12:18, Midrash Tanchuma, Nasso 15:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Nasso 23:1, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 6:4:2, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 713:4 and 824:3. The eighth carries Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 1:2:8, and the ninth Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan 1:7:3. The tenth, the dismissal Rashi labours over, carries Bereshit Rabbah 35:3, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Moed Katan 1:5, Ein Yaakov, Moed Katan 1:8 and Moed Katan 9a:21.
The night answer carries the last. The thirteenth verse carries Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Bayom HaShmini ("on the Eighth Day") 1:6. The fourteenth, where the people called by God's name humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn, carries six. They are Bereshit Rabbah 44:12, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:7, Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 2:1:9, Kohelet Rabbah 5:6:1, Kohelet Rabbah 7:14:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 15:5:2. The fifteenth carries Midrash Tanchuma, Vayigash 10:2. The sixteenth, the house chosen and sanctified for God's name, carries Bamidbar Rabbah 3:2, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 16 and Petichta 23, Kohelet Rabbah 12:7:1 and Shemot Rabbah 2:2. One further locator stands in the file, Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Shelosha v'Arba'ah 1:22, filed under a verse number beyond the twenty-two this chapter holds. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 7:6:1 to 7:21:1, eleven kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Jose, the dispute over the consecrated court in Zevachim 59, reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 7:7:1; Targum Jonathan, the rendering of I Kings 9:3 reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 7:16:1; Genesis Rabbah, Genesis Rabbah 35:3, reported inside Rashi on II Chronicles 7:10:1; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 7:3:1, 7:9:1 and 7:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 7:1:1, 7:3:1, 7:11:1, 7:14:1, 7:15:1, 7:18:1 and 7:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 7:1:1, 7:4:1 and 7:17:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Learning to Read Midrash, Learning to Read Midrash, Chapter 15; Portrait of a Biblical Personality; Exploring David's Heart in the Aftermath of Sin 329, the locator the corpus carries on the first verse; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/7.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter, six of them on the fourteenth verse; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Fire falls, glory fills, and Israel bows on the pavement
2 Chronicles 7:1-2
fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering: The fire that “came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices” is a detail Kings lacks. It joins the fire at the tabernacle in Leviticus 9:24 and on David's altar at 1 Chronicles 21:26. Barnes notes the fact is missing from the parallel in Kings.
2 Chronicles 7:1
“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying,.... The prayer recorded in the preceding chapter: the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; which was the token God gave of his acceptance of them, of which there had been several instances before, Lev 9:24, 1Ki 18:38, and the glory of the Lord filled the house; the glory of the Shechinah of the Lord, as the Targum, see 1Ki 8:11.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 7:1
“The fire came down from heaven - As in the time of Moses on the dedication of the tabernacle Lev 9:24 The fact is omitted from the narrative of Kings; but omission is not contradiction.”
unable to enter the house: The priests are shut out by the presence they serve. Gill ties the verse back to the ark's entry, when the priests could no longer stand to minister, came out, and were unable to reenter. He reads the glory as filling both the holy place and the holy of holies.
2 Chronicles 7:2
“And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord,.... They went in to carry the ark thither, but not being able to stand to minister, they came out, and could not reenter: because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house; both the holy place, and the holy of holies, see 1Ki 8:10.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 7:2
“But afterwards, their courage and confidence being revived, they approached the altar and busied themselves in the offering of an immense number of sacrifices.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
they bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground: When the fire and the glory answer the king, the people bow. They answer in words already old, “For He is good; His loving devotion endures forever”. David set that refrain going at 1 Chronicles 16:34 and appointed Heman, Jeduthun and others to sing it at 16:41.
Fourteen days of feasting and glad hearts sent home
2 Chronicles 7:4-6
Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices: The count is vast, “22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep,” more than the bronze altar could hold. So verse 7 consecrates the middle of the courtyard for more offerings. The Levites play “the musical instruments of the LORD, which King David had made,” the order Chronicles traces to 1 Chronicles 25.
2 Chronicles 7:4
“The king and all the people offered sacrifices - They presented the victims to the priests, and they and the Levites slew them, and sprinkled the blood: or perhaps the people themselves slew them; and, having caught the blood, collected the fat, etc., presented them to the priests to be offered as the law required.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen: Clarke takes the figure as the total for both weeks, the seven days of dedication and the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add a festival of that length gave time for so many victims to be offered. The whole nation shared in the act.
2 Chronicles 7:5
“Twenty and two thousand oxen, etc. - The amount of all the victims that had been offered during the seven days of the feast of tabernacles, and the seven days of the feast of the dedication.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The priests stood at their posts: Henry dates the service. The dedication of the altar ran from the second day of the seventh month to the ninth, and the tenth was the Day of Atonement. Henry calls a day of mourning for sin fitting even in the middle of such rejoicing.
2 Chronicles 7:6
“They kept the feast of the dedication of the altar seven days, from the second to the ninth; the tenth day was the day of atonement, when they were to afflict their souls for sin, and that was not unseasonable in the midst of their rejoicings; on the fifteenth day began the feast of tabernacles, which continued to the twenty-second, and they did not separate till the twenty-third.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 7:7-10
Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard: The bronze altar “could not contain all these offerings,” so Solomon consecrates the middle of the courtyard, as at 1 Kings 8:64. The dedication of the altar takes seven days, the feast seven more, and a solemn assembly on the eighth day closes it.
2 Chronicles 7:7
“Solomon hallowed the middle of the court--On this extraordinary occasion, when a larger number of animals were offered than one altar and the usual place of rings to which the animals were bound would admit, the whole space was taken in that was between the place of rings and the west end of the court to be used as a temporary place for additional altars.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The feast of seven days is the Feast of Tabernacles, kept after the harvest in September and October. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the dedication was set to fall just before it. So two feasts ran back to back.
2 Chronicles 7:8
“Solomon kept the feast - i. e., Solomon kept at this same time, not the Feast of the Dedication only, but also the Feast of tabernacles. The former lasted seven days, from the 8th of Tisri to the 15th, the latter also seven days, from the 15th to the 22nd. On the day following the people were dismissed 2Ch 7:10.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 7:8
“Solomon kept the feast seven days--The time chosen for the dedication of the temple was immediately previous to the feast of tabernacles (see on 1Ki 8:1-12). That season, which came after the harvest, corresponding to our September and October, lasted seven days, and during so prolonged a festival there was time afforded for the offering of the immense sacrifices enumerated.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
On the eighth day: The eighth day closes two weeks of feasting. Barnes runs the dedication from the eighth of Tisri to the fifteenth, and the Feast of Tabernacles from the fifteenth to the twenty-second. On the day after, the people were dismissed.
twenty-third day of the seventh month: 1 Kings 8:66 sends the people home on the eighth day, and Chronicles gives the twenty-third of the month. Clarke cites Jarchi, who says many went home on the eighth day and the rest on the ninth. The Targum ties the joy to answered prayer and accepted offerings.
2 Chronicles 7:10
On the three and twentieth day - This was the ninth day of the dedication of the temple; but in 1Ki 8:66 it is called the eighth day. “The meaning is this,” says Jarchi: “he gave them liberty to return on the eighth day, and many of them did then return: and he dismissed the remainder on the ninth, what is called here the twenty-third, reckoning the fourteen days for the duration of the two feasts; in all, twenty-three.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
When Solomon had finished the house of the LORD: The finished house and palace close the building half of the chapter. They open the night visit that answers the prayer of chapter 6. Barnes marks the seam, from which the account runs parallel to 1 Kings 9:1-9, with verses 13 to 15 carrying material Kings lacks.
2 Chronicles 7:11
“The narrative now runs parallel with 1Ki 9:1-9, but is more full, and presents less of verbal agreement. 2Ch 7:13-15 are additional to the earlier record.”
If My people humble themselves, and the warning if they turn away
the LORD appeared to him at night: This is the second time the LORD appears to Solomon, after the night at Gibeon in 1:7-13, and this meeting follows a finished house. God names the place “a house of sacrifice,” where 1 Kings 9:3 speaks of the temple consecrated by putting His Name there forever.
2 Chronicles 7:12
The Lord appeared to Solomon - This was a second manifestation; see 1Ki 9:2-9 (note), and the notes there. The Targum says, “The Word of the Lord appeared to Solomon.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 7:13-14
If I close the sky so there is no rain: The law tied three judgments to covenant breach: the sky closed, the locust and plague. Barnes marks verses 13 to 15 as material Chronicles alone carries. The promise follows, “I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land,” spoken to the king who built the house.
2 Chronicles 7:13
“Or if I send pestilence - “The angel of death.” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
humble themselves and pray: The four conditions are humbling, prayer, seeking the face of God and turning from wicked ways, and Henry calls the answer national mercy. Clement of Rome gathers the same call to repentance from Ezekiel. There God desires the repentance of the sinner.
2 Chronicles 7:14
“The ministers of the grace of God have, by the Holy Spirit, spoken of repentance; and the Lord of all things has himself declared with an oath regarding it, "As I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his repentance;" [Ezekiel 33:11] adding, moreover, this gracious declaration, "Repent, O house of Israel, of your iniquity."”
Clement of Rome · written before 99 · Clement's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 8patristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 7:14
“Since the time of 9/11, I have been calling for return, repentance and revival, not only as individuals, but as a nation, according to 2 Chronicles 7:14.”
2 Chronicles 7:15-16
Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive: The promise turns concrete, echoing Solomon's plea at 6:40. Barnes takes it to cover prayers offered inside the house and prayers offered toward it from a distance, the two cases Solomon named. Verse 16 makes the choice lasting, “My eyes and My heart will be there for all time”.
2 Chronicles 7:15
“The prayer that is made in this place - literally, as in the margin. The unsual phrase includes the two cases of prayers offered in 2Ch 6:24 and toward 2Ch 6:34, 2Ch 6:38 the sanctuary.”
chosen and consecrated this temple: Verse 20 names this same consecrated house as the one God will cast from His presence if Israel turns to other gods. The promise and the warning speak of one house. Henry reads the covenant as setting death before Solomon as well as life, the curse beside the blessing.
2 Chronicles 7:17-18
if you walk before Me as your father David walked: The promise turns conditional and personal: “if you walk before Me as your father David walked,” God will establish the royal throne. This is the covenant with David of 1 Chronicles 17, named the throne of the kingdom of the LORD at 1 Chronicles 28:5.
establish your royal throne: The promise here reaches back to David. Henry says Solomon could hope for the benefit of that covenant only by following the example of David. Clarke holds that the throne was cut off when the condition failed and the people forsook God.
2 Chronicles 7:18
“There shall not fail thee a man - This promise was not fulfilled, because the condition was not fulfilled; they forsook God, and he cut them off, and the throne also.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 7:19-22
But if you turn away and forsake the statutes: The warning matches the promise in weight: serving other gods brings Israel uprooted “from the soil I have given them”. The exile that closes the book at 36:15-21 carries the warning out. The answer names one cause, “Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers”.
2 Chronicles 7:19
“He knew their proneness to backslide into that sin. He threatened it as certain that, if they did so, it would certainly be the ruin of both church and state.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
uproot Israel from the soil: The LORD pictures Israel as a tree pulled from the soil, roots and all. Clarke reads the warning as fulfilled to the letter, the branches of the nation cut off and the root itself pulled up. The warning names the land and the temple.
2 Chronicles 7:20
“Then will I pluck them up by the roots - How completely has this been fulfilled! not only all the branches of the Jewish political tree have been cut off, but the very roots have been plucked up; so that the day of the Lord’s anger has left them neither root nor branch.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a heap of rubble: The ruined house becomes a sign that strangers read. All who pass by ask why, and verse 22 supplies the answer they are given. Clarke finds the ruin astonishing, since no nation was ever so highly favored and none so severely punished.
2 Chronicles 7:21
“Shall be an astonishment - The manner in which these disobedient people have been destroyed is truly astonishing: no nation was ever so highly favored, and none ever so severely and signally punished.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The answer names the Exodus, so the God they forsook is the God who brought them out of Egypt. Clarke observes that while Israel held to God the strongest enemy made no impression on them. Once they forsook him, the weakest foes reduced them to bondage.
2 Chronicles 7:22
“Because they forsook the Lord - While they cleaved to God, the most powerful enemy could make no impression on them; but when they forsook him, then the weakest and most inconsiderable of their foes harassed, oppressed, and reduced them to bondage and misery. It was by no personal prowess, genuine heroism, or supereminent military tactics, that the Jews were enabled to resist and overcome their enemies; it was by the Divine power alone; for, destitute of this, they were even worse than other men.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative in two halves, a dedication answered by fire and a covenant given by night, as Barnes classes it.
A Solomon's wisdom, wealth and chariots
1:1-17
B Huram of Tyre and the foreign workforce gathered
2:1-18
C The house built, and finished
3:1-5:1
X The ark brought up, the glory fills the house, the prayer and the answer
5:2-7:10
C′ God appears by night, the house accepted and a warning attached
7:11-22
B′ Huram again and the queen of Sheba, the nations coming to Solomon
8:1-9:12
A′ Solomon's wisdom, wealth and chariots
9:13-28
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The Solomon narrative built around the dedication | The dossier carries a proposed ring over the whole reign, 1:1 to 9:31, with the dedication at its centre. Its source is Raymond B. Dillard, The Literary Structure of the Chronicler's Solomon Narrative, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 30, 1984, carried into his 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987. The status of the reading is proposed, and the figure keeps that word. This chapter holds both the close of the centre at 7:10 and the limb that answers the building account from 7:11.Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987. | 2 Chronicles 7:10, 2 Chronicles 7:11, 2 Chronicles 7:12, 2 Chronicles 7:22 |
| The three judgments and the four conditions | Verse 13 names three judgments the law had already tied to covenant breach, heaven shut up, locusts sent to devour the land, and pestilence sent among the people. Verse 14 answers with four conditions, humbling, prayer, seeking the face of God and turning from wicked ways, and with three promises, hearing, forgiveness and healing of the land. Albert Barnes marks verses 13 to 15 as material this book alone carries, absent from the parallel in 1 Kings.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 7:13. | 2 Chronicles 7:13, 2 Chronicles 7:14, 2 Chronicles 7:15 |
| The promise and the warning, matched in weight | The night answer closes in two halves of the same size. Verses 17 and 18 promise an established throne if Solomon walks as David walked. Verses 19 to 22 warn that turning to other gods will see Israel plucked out of the land and this house cast out of sight, so that a passer by asks why. Adam Clarke reads the outcome against the promise's own condition, and reads the plucking up as fulfilled to the letter in the exile of 36:15 to 21.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 7:17. | 2 Chronicles 7:17, 2 Chronicles 7:18, 2 Chronicles 7:19, 2 Chronicles 7:22 |
Where the chapter stands in the book
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
The book page calls the dedication prayer and the night answer, climaxing at 7:14, the theological centre of 2 Chronicles. In the proposed ring the dossier carries for the Solomon panel, the centre runs from 5:2 to 7:10 and closes in this chapter. The night appearance at 7:11 to 22 answers the building account of 3:1 to 5:1. The ring is drawn in full in the figure above, and its status stays proposed.
The guide's theme table reads 7:14 as operative history in this book. The pattern of humbling and answer is what the Chronicler then shows happening, at Rehoboam in 12:6 and 12:7 and at Manasseh in 33:12 and 33:13.
The historical value
The dossier's timeline anchors the dedication at about 959 BC, at 2 Chronicles 7:14. The assembly gathers from Lebo Hamath in the north to the Wadi of Egypt in the south, the full length of the land. The offering is counted at twenty two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. Adam Clarke reads that tally as the total across both weeks rather than one day's count.
The dossier sets chapters 2 through 7 beside the Mesopotamian temple-building inscriptions, where a dedication festival and the deity taking up residence close the fixed sequence. Victor Hurowitz set the sequence out in I Have Built You an Exalted House, 1992. The dossier's verdict names two things with no counterpart in the genre. No image is installed in the shrine, and the house is filled by the glory of a God who says heaven cannot contain him at 6:18.
The debated concept
The one contested point this chapter carries is the question of who 7:14 addresses, and the site's dossier and study guide both hold it open. The verse is spoken by God to Solomon at night, about the house just dedicated, in answer to the drought, locusts and pestilence named one verse earlier.
On the covenant-specific reading, the promise is addressed to Israel under the Mosaic and Davidic covenant, praying toward this house, and it is tied to the land and temple structure of Deuteronomy 28 to 30. The dossier names the immediate context of 7:12 to 16 and the standard commentaries, Raymond B. Dillard's 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987, among them.
On the pattern reading, the four conditions are the standing shape of repentance wherever it happens, and the dossier names the long devotional and revival tradition, prominent in American preaching from the eighteenth century onward. Two voices on the site's roster read the verse operationally. Rev. Owen Murphy treats it as the operational foundation of revival prayer, by the roster's node, and Dutch Sheets builds his covenant prayer theology on it in Intercessory Prayer, 1996. Matthew Henry reads the fourfold condition as a pattern for national repentance while grounding it first in Israel's own temple covenant.
Both readings hold that the conditions come before the promise. Both name the popular civic use of the verse, detached from either reading, as the point most likely to claim more than the text says. The site states no verdict.
The New Testament and the later record
The site's study guide reads the pattern of 7:14 as the gospel shape in miniature, humbling, prayer, seeking and turning answered by hearing, forgiveness and healing. It sets the pattern beside Acts 3:19 and James 4:8 to 10. The reading is offered as a cross-link rather than as a claim of this verse.
The fire of verse 1 belongs to a series the church has read as one. Leviticus 9:24, 1 Chronicles 21:26 and 1 Kings 18:38 each record fire falling on a sacrifice, and John Gill reads all of them as the same token of acceptance.
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People and groups1
Places1
Words12
Subjects2
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 context
Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 7:12; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 7:11; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Chronicles 7:1 and Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services; Clement of Rome, Clement's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 8; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.