2 Chronicles7chapter 7

offered sacrifices before the Lord: The scale is deliberately vast, twenty and two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep, more than one bronze altar was built to hold, which is why the next verse has to hallow the court itself for extra altars. The Levites minister on instruments of music of the Lord, which David the king had made to praise the Lord, the institution Chronicles alone traces to the singers appointed under Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun in 1 Chr 25, and the refrain his mercy endureth for ever sounds a second time in this chapter. Clarke reads the tally as the total offered across both the seven days of dedication and the seven days of the feast that followed, not one day's count.

hallowed the middle of the court: The bronze altar cannot hold what the day requires, so Solomon consecrates the open court itself for the extra burnt offerings, meat offerings and fat, a detail Gill reads as running near word for word with 1 Ki 8:64. The dedication of the altar takes seven days, the feast of tabernacles that follows takes seven more, and an eighth day solemn assembly closes it, the same fourteen days already kept in the parallel account at 1 Ki 8:65-66. Israel gathers from the entering in of Hamath to the river of Egypt, the full length of the land, and goes home on the twenty-third day glad and merry in heart for the goodness shown to David, to Solomon and to Israel.

Thus Solomon finished the house: The building finished and prosperously effected closes the construction half of the chapter and opens the second, the night visit that answers the dedication prayer of chapter six. Barnes marks this verse as the seam: from here the Chronicles account runs parallel to 1 Ki 9:1-9, fuller in places and closer to word for word in others, with verses thirteen through fifteen carrying material Kings does not have at all. Henry reads what Solomon set his heart to make and carried through as the mark of a king who finished by grace and not by his own strength alone.

appeared to Solomon by night: This is the second time the Lord appears to Solomon, after the dream at Gibeon in 2 Chr 1:7-13, and this meeting follows a finished house rather than a fresh reign. Clarke calls it plainly a second manifestation, pointing back to the first and forward to the parallel note at 1 Ki 9:2-9. The Lord names what he has chosen the place for, an house of sacrifice, where the parallel at 1 Ki 9:3 names it the place where his name will dwell for ever, sacrifice and name both true of the one house rather than standing against each other.

If I shut up heaven: Three judgments are named that the law had already tied to covenant breach: shut heaven, devouring locusts, and pestilence sent among the people. Barnes and the wider bench mark verses thirteen through fifteen as material this book alone carries, absent from the parallel in Kings. The answer in verse fourteen is Scripture's only occurrence of if my people, which 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, spoken about this house and this land to a king who has just finished building both. Henry reads the promise as national mercy, forgiveness for the sin that brought the judgment and healing for what it broke; later readers have carried the verse out past its own covenant setting to any praying people, a use the words invite without the text itself naming a nation beyond Israel.

mine eyes shall be open: The promise of hearing turns concrete: mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place, answering the petitions Solomon prayed toward this house in chapter six. Barnes reads the phrase as covering both prayers offered inside the house and prayers offered only toward it from a distance, the two cases Solomon's own prayer had named. Verse sixteen seals the choice as lasting, this house chosen and sanctified that my name may be there for ever, and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually, the same name-in-the-house formula Keil notes 1 Ki 9:3 already states from its own side of the parallel.

as David thy father walked: The promise turns conditional and personal: if Solomon walks before the Lord as David thy father walked and keeps the statutes and judgments given him, the throne of thy kingdom stands established, the same covenant made with David in 1 Chr 17 and named again as the throne of the kingdom of the Lord at 1 Chr 28:5. Clarke reads the outcome honestly against the promise's own condition, writing that there shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel was not fulfilled because the condition that carried it was not kept either. The if governs the rest of the book's account of the divided and then exiled kingdom.

if ye turn away, and forsake: The warning matches the promise in weight: turning to serve other gods brings Israel plucked up by the roots out of the land, and this house, which is high, cast out of the Lord's sight to become a proverb and a byword among all nations, an astonishment to everyone who passes it and asks why. Clarke reads the plucking up as fulfilled to the letter in the exile that closes the book at 36:15-21, root and branch alike. The answer the passerby is told to give names one cause for it all: because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers and worshipped other gods, therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them, the same verdict the book will hand down on the last kings it names.