2 Chronicles 7:18

Solomon had prayed at length at the dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 6), asking God to hear the prayers offered at that house and to forgive his people when they turned back to him. Fire had come down from heaven on the offerings, and the glory of the LORD had filled the house (2 Chronicles 7:1–11). When the public days are over, God comes to the king himself and answers him. The same appearance is told in 1 Kings 9:1–9.

“Appeared” is râʼâh, the verb for seeing, used here of the LORD making himself known to Solomon in person. The initiative is God’s. He comes by night, as he came to Jacob in the dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:10–17) and called Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1–10). The fire and the glory had been seen by all Israel, and this word is for the king alone, a private and solemn word about the house and its future.

“I have heard thy prayer” is the first thing God says. He is the God who hears prayer (Psalm 65:2), and Solomon’s long petition has been received and accepted.

“Chosen” is bâchar, to choose or select. Moses had told Israel that the LORD would choose a place for his name (Deuteronomy 12:5, 12:11), and here God names it. The temple is holy because God chose it, and Solomon’s building and David’s long desire were taken up into a choice that God had promised to make.

He calls it “an house of sacrifice”. Bayith is the word for house and zevach is a sacrifice or slaughter. Burnt offerings, sin offerings and peace offerings were brought to this house, and under the old covenant they were the appointed way of atonement, thanksgiving and fellowship with God, because the life is in the blood and God gave it for atonement (Leviticus 17:11). God had commanded the tabernacle so that he might dwell among Israel (Exodus 25:8), and he had promised to meet them there and be their God (Exodus 29:43–46). The temple now takes the tabernacle’s place as the fixed home of that promise.

Before the promise comes the trouble it answers. God names three disasters, and in each he is the one acting. “Shut up” is ʻâtsâr, to restrain or hold back, so a drought is the LORD holding back the rain. “Command” is tsâvâh, to give an order, and the locusts go where he sends them, as they did in the eighth plague on Egypt (Exodus 10). “Pestilence” is deber, a plague or epidemic, from a root with the sense of destroying.

Israel lived by farming and depended on the rains, so a closed heaven meant famine, a locust swarm could strip the fields, and disease could cut down a population. These were the very things the law of Moses had warned of if Israel broke the covenant (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28:15–68), and the people would have recognised them at once. The same pattern runs through the Old Testament. In the days of the judges Israel served other gods and was given over to oppression (Judges 2:11–15). Jeremiah told Judah that their sins had kept the rain from them (Jeremiah 5:24–25), Ezekiel speaks of God’s four sore judgments (Ezekiel 14:12–23), and Amos names famine, drought and plague as discipline God sent on his people (Amos 4:6–9). Death and famine ride out again when the fourth seal is opened (Revelation 6:7–8).

God sends such discipline to bring his people to repentance before worse comes. Moses set life and death before Israel and urged them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19–20), and the next words God speaks to Solomon are a promise. He is holy and just, and he is merciful, and verses 13 and 14 show both together.

The promise is made to “my people, which are called by my name”. That is Israel, the nation God took as his own treasure (Exodus 19:5). To be called by his name is to belong to him and to carry his reputation in the world, which is both a privilege and a responsibility. The word “my” keeps returning in the verse, in “my people”, “my name” and “my face”, and it shows how personal this bond is.

God asks four things of his people when they are under his hand.

• Humble themselves. The verb kânaʻ means to humble oneself or to be brought low. It is the opposite of pride and self-reliance, an honest owning of sin and of need. This is the broken and contrite heart of Psalm 51:17.
• Pray. They are to speak to God directly, asking for themselves and interceding for others.
• Seek my face. The verb bâqash means to search out or seek, and pânîym is the face, and so a person’s presence. To seek God’s face is to want God himself, his presence, his favour and his will, and to keep after him. It is the desire voiced in Psalm 27:8, and God says through Jeremiah that those who call on him and seek him will find him (Jeremiah 29:12–13).
• Turn from their wicked ways. The verb shûwb means to turn back or return. Repentance is a change of direction, away from sin and back to God and his ways, as Isaiah says when he calls the wicked to forsake his way and return to the LORD (Isaiah 55:7).

The four move from the heart outward: a lowly attitude, then prayer, then an earnest pursuit of God, then a changed life. James gives the same call when he tells us to draw near to God and humble ourselves before him (James 4:8–10). Jesus taught each part of it, that the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12), that we ought always to pray (Luke 18:1), and that we must repent (Luke 13:3).

God then binds himself to three things. He will “hear from heaven”, which means that the God whose throne is above all gives his attention to his people’s cry. He will “forgive their sin”, removing the guilt that stood between them and him, and this is the centre of the promise, because it restores the covenant bond. And he will “heal their land”.

Verse 15 grants what Solomon asked in his own terms, for he had prayed that God’s eyes would be open and his ears attent to the prayer made in this place (2 Chronicles 6:40). “Open” is pâthach, to open wide, and open eyes are watchful eyes. “Attent” is qashshâb, attentive or hearkening, which is listening with a readiness to answer. “Prayer” is tᵉphillâh, a general word for prayer that includes intercession, so every sincere cry made there is covered. The psalmist could say that God had heard him and attended to the voice of his prayer (Psalm 66:19–20), and John writes of the confidence we have that God hears us when we ask according to his will (1 John 5:14–15).

Verse 16 gives the reason. God has “chosen and sanctified this house”. “Sanctified” is qādaš, to make holy or set apart for sacred use. Solomon had spent seven years building it (1 Kings 6:38), and still its holiness came from God’s act, as the tabernacle and all in it had been anointed and hallowed before it (Exodus 40:9–11).

The purpose is “that my name may be there for ever”. God’s name stands for God himself, his character, his authority and his presence, and Solomon had prayed toward the place of which God said his name would be there (1 Kings 8:29). A psalm says that the LORD has chosen Zion and desired it for his dwelling (Psalm 132:13–14). Solomon knew how much larger God is than any building, for he had confessed, “heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee”, and Isaiah says that heaven is God’s throne and the earth his footstool, and that he looks to the humble and contrite (Isaiah 66:1–2). The temple was the place where the God of heaven had appointed to meet his people.

“Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.” The eyes speak of his watchful care and the heart of his affection and concern. “Perpetually” translates yôwm, the word for day, used here for an unbroken span of time.

With “as for thee” God turns to Solomon himself. “Walk” is yâlak, to walk, literally or as a figure for the way a person lives. To walk before God is to live the whole of life in his sight, with integrity and as one who answers to him, and it is the call God gave to Abraham (Genesis 17:1). For a king it meant ruling justly, leading the nation in worship and keeping God’s law in public and in private.

The obedience asked is complete: “all that I have commanded thee”. “Commanded” is tsâvâh, the same verb that sent the locusts in verse 13, and it marks these as orders from the King over the king. “Statutes” is chôq, something prescribed, a decree or ordinance, and “judgments” is mishpâṭ, a legal decision that applies justice to a case. Together they take in the whole law given through Moses, in worship and in civil life. The law had promised blessing for such obedience (Deuteronomy 28:1–14), Joshua had been charged to keep it and prosper (Joshua 1:7–8), and the first psalm calls the man blessed who delights in it (Psalm 1:1–3).

The warning is spoken to the king and the nation together. “Turn away” is shûwb, the verb that named repentance in verse 14, here used of turning from God. “Forsake” is ʻâzab, to leave or abandon what was once held. “Statutes” here is ḥuqqâ, the feminine form of the chôq of verse 17 with the same meaning, and “commandments” is miṣwâ, God’s particular instructions. He adds “which I have set before you”, because the law had been given plainly and Israel knew it.

The turning ends in idolatry: “go and serve other gods, and worship them”. “Serve” is ʻâbad, to work, labour, serve or worship, so it covers a life given to these gods, and “worship” adds the acts of bowing to them. This breaks the first of the commandments given at Sinai (Exodus 20:3–6). Israel lived among nations full of idols, and their history in Kings and Chronicles shows them going after those gods again and again. Joshua had warned that if they forsook the LORD he would turn and consume them (Joshua 24:20), and Jeremiah records God’s plea, “Obey my voice”, and the people’s walking in their own counsels (Jeremiah 7:23–24).

Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, and he was speaking of his body (John 2:19–21). He is the Word made flesh who dwelt among us (John 1:14), in him all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9), and he said that one greater than the temple had come (Matthew 12:6). The chosen place where God meets man is now a person.

The house of sacrifice pointed to him as well. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). His one offering has perfected for ever those who are sanctified and brought the animal sacrifices to their end (Hebrews 10:10–14), and he entered the holy place by his own blood, through a greater tabernacle than any made with hands (Hebrews 9:11–12). When he died the veil of the temple was torn (Matthew 27:51). So we have boldness to enter by his blood (Hebrews 10:19–22) and access with confidence through faith in him (Ephesians 3:12), and he ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). The open eyes and attentive ears once promised to “this place” are ours in him.

He also took the curses of this passage on himself. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5–6) and made to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became the byword, despised and rejected of men (Isaiah 53:3) and scorned by those who saw him (Psalm 22:6–7). Through him God has reconciled us to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). The one by whom all things were created (Colossians 1:16) calmed storms and healed diseases, showing his authority over the very things God used in judgment, and the call of verse 14 is answered in the gospel’s call to repent (Acts 2:38).

Where Solomon failed, Jesus obeyed. He came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17) and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8), and by his obedience many are made righteous (Romans 5:19). He brings a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6–13), in which God writes his law on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33) and gives his Spirit so that his people walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:27). So we walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4) and in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). The warning against other gods is answered in him too. He is the Word who was God (John 1:1), given the name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11), the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), and salvation is found in his name alone (Acts 4:12).

His people are now God’s house. We are lively stones built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), with Christ as the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:19–22), and Paul tells the church, “ye are the temple of God” (1 Corinthians 3:16). The security of that house rests on Christ. The warning still stands for those who refuse him, whom the Son of man will gather out of his kingdom at the end (Matthew 13:41–42).

God hears prayer. He told Solomon so in as many words, and he described the worst years his people could have, with the sky shut and the land sick, as years when the way back to him would be open. The way is the same in every generation: a humbled heart, prayer, a real seeking of God, and a turning from sin. He promises to answer it with forgiveness first, and then with healing.

The passage also shows that God’s gifts are held in fellowship with him. Israel had the land, the temple and the throne, and each was a gift that came with the Giver. A church’s history, a family’s faith or a long record of service is the same kind of gift, and the temple’s story shows that such things never stood in for a heart that is near to God.

The other gods of verse 19 are with us still. Paul calls covetousness idolatry (Colossians 3:5), and wealth, success, comfort and reputation can take the place in a life that belongs to God alone. Jesus gives the answer to that drift in his words “Abide in me” (John 15:4). And since God’s people are his temple now, the way we live either honours his name before those who pass by or leaves them asking why.

God told Solomon all this on the best day of his reign. He gave the promise and the warning together, with the question and its answer written down beforehand, so that his people in every age would know both how seriously he takes their sin and how ready he is to forgive it.