2 Chronicles 6

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King Solomon dedicates the newly built Temple, acknowledging God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promise to David. He offers a profound prayer, asking God to hear and forgive His people when they turn towards this house in various times of distress or sin. Solomon petitions God to maintain His covenant, judge righteously, and extend mercy to Israel and even to strangers who seek Him.

Solomon’s Address on the Temple 1–11

¶ Then said Solomon, The LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.

But I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever.

And the king turned his face, and blessed the whole congregation of Israel: and all the congregation of Israel stood.

And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who hath with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth to my father David, saying,

Since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build an house in, that my name might be there; neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel:

But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel.

Now it was in the heart of David my father to build an house for the name of the LORD God of Israel.

But the LORD said to David my father, Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my name, thou didst well in that it was in thine heart:

Notwithstanding thou shalt not build the house; but thy son which shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house for my name.

The LORD therefore hath performed his word that he hath spoken: for I am risen up in the room of David my father, and am set on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built the house for the name of the LORD God of Israel.

And in it have I put the ark, wherein is the covenant of the LORD, that he made with the children of Israel.

Solomon Assumes the Posture of Prayer 12–17

¶ And he stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands:

For Solomon had made a brasen scaffold, of five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court: and upon it he stood, and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven,

And said, O LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and shewest mercy unto thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts:

Thou which hast kept with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him; and spakest with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day.

Now therefore, O LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit upon the throne of Israel; yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my law, as thou hast walked before me.

Now then, O LORD God of Israel, let thy word be verified, which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David.

The Dedicatory Prayer: The Paradox of God’s Presence 18–21

But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!

Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee:

That thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.

Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place: hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive.

Petitions for Justice and Repentance 22–31

If a man sin against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to make him swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house;

Then hear thou from heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness.

And if thy people Israel be put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee; and shall return and confess thy name, and pray and make supplication before thee in this house;

Then hear thou from the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest to them and to their fathers.

When the heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; yet if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them;

Then hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, when thou hast taught them the good way, wherein they should walk; and send rain upon thy land, which thou hast given unto thy people for an inheritance.

If there be dearth in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting, or mildew, locusts, or caterpillers; if their enemies besiege them in the cities of their land; whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be:

Then what prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man, or of all thy people Israel, when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house:

Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:)

That they may fear thee, to walk in thy ways, so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

Prayer for the Stranger 32–35

Moreover concerning the stranger, which is not of thy people Israel, but is come from a far country for thy great name's sake, and thy mighty hand, and thy stretched out arm; if they come and pray in this house;

Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name.

If thy people go out to war against their enemies by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray unto thee toward this city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name;

Then hear thou from the heavens their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

Prayer for Captives and Exile 36–39

If they sin against thee, (for there is no man which sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near;

Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly;

If they return to thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, whither they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, and toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name:

Then hear thou from the heavens, even from thy dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people which have sinned against thee.

Final Appeal and Conclusion 40–42

Now, my God, let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open, and let thine ears be attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

Now therefore arise, O LORD God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness.

O LORD God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

Study Notes for 2 Chronicles 6

Verse 1

the thick darkness — Arafel, the dark cloud at Sinai, where ‘Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was’ (Ex 20:21; Deut 4:11). The LORD said he would ‘appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat’ (Lev 16:2). Solomon speaks as the cloud of 5:13–14 fills the house, and 1 Kgs 8:12 records the same words.

Verse 2

an house of habitation — Zebul, an exalted dwelling, found in five verses: here, 1 Kgs 8:13, Ps 49:14, Isa 63:15 and Hab 3:11. In Isa 63:15 it is God’s dwelling in heaven, ‘the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory’. Solomon calls the house a place for the LORD’s dwelling, and v.21 asks him to hear ‘from heaven’.

Verse 4

with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth — The word to David was that his son ‘shall build an house for my name’ (2 Sam 7:13). Mouth and hands name promise and deed. ‘Blessed be the LORD God of Israel’ is the praise Zacharias opens with at Luke 1:68, ‘for he hath visited and redeemed his people’.

Verse 5

that my name might be there — Moses had said the LORD would choose a place ‘to put his name there’ (Deut 12:5). Solomon states that until David no city had been chosen for it, and that the choice of the city (v.6) and of the king lay with the LORD, not with Israel.

Verse 12

spread forth his hands — Paras, to spread out the palms, the gesture of Moses when he ‘spread abroad his hands unto the LORD’ and the thunders ceased (Ex 9:33). Solomon prays standing ‘before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation’, and v.13 tells how he stood and then knelt.

Verse 13

a brasen scaffold — Five cubits square and three high, the measure of the brass altar of the tabernacle (Ex 27:1). The Hebrew, kiyyor, is the word translated ‘laver’ in 4:6. ‘Kneeled down’ is barak, the same root as ‘Blessed be the LORD’ in v.4; 1 Kgs 8:54 says he rose ‘from kneeling on his knees’.

Verse 14

there is no God like thee — The question of Ex 15:11, ‘Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?’, becomes a statement. ‘Keepest covenant, and shewest mercy’ (berith and chesed) is the pairing of Deut 7:9, ‘keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him’, here for those who ‘walk before thee with all their hearts’.

Verse 18

heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee — Solomon had said the same to Huram before the work began (2 Chr 2:6). The LORD says through Isaiah, ‘The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me?’ (Isa 66:1), which Stephen cites in Acts 7:48–49, and Paul in Acts 17:24.

Verse 20

thine eyes may be open upon this house — ‘Day and night’ asks that the LORD’s eyes rest on the place where he said he would ‘put his name’ (Deut 12:5, 11). The LORD answers in his own words in 7:15: ‘Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.’

Verse 21

hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven — The house is where prayer is directed and heaven is where it is heard. ‘Forgive’ is salach, the verb of the sin offering: ‘it shall be forgiven them’ (Lev 4:20). The refrain ‘then hear thou from heaven’ (or ‘from the heavens’) follows each petition that comes after (vv.23, 25, 27, 30, 33, 35, 39).

Verse 22

an oath be laid upon him — A dispute between neighbours is settled by an oath, as the law provided (Ex 22:11), and here the oath comes ‘before thine altar’. Solomon asks the LORD to answer from heaven by ‘requiting the wicked’ and ‘justifying the righteous’ (v.23). Christ later teaches that to swear by the altar is to swear by it ‘and by all things thereon’ (Matt 23:20).

Verse 24

put to the worse before the enemy — Nagaph, to be struck, is the word of Deut 28:25, ‘The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies’, and Lev 26:17 gives the same warning. The way back Solomon names, to return, confess and pray, is that of Deut 4:29–31, which ends ‘the LORD thy God is a merciful God’.

Verse 26

the heaven is shut up — The drought is the curse of Lev 26:19 and Deut 28:23, ‘thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass’. Christ speaks of the days of Elias ‘when the heaven was shut up three years and six months’ (Luke 4:25). The remedy is to ‘pray toward this place’, to ‘confess thy name’, and to ‘turn from their sin’.

Verse 28

locusts, or caterpillers — Blasting and mildew are strokes named in Deut 28:22, and the locust (arbeh) and the caterpillar (chasil) are two of the four creatures of Joel 1:4. The LORD promises ‘I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten’ (Joel 2:25). In v.29 each one who ‘shall know his own sore and his own grief’ may pray.

Verse 32

the stranger — Nokri, a foreigner who comes ‘for thy great name’s sake’. He is drawn by the ‘stretched out arm’ of the Exodus (Deut 4:34). In v.33 the purpose is ‘that all people of the earth may know thy name’. Isaiah calls the house ‘an house of prayer for all people’ (Isa 56:7), words Christ quotes in Mark 11:17.

Verse 34

by the way that thou shalt send them — The war here is one the LORD sends them into, and the prayer is ‘toward this city which thou hast chosen’. Jehoshaphat stood before ‘this house’ and pleaded these terms when enemies came, ‘we stand before this house, and in thy presence, (for thy name is in this house,)’ (2 Chr 20:9).

Verse 36

there is no man which sinneth not — The same truth is stated in Eccl 7:20 and 1 John 1:8. The prayer foresees captivity ‘far off or near’ before it happens, and Moses had warned that the LORD would ‘scatter thee among all people’ (Deut 28:64). Solomon asks for mercy in the very condition the law threatened.

Verse 37

if they bethink themselves — Literally ‘bring back to heart’ (shuv and lev), the phrase of Deut 30:1, ‘thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations’. The three Hebrew verbs rendered ‘sinned’, ‘done amiss’ and ‘dealt wickedly’ are the same three that open Daniel’s confession in Dan 9:5.

Verse 38

with all their heart and with all their soul — The words of Deut 4:29 and 30:2. Prayer is offered ‘toward their land’, ‘the city’, and ‘the house’, as Daniel prayed with his windows ‘open in his chamber toward Jerusalem’ (Dan 6:10). Jeremiah gave the captives the same promise: ‘ye shall seek me, and find me’ (Jer 29:13–14).

Verse 40

let thine ears be attent — The eyes of v.20 are joined by the ears. Qashab, ‘attent’, is found only here and 7:15, and as ‘attentive’ in Neh 1:6, 11 and Ps 130:2. The request sums up all the cases of the prayer before it turns to the ark in v.41.

Verse 41

arise, O LORD God, into thy resting place — The ending is from Ps 132:8–10: ‘Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.’ It echoes Moses at the ark’s setting forward, ‘Rise up, LORD’ (Num 10:35). The priests are to be ‘clothed with salvation’, as the LORD says of them in Ps 132:16.

Verse 42

turn not away the face of thine anointed — The words are those of Ps 132:10. ‘The mercies of David’ (chesed) are the covenant promises, ‘the sure mercies of David’ (Isa 55:3), which Paul applies to the resurrection of Christ (Acts 13:34). The answer comes at once: ‘the fire came down from heaven’ (7:1).