2 Chronicles 7
God Responds with Fire and Glory 1–3
The Dedication Feast and Sacrifices 4–11
God Appears and Gives Conditions 12–22
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for 2 Chronicles 7
Verse 1
the fire came down from heaven — The sign given at the tabernacle’s first sacrifices, when ‘there came a fire out from before the LORD’ (Lev 9:24), and to David at the altar he built, when ‘he answered him from heaven by fire’ (1 Chr 21:26). It falls as soon as Solomon ends his prayer, and with it the glory fills the house, as in 5:14.
Verse 2
the priests could not enter — At 5:14 they ‘could not stand to minister’; now they ‘could not enter’, as Moses ‘was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation’ when the glory filled the tabernacle (Ex 40:35). Rev 15:8 gives the same sign for the temple in heaven: ‘no man was able to enter into the temple’.
Verse 3
they bowed themselves — The people fall with their faces to the ground, as at the first fire on the altar when ‘they shouted, and fell on their faces’ (Lev 9:24). They then sing the refrain the Levites sang at the opening, ‘For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever’ (5:13), which Jehoshaphat’s singers use again before battle (20:21).
Verse 5
twenty and two thousand oxen — The same figures are given in 1 Kgs 8:63, where they are peace offerings. The fat of such offerings was burned on the altar, for ‘all the fat is the LORD’S’ (Lev 3:16). ‘Dedicated’ is chanak, the verb behind the ‘dedication’ (chanukkah) of the altar in Num 7:10 and in v.9 here.
Verse 7
hallowed the middle of the court — The brass altar Solomon made (4:1) was twenty cubits square, and still it ‘was not able to receive’ all the burnt offerings, meat offerings and fat. So the ground before the house was set apart (qadash) for the day, as 1 Kgs 8:64 also records.
Verse 9
a solemn assembly — Atsarah, the closing gathering ‘on the eighth day’ of the feast of tabernacles (Lev 23:36; Num 29:35). The people had kept ‘the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days’, and were sent home on the twenty-third day of the month (v.10).
Verse 11
he prosperously effected — Tsalach, to prosper, the word of David’s charge to Solomon, ‘the LORD be with thee; and prosper thou, and build the house’ (1 Chr 22:11). David added a condition: ‘Then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments’ (1 Chr 22:13). The LORD’s reply in vv.12–22 restates it.
Verse 12
an house of sacrifice — Zebach, the offerings of the law that were to be brought to the one place the LORD would choose (Deut 12:5–6). The LORD ‘appeared’ to Solomon ‘the second time’ (1 Kgs 9:2), as he had at Gibeon. He says he has heard the prayer, and his reply in vv.13–15 takes up the cases Solomon had set out.
Verse 13
I shut up heaven — The LORD names the afflictions Solomon had listed and takes them as his own acts. ‘Shut up’ is atsar, the verb of 6:26, and the locusts and pestilence are those of 6:28. Moses had taught the same: ‘he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain’ (Deut 11:17).
Verse 14
if my people, which are called by my name — Four verbs: humble themselves (kana), pray, seek my face, turn. This book shows it taking place: Rehoboam’s princes ‘humbled themselves’ and the LORD said ‘I will not destroy them’ (12:6–7), and Manasseh ‘humbled himself greatly’ (33:12). In Hezekiah’s day the LORD ‘healed the people’ (30:20).
Verse 16
mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually — The LORD’s eyes answer Solomon’s request in 6:20, and v.15 adds the ears of 6:40. Here he adds his heart. The house is ‘chosen and sanctified’ (qadash), and ‘perpetually’ is literally ‘all the days’. The promise of ‘for ever’ is then set beside a condition in vv.19–20.
Verse 17
as David thy father walked — 1 Kgs 9:4 adds the manner, ‘in integrity of heart, and in uprightness’. The condition came to a test: Solomon’s heart, turned by his wives to other gods, ‘was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father’ (1 Kgs 11:4–6). This book does not record that end.
Verse 20
pluck them up by the roots — Nathash, the verb of Deut 29:28, ‘the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger’. ‘A proverb and a byword’ is the phrase of Deut 28:37. The house itself, ‘sanctified for my name’, is warned of rejection, and 2 Chr 36:19 records the fulfilment: ‘they burnt the house of God’.
Verse 22
because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers — The answer is given in the pattern of Deut 29:24–26 and Jer 22:8–9, where nations ask ‘Wherefore hath the LORD done thus…?’ and are told ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD’. Four verbs set out the charge: forsook, laid hold on other gods, worshipped them, served them.