Saturday, May 11, 2024

II Chronicles 7, Joyful Completion and Promise

Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple.

2 Chronicles 7:1-4, Glory in the temple
When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it.
 
When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, 
"He is good; his love endures forever."
Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.

The presence of God is again visible, as it was in chapter 5 when the ark was moved into the temple.

2 Chronicles 7: 5-10, Twenty-two thousand cattle sacrificed
And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the people dedicated the temple of God. The priests took their positions, as did the Levites with the LORD's musical instruments, which King David had made for praising the LORD and which were used when he gave thanks, saying, 
"His love endures forever."
Opposite the Levites, the priests blew their trumpets, and all the Israelites were standing. Solomon consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the LORD, and there he offered burnt offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar he had made could not hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat portions.
 
Numerous sacrifices are made in the temple. (Obviously the giant altar described in 4:1, twenty cubits wide, ten cubits tall, is necessary for such a mammoth set of sacrifices.) If the number 22000 is not hyperbole then this must have taken many days. The possibility that the sacrifices took several weeks appears below. The parallel passage in 1 Kings 8:63 identifies the sacrifices as "fellowship" (or "peace") offerings, offerings in which the sacrificed animal was eaten by the people. 

The refrain of God's longterm hesed is repeated twice already in this chapter.

2 Chronicles 7:8-10, Three weeks of feasting
So Solomon observed the festival at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him--a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. 

On the eighth day they held an assembly, for they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days more. 

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad in heart for the good things the LORD had done for David and Solomon and for his people Israel.

The temple dedication and celebration appears to last for three weeks! The people who attend come from the far north (The location of Lebo Hamath is not certain. Lebo Hamath may be located near the modern town of Hama, Syria, north of Damascas or Labweh, Lebanon. Regardless, it was a long distance north of Jerusalem. There is more confidence in the identification of the Wadi of Egypt; it was probably Wadi el-Arish, a riverbed on the border of Egypt and Israel.

Payne says that the "eighth day" identified above would have been the end of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The first ten verses of this chapter are roughly parallel to 1 Kings 8:62-66.

2 Chronicles 7:11-15, A promise to the people called by His name
When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said: 
"I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will 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. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

This night vision occurs a long time after the dedication of the temple. (1 Kings 7:1 says that it took an additional thirteen years for Solomon to build the palace.) In this vision, Solomon is reassured that YHWH is watching over Israel as His special people, called by His name (Deuteronomy 28:9-11, Daniel 9: 18-19)

Modern readers must be careful with verse 14. Although one can argue that any nation benefits by an emphasis on righteousness and justice ("Righteousness exalts a nation..." Proverbs 14:34), verse 14 is a promise to a particular nation, Old Testament Israel, governed here by Solomon, with sacrifices regularly offered at the temple in Jerusalem. The promise begins with the statement that YHWH has chosen that temple for sacrifices and ends, further down the page, with a description of the remains of the temple should the Israelites abandon God.

2 Chronicles 7:16-18, My Name there forever
I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

"As for you, if you walk before me as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, `You shall never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.'

God will place His name forever on that temple. And the throne of David will continue forever -- but conditions are to be met -- the People need to follow YHWH, observing His decrees.

2 Chronicles 7:19-23, But if you turn away...
"But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 

And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, `Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?'

People will answer, `Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them--that is why he brought all this disaster on them.'"

As with the Blessings and Curses of Moses's time, here there are consequences for forsaking YHWH and His Law. The People of God will be uprooted and the temple torn down.  People will walk by the ruins and ask "How could YHWH do this?" The disaster foretold here will occur in II Kings 25.

Much of the Old Testament history will detail the failure of Israel in following God's decrees. Yet, even as the nation falls apart, the promise of a ruler from David's line will be repeated. (See, for example, Micah 5:2.)

The last half of this chapter has a parallel in 1 Kings 9:1-9.

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