2 Chronicles 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Solomon takes firm hold of the kingdom and leads the whole assembly to the worship site at Gibeon, where the Tent of Meeting and the bronze altar stand, and offers a thousand burnt offerings. That night God tells him to ask for whatever he wants; Solomon asks for wisdom and knowledge to govern the people, and God grants that along with riches, wealth, and honor beyond any king before or after him. The chapter closes with a record of Solomon's chariots, horses, and trade, opening the account of his reign that leads into the building of the temple.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • Solomon was the son of David.
   • Solomon strengthened himself in his kingdom.
   • The LORD his God was with Solomon.
   • The LORD magnified Solomon exceedingly.
2. 1:2
   • Solomon spoke to all Israel.
   • He spoke to the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds.
   • He spoke to the judges.
   • He spoke to every governor in all Israel.
   • He spoke to the chief men of the fathers' households.
3. 1:3
   • Solomon went to the high place at Gibeon.
   • All the congregation went with him.
   • The tent of meeting of God was at Gibeon.
   • Moses had made that tent of meeting in the wilderness.
   • Moses was the servant of the LORD.
4. 1:4
   • David had brought the ark of God up from Kirjath-jearim.
   • David had brought the ark to the place he had prepared for it.
   • David had pitched a tent for the ark at Jerusalem.
5. 1:5
   • Bezaleel had made the bronze altar.
   • Bezaleel was the son of Uri.
   • Uri was the son of Hur.
   • The bronze altar was placed before the tabernacle of the LORD.
   • It is not stated plainly whether Solomon or another set the bronze altar there.
   • Solomon and the congregation sought there, whether seeking the altar or seeking the LORD is not made explicit.
6. 1:6
   • Solomon went up to the bronze altar before the LORD.
   • The bronze altar was at the tent of meeting.
   • Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.
7. 1:7
   • God appeared to Solomon that night.
   • God told Solomon to ask what God should give him.
8. 1:8
   • Solomon spoke to God.
   • Solomon said God had shown great mercy to David his father.
   • Solomon said God had made him reign in David's place.
9. 1:9
   • Solomon asked that God's promise to David his father be established.
   • Solomon said God had made him king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
10. 1:10
    • Solomon asked God to give him wisdom and knowledge.
    • Solomon asked so that he might go out and come in before this people.
    • Solomon asked who is able to judge this great people of God's.
11. 1:11
    • God spoke to Solomon.
    • God said this was in Solomon's heart.
    • God said Solomon had not asked for riches, wealth, or honour.
    • God said Solomon had not asked for the life of his enemies.
    • God said Solomon had not asked for long life.
    • God said Solomon had asked wisdom and knowledge for himself.
    • God said Solomon asked it so that he might judge God's people.
    • God said he had made Solomon king over that people.
12. 1:12
    • God granted Solomon wisdom and knowledge.
    • God said he would give Solomon riches, wealth, and honour.
    • God said no king before Solomon had had the like.
    • God said no king after Solomon would have the like.
13. 1:13
    • Solomon came to Jerusalem from the high place at Gibeon.
    • Solomon came from before the tent of meeting.
    • Solomon reigned over Israel.
14. 1:14
    • Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen.
    • Solomon had one thousand four hundred chariots.
    • Solomon had twelve thousand horsemen.
    • Solomon stationed them in the chariot cities.
    • Solomon kept some of them with himself at Jerusalem.
15. 1:15
    • The king made silver and gold as plentiful as stones in Jerusalem.
    • The king made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamore trees of the lowland.
16. 1:16
    • Solomon's horses were brought out of Egypt.
    • Linen yarn was also brought.
    • The king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price.
17. 1:17
    • They brought a chariot out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver.
    • They brought a horse for a hundred and fifty shekels of silver.
    • They exported horses to all the kings of the Hittites.
    • They exported horses to the kings of Syria.
    • The exports went out through these merchants.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

In the King James, LORD printed in capital letters stands for God's own personal name, not just the title "lord."

1:2

"Commanders of a thousand" and "of a hundred" are ranks in a military structure built on units of that nominal size; the numbers are organizational labels rather than exact head counts. "Heads of the families" translates a phrase meaning the chiefs of the ancestral houses, the senior men of each extended clan, who held civil authority within their kin group.

1:3

A "high place" was an open-air place of sacrifice, usually on a hilltop or raised platform, with an altar and often other fittings. Gibeon was a town about six miles northwest of Jerusalem. The "tabernacle of the congregation," better rendered Tent of Meeting, was the portable tent-shrine described in Exodus as built under Moses in the desert; it was still standing at Gibeon in Solomon's day.

1:4

The ark was a gold-covered wooden chest containing the stone tablets of the covenant, carried on poles and treated as the most sacred object of Israel's worship. Kirjath-jearim was a town roughly nine miles west of Jerusalem where the ark had been kept for about twenty years after the Philistines returned it. The point of verses 3-5 is that the two great objects of worship were in two different places: the ark in David's new tent at Jerusalem, the old tabernacle and its altar still at Gibeon.

1:5

"Brasen" is the older English for bronze. Bezaleel (Bezalel) is named in Exodus as the master craftsman who built the tabernacle and its furnishings; naming him identifies this altar as the original one from Moses' time. "Sought unto it" means went there to consult God, to seek a decision or answer, not merely to visit.

1:6

A burnt offering was an animal killed and then burned whole on the altar, with no part of it eaten by the worshipers or priests. A thousand of them is a display of royal scale, far beyond ordinary practice.

1:7

God appears the night after the sacrifices, at the sanctuary. In the ancient world it was normal to spend the night at a holy site expecting a message in a dream, and that is the setting here.

1:8

The word behind "mercy" is Hebrew *hesed*, which means steady, loyal love within a committed relationship, faithfulness to an obligation rather than pardon for an offense.

1:9

The "promise unto David" is the pledge, recorded in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17, that David's line would hold the throne and his son would build the temple. "As many as the dust of the earth" is a stock Hebrew figure for a number too large to count, echoing the promises made to Abraham and Jacob.

1:10

"Go out and come in before this people" is a Hebrew idiom for leading a nation, literally marching out at their head and bringing them home again, and by extension the whole conduct of public leadership. The "wisdom and knowledge" asked for is practical skill in governing and judging, not learning in the abstract.

1:11

"The life of thine enemies" means their deaths. Asking a god to kill your rivals was a standard royal request, which is part of why the list of things Solomon did not ask for matters.

1:12

Honor means people looking up to you and treating you well.

1:14

The Hebrew word translated "horsemen" can mean either mounted riders or the horses of a chariot team, and translators divide over which is meant here. Chariots were the most expensive weapon of the age. The "chariot cities" were garrison towns where the chariot force and its horses were stationed.

1:15

The sycamore here is not the American sycamore but a fig-bearing tree of the lowlands, whose timber was cheap and everywhere available, the contrast is with cedar, an expensive import from Lebanon used in palaces and temples. "The vale" is the Shephelah, the belt of low hills between the coastal plain and the central highlands.

1:16

The KJV's "linen yarn" and the modern "Kue" come from the same Hebrew consonants read two ways: as an ordinary noun, or as the place name Kue (Que), a region in southeastern Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey, famous for breeding horses. Most translators now take it as the place name, which fits the trading route described here; the ambiguity is genuine.

1:17

A shekel was a weight of silver, about two-fifths of an ounce (roughly 11.5 grams), not a coin, coinage did not yet exist, and silver was weighed out on scales. Six hundred shekels is therefore about fifteen pounds of silver. The "Hittites" here are not the old Anatolian empire but the small successor kingdoms of northern Syria that still bore the name. "Syria" translates Aram, the Aramean kingdoms centered on Damascus. The verse describes Solomon's traders as middlemen, buying in one market and reselling northward.