2 Chronicles 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

When Solomon finishes his prayer of dedication, fire comes down and the glory of the LORD fills the temple, and the people bow and give thanks. The king and the nation offer enormous sacrifices and keep a seven-day dedication and a seven-day festival, and Solomon sends the people home on the twenty-third day of the seventh month. Later the LORD appears to Solomon at night, says he has chosen the temple as a house of sacrifice, and promises that if he sends drought, locusts, or plague, and his people humble themselves, pray, seek him, and turn from their wicked ways, he will forgive them and heal their land. He promises to keep Solomon's throne secure if Solomon obeys as David did, and warns that if the people turn away and serve other gods, he will uproot them and reject the temple.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • Solomon finished praying.
   • Fire came down from heaven.
   • The fire consumed the burnt offering.
   • The fire consumed the sacrifices.
   • The glory of the LORD filled the house.
2. 7:2
   • The priests were not able to enter the house of the LORD.
   • The reason the priests could not enter was that the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
3. 7:3
   • All the children of Israel saw the fire coming down.
   • All the children of Israel saw the glory of the LORD upon the house.
   • They bowed with their faces to the ground on the pavement.
   • They worshipped.
   • They gave thanks to the LORD.
   • They said that he is good.
   • They said that his steadfast love endures forever.
4. 7:4
   • The king offered sacrifice before the LORD.
   • All the people offered sacrifice before the LORD.
5. 7:5
   • King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen.
   • King Solomon offered a sacrifice of one hundred twenty thousand sheep.
   • The king dedicated the house of God.
   • All the people dedicated the house of God.
6. 7:6
   • The priests stood at their posts.
   • The Levites stood with the instruments of music of the LORD.
   • King David had made those instruments.
   • The instruments were made for giving thanks to the LORD, that his steadfast love endures forever.
   • David gave praise by means of the Levites.
   • The priests sounded trumpets opposite the Levites.
   • All Israel was standing.
7. 7:7
   • Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD.
   • Solomon offered the burnt offerings there.
   • Solomon offered the fat of the peace offerings there.
   • The bronze altar that Solomon had made was not able to hold the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat.
8. 7:8
   • Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days.
   • All Israel was with him.
   • The assembly was very great.
   • The assembly came from the entrance of Hamath to the wadi of Egypt.
9. 7:9
   • On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly.
   • They had kept the dedication of the altar for seven days.
   • They had kept the feast for seven days.
10. 7:10
    • On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents.
    • The people were joyful and glad of heart.
    • Their gladness was for the good that the LORD had done for David, for Solomon, and for Israel his people.
11. 7:11
    • Solomon finished the house of the LORD.
    • Solomon finished the king's house.
    • Solomon successfully carried out everything that came into his heart to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house.
12. 7:12
    • The LORD appeared to Solomon by night.
    • The LORD said to him that he had heard his prayer.
    • The LORD said he had chosen this place for himself as a house of sacrifice.
13. 7:13
    • The LORD said that he might shut up the heavens so that there is no rain.
    • The LORD said that he might command the locust to devour the land.
    • The LORD said that he might send pestilence among his people.
14. 7:14
    • The LORD said that if his people, who are called by his name, humble themselves, and pray, and seek his face, and turn from their wicked ways, then he will hear from heaven.
    • The LORD said his people are called by his name.
    • The LORD said he will forgive their sin.
    • The LORD said he will heal their land.
15. 7:15
    • The LORD said his eyes will now be open to the prayer made in this place.
    • The LORD said his ears will be attentive to the prayer made in this place.
16. 7:16
    • The LORD said he has now chosen this house.
    • The LORD said he has consecrated this house.
    • The LORD said his name will be there forever.
    • The LORD said his eyes and his heart will be there always.
17. 7:17
    • The LORD said to Solomon, if he walks before him as David his father walked, and does according to all that he commanded him, and keeps his statutes and his judgments,
18. 7:18
    • The LORD said he will establish the throne of Solomon's kingdom.
    • The LORD said he covenanted with David Solomon's father.
    • The LORD said the covenant with David was that a man to rule in Israel would never be cut off from him.
19. 7:19
    • The LORD said, but if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you,
    • The LORD said, and if you go and serve other gods and worship them,
20. 7:20
    • The LORD said he will uproot them from his land which he gave them.
    • The LORD said he will cast this house, which he sanctified for his name, out of his sight.
    • The LORD said he will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
21. 7:21
    • This house is high.
    • Everyone who passes by this house will be appalled at it.
    • The passerby will ask why the LORD has done thus to this land and to this house.
22. 7:22
    • They will answer that the people forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers.
    • The LORD God of their fathers brought them out of the land of Egypt.
    • They will answer that the people laid hold on other gods.
    • They will answer that the people worshipped those gods.
    • They will answer that the people served those gods.
    • They will answer that for this reason he brought all this evil upon them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

7:1

A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar, with none of it eaten; the other sacrifices mentioned were of the kind partly burned and partly eaten by the worshipers and priests. "The glory of the LORD" translates a Hebrew phrase for the visible sign of God's presence, described elsewhere as a cloud or blazing brightness.

7:2

The glory of the LORD was a bright, heavy cloud of light that showed God had come. It filled the rooms so no one could work inside.

7:3

"Faithful love" translates the Hebrew word *hesed*, which means loyal, committed kindness of the sort owed within a binding relationship, not warm feeling. This line was a fixed refrain sung in Israel's worship, which is why it appears word for word again in verse 6.

7:5

The numbers are enormous by design: these were fellowship sacrifices, whose meat was eaten by the worshipers, so the animals fed a national crowd over a two-week festival rather than being simply destroyed.

7:6

The Levites were members of the tribe of Levi who were not priests but had assigned duties in the sanctuary, music, gatekeeping, and assisting at the sacrifices. Only priests, a subset of that tribe descended from Aaron, blew the sacred silver trumpets and handled the altar itself.

7:7

Peace offerings (also called fellowship offerings) were sacrifices whose meat the worshipers ate as a shared meal; only the fat portions were burned on the altar. Grain offerings were gifts of flour and oil rather than animals. "Set apart" here means formally declaring an ordinary space fit for sacred use.

7:8

"The festival" is the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), a week-long autumn harvest celebration. Lebo-hamath, far north in the Lebanon valley, and the Brook of Egypt, the desert stream on the southwestern frontier, were the conventional way of saying "the whole territory of Israel from end to end."

7:9

The law prescribed a closing assembly on the eighth day of the festival, a day of rest and formal gathering that capped the week.

7:10

The seventh month is Tishri, falling in our September–October. Israel's religious calendar began in the spring, so the seventh month was the great autumn festival season.

7:11

"He prosperously effected" is 1611 English for "he successfully carried out."

7:12

"A house of sacrifice" identifies the temple's function: the one authorized site where offerings were to be presented.

7:13

Locust swarms were a recurring catastrophe in the region: millions of insects arriving together and stripping every green thing down to bare stalks within hours. "Pestilence" means an epidemic disease sweeping through a population. Drought, locusts and plague were the three standard disasters an agricultural nation feared most.

7:14

"Called by my name" is an ownership idiom, the way a conquered city or a wife was said to bear the name of the one it belonged to. "Seek my face" is court language for seeking an audience with a king, asking to be admitted to his presence.

7:15

"Attent" is an old form of the word attentive.

7:16

In this idiom a name placed somewhere marks the owner's claim and presence, rather as a name carved over a door does; it is a way of saying God attaches himself to the place without being confined to it.

7:17

"Live your life before me" translates a Hebrew idiom, literally "walk before me," meaning to conduct one's whole life in the awareness of being in someone's presence and answerable to them.

7:18

A covenant was a formal, binding agreement, sworn and irrevocable, closer to a treaty or a sealed contract than to a promise casually made.

7:19

In the Hebrew the address changes here from singular to plural: verses 17–18 speak to Solomon alone, but from this verse the warning is aimed at the nation as a whole. English "you" hides the shift, which is why the rendering says "you people."

7:20

"A saying people repeat and a name people mock" translates "a proverb and a byword", the ruined temple would become a stock example quoted in other nations' speech, the way a name can turn into a synonym for disaster.

7:21

The Hebrew here is difficult and the ancient versions disagree. The word can mean the house is "high" (imposing, exalted) or, on another reading, that it has been reduced to a heap of ruins. The King James took the first sense; many modern translations take the second. The parallel account in 1 Kings 9:8 has the same puzzle.

7:22

"Took hold of" translates a verb used for gripping something tightly or clinging to a spouse: it pictures attachment, not mere experiment.