The dedication of the temple
7
📚Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire 📖 came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the house. 2 📚And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house. 3 📚And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the house, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and praised the LORD, saying, “For he is good; for his mercy continues on forever”.4 📚Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD. 5 📚And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 6 📚And the priests were standing in their places; the Levites also with the LORD’s musical instruments, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy continues on forever, which were used when David praised. And the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.
7 📚Then Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was before the house of the LORD, for there he offered burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to hold the burnt offerings and the grain offerings 📖 and the fat.
8 📚Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast 📖 for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entrance of Hamath to the river of Egypt 📖. 9 📚And in the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days. 10 📚And on the twenty third day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had showed to David and to Solomon and to his people Israel.
God appears to Solomon in a vision
11 📚Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king’s house; and Solomon successfully completed all that came into his heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house. 12 📚And the LORD appeared 📖 to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen 📖 this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.
13 📚“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send plague among my people,
7:13 Observe that the things mentioned here are completely in the control of Jehovah God (compare Deut 11:17; 28:22-24, 38, 39).⚜
14 📚if my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
7:14 2 Chron 6:37-39. This is a promise made to Israel as a nation concerning their land. However, there are spiritual principles here which apply to anyone anywhere, to us as individuals or as groups of believers. To experience answered prayer, forgiveness of sins, and revival of spiritual life three things are required – humbling ourselves (Ps 51:17; Isa 66:2; Jam 4:6), seeking God’s face (2 Chron 15:2; 1 Chron 22:19; Ps 27:8; 34:10; 69:32; Jer 29:13), and true repentance (Lev 26:40-42; Isa 55:6-7; Ezek 18:30-32; 1 John 1:9). For healing of a whole land, national humility and repentance and seeking God were required.⚜
15 📚Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.
7:13-15 These verses are not in the account in 1 Kings.⚜
16 📚For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, so that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there continually.
17 📚“And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and observe my statutes and my judgments, 18 📚then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, just as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You will not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’
19 📚“But if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 📚then I will pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, I will hurl from my sight, and cause it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. 21 📚And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land, and to this house?’ 22 📚And the answer will be, ‘Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and adopted other gods and worshipped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’ ”