OVERVIEW:
Solomon’s sacrifices; God’s appearance to Solomon in a dream; Solomon’s choice of wisdom and knowledge; Solomon’s accumulation of chariots, horses, horsemen, silver and gold; Solomon builds the temple; the temple furnishings.
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
As we begin the book of 2nd Chronicles, keep in mind that this book spans a whopping 427 years! To help us get that in perspective, it would be the equivalent of chronicling the high points of history since around the beginning of the 17th century! That’s quite a long period of time! The period covers 19 kings: 10 of which were bad; seven that were good; and two that were good but became bad (i.e. Solomon and Joash). As is always the case, as go the leaders, so go the people until finally the nation had so apostatized that they are carried off into captivity. The book does end, however, with a ray of hope.
As chapter one begins, the reign of Solomon is established as he sets a priority on worship. (1:6) God appears to Solomon in a dream (1:7 c.f. 1st Kings 3:5), and says, “Ask what I shall give thee.” In other words, “Ask Me for anything you want, and it’s as good as yours!” Solomon humbly asks for something that brought great pleasure to the Lord. Understanding the enormity of the task of leading God’s people, he simply asks for the wisdom and knowledge to rule them properly. Because he wasn’t selfish in asking for personal gain, God tells him, “I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.” (1:12) We might call this, however, “the curse of God’s blessing” because quite simply, Solomon wasn’t prepared spiritually to handle the stewardship of God’s incredible material blessing upon his life. God had made abundantly clear in Deuteronomy 17 that the kings of Israel were not to multiply to themselves silver and gold; they were not to do business with Egypt to multiply horses, (or for any other reason!) and they were not to multiply wives. (Deuteronomy 17:16–17) Verses 13–17 of 2nd Chronicles 1 reveals that he violated all three of those commands, and 1st Kings 3:1 reveals that he violated another of God’s commands by going down to make an “affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter,” and made her his wife.
Obviously, all of these things were tragic mistakes (as we will soon see), but make sure you don’t miss seeing why they all happened! He violated all four of those commands, because he violated another key command concerning Israel’s kings in Deuteronomy 17. God had made abundantly clear that as a king in Israel, he was to write his own copy of the law, and that was the real issue! He was to make his own handwritten copy of the entire books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy forcing him to personally interact with every word of God! (Proverbs 30:5) Had the word of God been his first priority, he would have known that God had forbidden him to involve himself in the very things he was doing at the outset of his reign! Oh, may we learn from the life of Solomon to always make the word of God our first priority, and to always personally interact with “every word of God”, not just in times of trial, but in times of blessing! Perhaps we should add, especially in times of blessing! As the old saying goes, “This Book will keep you from sin; and sin will keep you from this Book!”
As chapter 2 begins, Solomon determines to build the Lord’s house. That sounds wonderful until you realize that he included one “minor little priority” as well. He also determines that he is going to have a house built for himself! There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but in light of David’s strong words to Solomon about how “MAGNIFICAL” the Lord’s house was to be in comparison to anything else in existence (1st Chronicles), it seems quite inconceivable that it took almost twice as long to build Solomon’s house as it did the Lord’s house (7 years compared to 13 years — See 1st Kings 6:38 and 1st Kings 7:1); and if you compare the size of Solomon’s house (1st Kings 7:1–12) with the size of the Lord’s house (1st Chronicles 3), Solomon’s house is almost exactly twice as big as God’s “MAGNIFICAL” house! What?! Wouldn’t you have loved to hear Solomon’s rationalization and justification for that?! Never underestimate the tremendous ability we have as humans to justify and rationalize just about anything and everything we want to do. God help us!
CHRIST IS REVEALED:
By the THOUSAND BURNT OFFERINGS OF SOLOMON — 2nd Chronicles 1:6 (Through Christ’s one offering of sin, He removed the need for the many and continual individual offerings required in the Law — Hebrews 10:10–12, 14; Romans 6:10)