These chapters focus largely on Solomon’s
dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after all the building was complete.
There is one glaring mistake in 2 Chronicles 5.
Verse 9 mentions that the poles for carrying the Ark of the Covenant are there,
in the Holy of Holies, “to this day”. However, that cannot be true from the
perspective of the author of Chronicles, for at the end of the book it is clearly
stated that all the precious contents of the Temple were carried off to Babylon
and that the Temple itself was burned (2 Chronicles 36:18-19). 2 Chronicles 5:9
appears to be an instance of the Chronicler copying something from Kings, or
from an earlier source, that is no longer true from his perspective. It is
often the case, when reading the Bible, that we see “the seams showing
through”. That is to say that we can see where the final editors of various
books have not perfectly covered over, or disguised, the seams where they have
sewn together the pieces from the various sources they have used. However, from
my perspective, far from distracting from the beauty of the Bible, this feature
makes the Bible all the more intriguing in its humanity.
The Chronicler clearly presents Solomon as a holy
man in these chapters. Not only does Solomon pray, but he even offers
sacrifice, something that only the priests and Levites were allowed to do (2
Chronicles 7:7). Perhaps certain rules were made to be broken, at least if you
are King Solomon.
Chapter 6, in particular, focuses on Solomon as a
holy man. This chapter conveys one long prayer of the King, supposedly given at
the dedication of the Temple. However, the reader must wonder, would Solomon
have assumed the possibility that his people would one day be taken captive by
a foreign king? (See 2 Chronicles 6:36 ff.) This appears to be something
inserted by a later author/editor of Chronicles who knows that all of Israel
was in fact taken captive by foreign kings.
Be that as it may, the repeated entreaty of
Solomon is that the Lord would hear the prayers of his people when they pray
toward this Temple. This entreaty contains an idea common among ancient
peoples. The idea is that the main problem with God or with the gods, is to
gain an audience with him or with them. If only God, or the gods, would hear
our petition, then all would be solved. It is almost a bureaucratic notion,
like that of imagining the difficulty of gaining a meeting with the President
of the United States, or even gaining an audience with a lower level bureaucrat
who is the one person who can solve your particular problem.
The glory to the early Christians was that this
ancient problem was solved in Jesus Christ. Jesus said,
I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do
it. (John 14:13-14)
Through Christ as mediator one is guaranteed an
audience with the Almighty. All one must do is simply pray in Jesus’ name. It
is sort of like knowing the best friend of the President of the United States.
If that person is your best friend as well, then you are guaranteed the
opportunity of coming before the President.
The wonderful thing for Solomon, and through him
for the people of Israel, was that the Lord apparently heard his prayer. After
the dedication of the Temple, “the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and
said to him: ‘I have heard your prayer…’” (2 Chronicles 7:12) Not only does the
Lord tell Solomon that his prayer has been heard, but God promises that the
prayers of his people will be heard in the future, upon certain conditions. The
Lord says…
…if my people who are called by my name humble
themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will
hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles
7:14)
Of course, this promise had special application
and meaning to the first readers of Chronicles, to the Jews who returned to
Jerusalem after the exile. By the inclusion of this text in Chronicles, Ezra
was most certainly urging the people to humble themselves, to pray, to seek the
face of God, and to turn from their wicked ways. However, the promise is no
less true for us who may claim it at any time by fulfilling its conditions.
Only in 2 Chronicles 8 do we get the slightest
hint that Solomon might be something infinitesimally less than a holy man. Here
we read that…
Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter from the city of David
to the house that he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not live in
the house of King David of Israel, for the places to which the ark of the Lord
has come are holy.” (2 Chronicles 8:11)
This is curious because I do not remember reading
anywhere about the Ark of the Covenant coming into David’s house, though David
does bring the Ark up to Jerusalem. Nonetheless, this verse carries with it the
notion that holy places, or anything touched by the holy, is sacrosanct. Such
places are to be fenced around and demarcated so that anything unholy does not
violate such a space.
Clearly, Solomon knew that there was something
about his new wife, Pharaoh’s daughter, that was unholy. Perhaps it was the
fact that she failed to surrender to her husband’s religion and rather
continued worshipping the gods of the Egyptians. Whatever the reason, Solomon
carries out a curious act—what modern psychologists would call an example of
compartmentalization. He knows that his wife is unholy, and that certain places
in Jerusalem are unholy. However, Solomon tries to figure out a way he can have
both, the holy and the unholy. His solution is to compartmentalize, to have his
unholy wife in one place, while continuing his own “holy” activities in
another.
The Chronicler never reveals the problem with
this approach to life as the book of Kings does. However, clearly there is a
problem here, a problem that will eventually lead to the undoing of Israel.
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