24 And if thy people Israel be put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication before thee in this house;
When thy people Israel are put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house; then hear thou in the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land that thou gavest unto their fathers.
And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes; and I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made my confession, and said, Alas Lord! the great and terrible ùGod, keeping covenant and loving-kindness with them that love him, and that keep his commandments: we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy commandments and from thine ordinances. And we have not hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Thine, O Lord, is the righteousness, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their unfaithfulness in which they have been unfaithful against thee. O Lord, unto us is confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. With the Lord our God are mercies and pardons, for we have rebelled against him; and we have not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us through his servants the prophets. And all Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside so as not to listen unto thy voice. And the curse hath been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God: for we have sinned against him. And he hath performed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that there hath not been done under the whole heaven as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet we besought not Jehovah our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. And Jehovah hath watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he hath done; and we have not hearkened unto his voice. -- And now, O Lord our God, who broughtest thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name, as it is this day, -- we have sinned, we have done wickedly. Lord, according to all thy righteousnesses, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain; for because of our sins, and because of the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people [are become] a reproach to all round about us. And now, our God, hearken to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. Incline thine ear, O my God, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations, and the city that is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee because of our righteousnesses, but because of thy manifold mercies. Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, hearken and do! defer not, for thine own sake, O my God! for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah: I will not make my face dark upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah; I will not keep [anger] for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah.
Who is this that cometh from Edom, with deep-red garments from Bozrah, this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? -- I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. -- Wherefore is redness in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winevat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples not a man was with me; and I have trodden them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury; and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all mine apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed had come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: and mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I have trodden down the peoples in mine anger, and made them drunk in my fury; and their blood have I brought down to the earth. I will record the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel which he hath bestowed upon them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses. And he said, They are indeed my people, children that will not lie; and he became their Saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his holy Spirit: and he turned to be their enemy; himself, he fought against them. But he remembered the days of old, Moses [and] his people: Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him, his glorious arm leading them by the right hand of Moses, dividing the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name, -- who led them through the depths, like a horse in the wilderness, [and] they stumbled not? As cattle go down into the valley, the Spirit of Jehovah gave them rest; so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name. Look down from the heavens, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory! Where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy tender mercies? Are they restrained toward me? For thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer, from everlasting, is thy name. Why, O Jehovah, hast thou made us to err from thy ways, hast hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. Thy holy people have possessed [it] but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We have become [like those] over whom thou never barest rule, those not called by thy name.
And on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Jehovah their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed, and worshipped Jehovah their God. Then stood up upon the platform of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, Chenani, and cried with a loud voice to Jehovah their God. And the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, Pethahiah, said, Stand up, bless Jehovah your God from eternity to eternity. And let [men] bless the name of thy glory, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou art the Same, thou alone, Jehovah, who hast made the heaven of heavens, and all their host, the earth and all that is therein, the seas and all that is therein. And thou quickenest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. Thou art the Same, Jehovah Elohim, who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham; and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, -- to give it to his seed; and thou hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous. And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea; and didst shew signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them, and thou didst make thee a name, as it is this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry [ground]; and their pursuers thou threwest into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters. And thou leddest them in the day by a pillar of cloud, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. And thou camest down on mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from the heavens, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and prescribedst for them commandments and statutes and a law, through Moses thy servant. And thou gavest them bread from the heavens for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and didst say to them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them. But they, our fathers, dealt proudly, and hardened their neck, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and refused to obey, neither were they mindful of thy wonders which thou hadst done among them; but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion made a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a +God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great loving-kindness, and thou forsookest them not. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy god that brought thee up out of Egypt! and they had wrought great provocation, yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud departed not from over them by day, to lead them on the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing; their clothes grew not old, and their feet swelled not. And thou gavest them kingdoms and peoples, and didst divide them by countries; and they possessed the land of Sihon, as well the land of the king of Heshbon, as the land of Og king of Bashan. And their children thou didst multiply as the stars of heaven, and thou broughtest them into the land concerning which thou didst say to their fathers that they should go in to possess it. And the children went in and possessed the land; and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, both their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, wells digged, vineyards and olive-gardens, and fruit trees in abundance. And they did eat and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness. But they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets who testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. And thou gavest them into the hand of their oppressors, and they oppressed them; and in the time of their distress, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from the heavens, and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their oppressors. But when they had rest, they did evil again before thee; and thou didst leave them in the hand of their enemies, and they had dominion over them; and again they cried unto thee, and thou heardest [them] from the heavens, and many times didst thou deliver them, according to thy mercies. And thou testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law; but they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thine ordinances (which if a man do, he shall live in them); and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear. And many years didst thou forbear with them, and testifiedst against them by thy Spirit through thy prophets; but they would not give ear: and thou gavest them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless for thy manifold mercies' sake, thou didst not make a full end of them nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful ùGod. And now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible ùGod, who keepest covenant and loving-kindness, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the days of the kings of Assyria unto this day. But thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast acted according to truth, and we have done wickedly. And our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers, have not performed thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them. And they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land that thou didst set before them, neither turned they from their wicked works. Behold, we are servants this day, and the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are bondmen in it. And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure; and we are in great distress.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if ye return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.
And at the evening oblation I arose up from my humiliation; and with my mantle and my garment rent, I fell on my knees, and spread out my hands to Jehovah my God, and said: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over [our] head, and our trespass is grown up to the heavens. Since the days of our fathers, we have been in great trespass to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, and to captivity, and to spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day. And now for a little space there hath been favour from Jehovah our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we are bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us before the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God and to repair the ruins thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And now, what shall we say, our God, after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments, which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess [it], is an unclean land through the filthiness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations with which they have filled it from one end to another through their uncleanness. Now therefore give not your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever. And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities [deserve], and hast given us such deliverance as this, should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples of these abominations? wouldest thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape? Jehovah, God of Israel, thou art righteous; for we are a remnant that is escaped, as [it is] this day. Behold, we are before thee in our trespasses; for there is no standing before thee because of this.
And so it was, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods; and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the children of Israel did secretly against Jehovah their God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city. And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense on all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger; and they served idols, as to which Jehovah had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing. And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets, all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants the prophets. But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and [went] after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them. And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal; and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there remained but the tribe of Judah only.
So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them; and he sold them into the power of their enemies round about, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them; and they were in sore straits.
Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them, and they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it among their stuff. And the children of Israel shall not be able to stand before their enemies: they shall turn their backs before their enemies, for they have made themselves accursed. I will no more be with you, except ye destroy the accursed thing from your midst.
And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt take them to heart among all the nations whither Jehovah thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return to Jehovah thy God, and shalt hearken to his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy sons, with all thy heart and with all thy soul; that then Jehovah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will gather thee again from all the peoples whither Jehovah thy God hath scattered thee. Though there were of you driven out unto the end of the heavens, from thence will Jehovah thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee; and Jehovah thy God will bring thee into the land that thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And Jehovah thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
And from thence ye shall seek Jehovah thy God, and thou shalt find him, if thou shalt seek him with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul. In thy tribulation, and when all these things shall come upon thee, at the end of days, thou shalt return to Jehovah thy God, and shalt hearken to his voice, -- for Jehovah thy God is a merciful ùGod, -- he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he swore unto them.
And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, through their unfaithfulness wherein they were unfaithful to me, and also that they have walked contrary unto me, so that I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 6
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 6 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The words with which Solomon celebrates this wondrous evidence of the divine favour, entirely coincide with the narrative in 1 Kings 8:12-21, except that in 2 Chronicles 6:5. the actual words of Solomon's speech are more completely given than in 1 Kings 8:16, where the words, “and I have not chosen a man to be prince over my people Israel, and I have chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there,” are omitted. For the commentary on this address, see on 1 Kings 8:12-21.
Solomon's dedicatory prayer likewise corresponds exactly with the account of it given in 1 Kings 8:22-53 till near the end (2 Chronicles 6:40-42), where it takes quite a different turn. Besides this, in the introduction (2 Chronicles 6:13) Solomon's position during the prayer is more accurately described, it being there stated that Solomon had caused a high stage ( כּיּור , a basin-like elevation) to be erected, which he ascended, and kneeling, spoke the prayer which follows. This fact is not stated in 1 Kings 8:22, and Then. and Berth. conjecture that it has been dropped out of our text only by mistake. Perhaps so, but it may have been passed over by the author of the books of Kings as a point of subordinate importance. On the contents of the prayer, which begins with the joyful confession that the Lord had fulfilled His promise to David in reference to the building of the temple, and proceeds with a request for a further bestowment of the blessing promised to His people, and a supplication that all prayers made to the Lord in the temple may be heard, see the Com. on 1 Kings 8:22. The conclusion of the prayer in the Chronicle is different from that in 1 Kings 8. There the last supplication, that the prayers might be heard, is followed by the thought: for they (the Israelites) are Thy people and inheritance; and in the further amplification of this thought the prayer returns to the idea with which it commenced. In the narrative of the Chronicle, on the other hand, the supplications conclude with the general thought (2 Chronicles 6:40): “Now, my God, let, I beseech Thee, Thine eyes be open, and Thine ears attend unto the prayer of this place” (i.e., unto the prayer spoken in this place). There follows, then, the conclusion of the whole prayer - a summons to the Lord (2 Chronicles 6:41.): “And now, Lord God, arise into Thy rest, Thou and the ark of Thy strength; let Thy priests, Lord God, clothe themselves in salvation, and Thy saints rejoice in good! Lord God, turn not away the face of Thine anointed: remember the pious deeds of Thy servant David.” הסדים as in 2 Chronicles 32:32; 2 Chronicles 35:26, and Nehemiah 13:14. On this Thenius remarks, to 1 Kings 8:53 : “This conclusion is probably authentic, for there is in the text of the prayer, 1 Kings 8, no special expression of dedication, and this the summons to enter into possession of the temple very fittingly supplies. The whole contents of the conclusion are in perfect correspondence with the situation, and, as to form, nothing better could be desired. It can scarcely be thought an arbitrary addition made by the chronicler for no other reason than that the summons spoken of, if taken literally, is irreconcilable with the entrance of the cloud into the temple, of which he has already given us an account.” Berth. indeed thinks that it does not thence follow that our conclusion is authentic, and considers it more probable that it was introduced because it appeared more suitable, in place of the somewhat obscure words in 1 Kings 8:51-53, though not by the author of the Chronicle, and scarcely at an earlier time. The decision on this question can only be arrived at in connection with the question as to the origin of the statements peculiar to the Chronicle contained in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3.
If we consider, in the first place, our verses in themselves, they contain no thought which Solomon might not have spoken, and consequently nothing which would tend to show that they are not authentic. It is true that the phrase קשּׁבות אזניך occurs only here and in 2 Chronicles 7:15, and again in Psalms 130:2, and the noun נוּח instead of מנוּחה is found only in Esther 9:16-18 in the form נוח ; but even if these two expressions be peculiar to the later time, no further conclusion can be drawn from that, than that the author of the Chronicle has here, as often elsewhere, given the thoughts of his authority in the language of his own time. Nor is the relation in which 2 Chronicles 6:41, 2 Chronicles 6:42 stand to Psalms 132:8-10 a valid proof of the later composition of the conclusion of our prayer. For ( a ) it is still a question whether our verses have been borrowed from Ps 132, or the verses of the psalm from our passage; and ( b ) the period when Psalms 138:1-8 was written is so doubtful, that some regard it as a Solomonic psalm, while others place it in the post-exilic period. Neither the one nor the other of these questions can be determined on convincing grounds. The appeal to the fact that the chronicler has compounded the hymn in 1 Chron 15 also out of post-exilic psalms proves nothing, for even in that case it is at least doubtful if that be a correct account of the matter. But the further assertion, that the conclusion (2 Chronicles 6:42) resembles Isaiah 55:3, and that recollections of this passage may have had some effect also on the conclusion (2 Chronicles 6:41), is undoubtedly erroneous, for דויד חסדי in 2 Chronicles 6:42 has quite a different meaning from that which it has in Isaiah 55:3. There דּוד חסדי are the favours granted to David by the Lord; in 2 Chronicles 6:42, on the contrary, they are the pious deeds of David, - all that he had done for the raising and advancement of the public worship (see above). The phrase וגו קוּמה , “Arise, O Lord God, into Thy rest,” is modelled on the formula which was spoken when the ark was lifted and when it was set down on the journey through the wilderness, which explains both קוּמה and the use of לנוּחך , which is formed after בּנוּחה , Numbers 10:36. The call to arise into rest is not inconsistent with the fact that the ark had already been brought into the most holy place, for קוּמה has merely the general signification, “to set oneself to anything.” The idea is, that God would now take the rest to which the throne of His glory had attained, show Himself to His people from this His throne to be the God of salvation, endue His priests, the guardians of His sanctuary, with salvation, and cause the pious to rejoice in His goodness. בטּוב ישׂמחוּ is generalized in Psalms 132:9 into ירנּנוּ . פּני פ השׁב , to turn away the face of any one, i.e., to deny the request, cf. 1 Kings 2:16.