12 May

Bible In 365 Days                                   

2 Chronicles 6-8

2 Chronicles 6

In the presence of the manifestation of glory the king pronounced a blessing on the people which merged into, or took the form of, a blessing offered to God, as he recounted the way of the divine guidance, ascribing all the honor to Him alone.

After praise came prayer. This is ever the true order in worship. We too often reverse it, or, even worse, forget praise altogether in our desire to obtain gifts. Prayer preceded by praise is none the less powerful, but more so. In the words of these wonderful petitions Solomon is revealed in the real kingliness of his nature far more than in all the material splendor with which he surrounded himself, and which presently stopped his praise and paralyzed his praying. The true king lived for and in his people, and the breadth of Solomon's thought and desire for those over whom he reigned is graphically set forth. He was conscious of the fundamental necessity for the continued presence and government of God. He thought of his own people in their regular exercises of worship, and in their special seasons of need, through sin, in battle, in drought, in famine. The largeness of the kingly heart included the strangers who would dwell in the territory of the chosen; and, finally, he prayed tenderly for the nation in the days when because of its folly and sin it would be driven away into captivity. The prayer is great in its comprehensiveness and understanding of the heart of God.

2 Chronicles 7

As the ceremonies had begun with sacrifice and song, so they closed, and it is quite easy to realize how "joyful and glad of heart" the people were as they dispersed. Had only the king and people remained on the high altitude on which they stood that day, their history would have been very different. How deeply we should realize the awful truth, that even in the midst of such high experience the seeds of evil may already be at work in our life.

Solomon's greatest work now being completed, God appeared to him in a second vision, in which He first declared that the work done was accepted, and Solomon's prayer heard and answered. Then with the tenderness and faithfulness of His infinite love He restated for Solomon the conditions of Solomon's safety. Obedience would be rewarded with continuity of blessing. Disobedience, on the other hand, must issue in rejection and disaster.

The words speak to us also. No height attained, no work done, no blessing received, is in itself suf6cient to ensure our continuance in favor. Nothing but continued fidelity can do that. The influence of particular and sacred work was over, and therefore new and subtle perils awaited the king. The underlying weaknesses of his nature would now appeal, with new force for attention. Either he would hear their appeal, to heed, and yield, and fail; or to refuse, and conquer, and rise. On the eve of the coming struggle God spoke. It was the action of perfect love.

2 Chronicles 8

Here are recorded some of the doings of the king. He consolidated the internal strength of the nation by building cities. He organized the labor of the conquered peoples in his dominions. He set the Temple worship in order.

He enlarged his commercial activities.

It was during this period that he took Pharaoh's daughter to the house he had built for her and gave his reason for doing so. "My wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the Ark of Jehovah hath come." These were the words of compromise. Solomon's marriage with the daughter of the king of Egypt was a purely political act, arising out of the affinity he had with her father (1 Kings 3:1-28). There can be no question that this affinity was wrong. God had delivered His people from Egypt, and there was never the slightest need, either military or economic, for it. It was a political seduction which persistently threatened the nation, and which more than once cost them dear. Having made the blunder and become affianced to this woman, Solomon sought to safeguard against the possible religious danger by building her house away from the city of David.

This compromise was a failure, as compromise invariably is. In 1 Kings 11:1-8 we read that presently Solomon built places of idol worship in Jerusalem for "all his foreign wives." Compromise is pathetic in that it always witnesses a conviction of what is the high and the true, and attempts to ensure its realization while yielding to the low and the false. It is evil, for its invariable issue is that the low and the false ultimately gain the ascendance and the high and the true are abandoned. To build a house for Pharaoh's daughter outside the Holy City is to open its gates sooner or later to Pharaoh's gods.