Yahweh’s Response to Solomon// 2 Chronicles 7:11–22
1Now when Solomon had finished building the house of Yahweh and the royal palace, and had achieved all that he had desired to do, 2Yahweh appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3And Yahweh said to him:
- 1KI 9:2[MIRACLE]God appears to Solomon a second time
“I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.
4And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances, 5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
- 1KI 9:4[HEART]God told Solomon to walk with integrity of heart like David.
6But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, 7then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.
- 1KI 9:6[DEMONIC]God warns Solomon not to serve other gods
- 1KI 9:7[PROPHECY]If Israel turned to idols the temple would become a heap and Israel would be cut off → 2KI 25:9; 2KI 25:21MEDIUM
8And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has Yahweh done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 9And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken Yahweh their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, Yahweh has brought all this disaster upon them.’”
- 1KI 9:9[DEMONIC]Disaster comes because they embraced other gods
Solomon’s Additional Achievements// 2 Chronicles 8:1–18
10Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of Yahweh and the royal palace, 11King Solomon gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every desire. 12So Hiram went out from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.
13“What are these towns you have given me, my brother?” asked Hiram, and he called them the Land of Cabul, as they are called to this day.
14And Hiram had sent the king 4½ tons of gold.
15This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of Yahweh, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
- 1KI 9:15[ARCHAEOLOGY]Yigael Yadin identified gates with six rooms at all three cities, built to the same plan
- 1KI 9:15[FIELD NOTES]Gates with the same plan, six rooms each, were found at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. See the Solomon's Gates Field Notes page.
16Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, 18Baalath, and Tamar in the Wilderness of Judah, 19as well as all the store cities that Solomon had for his chariots and horses—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout the land of his dominion.
20As for all the people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (the people who were not Israelites)— 21their descendants who remained in the land, those whom the Israelites were unable to devote to destruction—Solomon conscripted these people to be forced laborers, as they are to this day.
- 1KI 9:20[FULFILLS]Noah said Canaan would become a servant to his brothers ← GEN 9:25MEDIUM
22But Solomon did not consign any of the Israelites to slavery, because they were his men of war, his servants, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and cavalry. 23They were also the chief officers over Solomon’s projects: 550 supervisors over the people who did the work.
24As soon as Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace that Solomon had built for her, he built the supporting terraces.
25Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for Yahweh, burning incense with them before Yahweh. So he completed the temple.
26King Solomon also assembled a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea. 27And Hiram sent his servants, sailors who knew the sea, to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s servants. 28They sailed to Ophir and imported gold from there—about 16 tons—and delivered it to Solomon.
- 1KI 9:26[NOTE]EZION GEBER was on the north tip of the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba, near Eilat today. Ophir was a land famous for gold. Nobody knows for sure where it was. Arabia, Africa and India have all been suggested.
- 1KI 9:28[TEXT]16 OR 17 TONS? 2 Chronicles 8:18 says about 17 tons of gold from Ophir. A copy may have slipped, or the two books count the gold a little differently.