World English Bible · The united kingdom
2 Chronicles 7
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Now when had finished praying, came down from and consumed the burnt offering and the ; and filled the house. The priests could not enter into house, because filled house. All the looked on, when the came down, and was on the house. They bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement, , and gave thanks to , saying, "For he is good, for his endures !" Then the king and all the people offered before . King offered a of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated house. The priests stood, according to their positions; the also with instruments of music of , which the king had made to give thanks to , when praised by their ministry, saying "For his endures ." The priests sounded before them; and all Israel stood. Moreover made the middle of the court that was before house ; for there he offered the burnt offerings and the , because the bronze which had made was not able to receive the burnt offering, the , and . So held the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great , from the entrance of to the brook of . On the eighth day, they held a solemn ; for they kept the dedication of the seven days, and the feast seven days. On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of for the goodness that had shown to , to , and to Israel his people. Thus finished house and the king's house; and he successfully completed all that came into to make in house and in his own house. Then appeared to by night, and said to him, "I have heard your , and have chosen this place for myself for a house of . "If I shut up so that there is no , or if I command the to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, , , and turn from their ways, then I will hear from , will forgive their , and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and made this house , that my name may be there ; and my eyes and will be there perpetually. "As for you, if you will walk before me as your walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep and my ordinances, then I will establish of your kingdom, according as I covenanted with your , saying, 'There shall not fail you a man to be ruler in Israel.' But if you turn away and forsake and my which I have set before you, and go and other gods and them, then I will pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a and among all peoples. This house, which is so high, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has done this to this land and to this house?' They shall answer, 'Because they abandoned , the of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of , and took other gods, them, and them. Therefore he has brought all this evil on them.'"
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The united kingdom, 1050 BC to 931 BC ›
Saul, David, and Solomon. A rare window when both Egypt and Mesopotamia are weak, which is how a small kingdom in the corridor between them could briefly become a regional power.
- The power vacuum
- This is the whole political explanation for the united kingdom. Egypt is fragmented, Assyria is recovering but still local, the Hittites are gone, and nobody is in a position to object to a strong state in the corridor. It lasts about a century, and Israel's golden age fits exactly inside it.
- Phoenicia
- Tyre under Hiram is the commercial power of the coast, and supplies the cedar, the craftsmen, and the shipping for Solomon's building programme. The alliance is trade, not charity: Israel had grain and a land route, Tyre had timber and ships.
- Egypt
- Weak enough that a pharaoh gives a daughter in marriage to an Israelite king, which is the opposite of Egyptian practice in stronger centuries. Late in the era it recovers under a new house, and Shishak will invade within five years of Solomon's death.
- Further afield
- Greece is still in its dark age but beginning to recover, and will adopt the Phoenician alphabet within a century or two. Carthage is founded by settlers from Tyre by tradition in 814 BC. In the Americas the Olmec centre shifts to La Venta.