Bible Study Lesson - 2 Chronicles 1:13-17

The Opening Prayer and Reading of 2 Chronicles 1:13-17

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. We ask that you would guide us as we consider your word, and we pray to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right.

Let me read our.

2 Chronicles chapter 1 from the ESV. And Solomon and all the assembly with him went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the wilderness, was there.

But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath to Urim, to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord.

And Solomon and the assembly sought it out. And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the Lord, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it. And that night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, Ask what I shall give you.

And Solomon said to God, You have shown great and steadfast love to David, my father, and have made me king in his place. O Lord God, let your word to David, my father, be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great? God answered Solomon, Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king.

Wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like. So Solomon came from the high place of Gibeon, from before the Tent of Meeting to Jerusalem, and he reigned over Israel.

Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen, he had 1 ,400 chariots and 12 ,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. And the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephela.

And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Q, and the king's traders would buy them from Q for a price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150. Likewise, through them, these were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.

The Hebrew Canon, the Masoretic Text, and the Order of Chronicles

Amen. Alright, well, before we dive into this part in particular, there are a couple of questions that I received about the timing of 2 Chronicles, which I've brought up a few times, but I think it would be beneficial for us to actually turn to those passages and see some of the things that I've mentioned before.

I think that exercise will probably drill in the concept a bit better. So, the first part is I mentioned that in the Hebrew canon, 2 Chronicles is the last book. Now, this is not a statement about when it was authored.

It is just a statement about how a Hebrew reader would think about the book as being the last book in the Bible. So, this is a Hebrew Old Testament. It's written right to left. Okay, so this is the end.

This is the beginning. It looks like the beginning of the book. It's actually the end. The titles in here are in Latin, so you can recognize them. It says Chronica, you know, over here on this side. It says Genesis, right?

Genesis, Chronica. So, it is not like your Bible, which goes all the way to Malachi, but instead it goes to Chronica, too. Yes. So, the BHS is not always the Masoretic text. The Masoretic text refers to the Hebrew text that was preserved by the Masoretes, which are a ninth century group of Hebrew scholars, and so that is typically considered the gold standard of Hebrew texts.

There are also additional Hebrew texts that were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are also Greek texts that sometimes scholars determine are more original than the Hebrew texts that they have available, and so sometimes they choose to go with the Greek text and just back translate it to Hebrew on occasion.

I'll pass this around if anybody wants to take a look at this. Actually, it might be better if I happen to have a post-it in here. I'm going to take the post-it note and stick it in somewhere in 2 Chronicles.

There you go. Now, this is not just a feature of the Hebrew Bible as we have it right now. This is something you even see in the New Testament. So, if we could turn to Luke 11, 51, and I will have someone read that.

Someone volunteer to read that for me. Luke 11, 51. Okay, go for it. All right. So, he's talking about how people have always rejected the prophets. You want to read verses 49 and 50 also? Yeah, thank you.

So, he talks about from Abel to Zechariah. Okay, Abel is the first martyr, right? Martyr for his faith, essentially, because he had a good sacrifice. Cain was not happy that God was pleased with him. And then Zechariah being this last martyr, in a sense.

Now, there are many people that come after Zechariah. Actually, I should have looked up a specific example, but Zechariah is not that late in the history of Israel. You know, Jesus could have picked someone different, but he chooses Zechariah for a particular reason.

If you look up 2 Chronicles 24, verses 20 through 21. 2 Chronicles 24. 2 Chronicles 24, and if I could have someone read verses 20 to 21. Thanks. Okay, so here you have Zechariah being described. This is not the Zechariah of the son of Jebarekiah.

This is Zechariah's son of Berekiah. So, one Zechariah is the Zechariah of the book Zechariah. This is a different Zechariah. Okay, so this Zechariah is martyred here in 2 Chronicles. So, Jesus is saying from Genesis to 2 Chronicles, right?

This is the way that Jesus is thinking in the Bible. This is like him saying from Genesis to Revelation, except for he's working with the Old Testament, so he says from Genesis to 2 Chronicles. All right, so that's just talking about the way you should think about the order of the Bible and Chronicles being parallel, in a sense, to Revelation summarizing the history of the Old Testament, the way that Revelation summarizes the history of the New Testament more figuratively than Chronicles does, but basically goes from the Advent all the way to all the way to Christ's second coming.

And what does Chronicles do? It goes from Adam all the way to Cyrus. All right, now, Brother Vinay pointed out that in the, and I actually have one too, in an LSB study Bible, it says when ordering the books, it puts 1 and 2 Chronicles as the 35th and 36th book, and it says that their author is Ezra with a question mark after it, right?

And then it puts Ezra before that, puts Esther, Malachi, and then Nehemiah with the author being Ezra at the very end. So, this suspects that Ezra is the main author and puts it before Nehemiah and before Malachi and Esther, right?

So, if Nehemiah is the last book written here and 1 and 2 Chronicles are listed several before, should we think of 1 and 2 Chronicles just as the last book in a chapter list, or should we also think of it as being the last book chronologically written as well?

And I think there is reason to see it as being chronologically last, to say that this list here, I would side against this list, basically. But I'll show you why they treat it this way. If you look at the end of 2 Chronicles, so go all the way to, all right, 2 Chronicles 36, verses 22 to 23.

Who wants to read that? And then, and then right after that, read Ezra, which is on the very next page, Ezra 1 through 4. So, 2 Chronicles 22, or sorry, 2 Chronicles 36, 22 through 23, and then continue into the first.

Four verses of the next book. Who would like to read this? Sarah? Okay, go ahead. Okay, so if.

You're reading this and your main piece of evidence, as it should be, is the contents of the book and what it's addressing, then you see 2 Chronicles ends with the proclamation of Cyrus, Ezra begins with the proclamation of Cyrus.

They're concerned about a lot of the same things. They're written as histories, which at that time, you've got Ezra, the guy writing these things. It does make sense to think of this all as coming next to each other, written by Ezra, and then Nehemiah addressing things much later than the book of Ezra, putting that all the way at the end.

So, this is why this study Bible is listing Nehemiah as the last book. Let me give you the reason that I don't think Nehemiah is the last book, and rather 2 Chronicles, in addition to being the last in the Hebrew canon, is also the last written.

Nehemiah 11, verses 10 through 14. Who's got that? Thank you. All right, now keep your finger.

In that passage, and then turn to 1 Chronicles 9, and we're going to look at verses 10 through 13. So, 1 Chronicles 9. So, make sure you keep Nehemiah ready to go. But yeah, 1 Chronicles 9, 10 through 13.

Can I have you go ahead and read that again, Tim? Yeah. Thank you. All right, so if you have both of those open, compare the numbers for me for a second, and tell me if you see any differences in the numbers.

These are both describing the priests that are returned from exile. Okay, it's the same. The same names are listed, right? It is Jediah, Joirib, Jachin, etc. Right? A lot of the same people, but there are different numbers.

Go ahead. Yes. Yeah, it's smaller in Nehemiah, right? So, I'll go ahead and total it for you. It's 1 ,192 in Nehemiah. It is 1 ,760 in 1 Chronicles. So, there's 600 more in these priestly families in 1 Chronicles.

Now, what does that mean? What is likely in this case? We have two authors recording the exact same set of families. One has 600 more people in the than the other does. The family has grown at this point.

Okay? So, this is, I mean, you know, it's possible families could shrink. You know, there's all kinds of possibilities. But the typical situation, the thing that you should suspect, and what makes a lot of sense here, is that the family has grown by 600 by the time you get to 1 Chronicles.

So, in other words, 1 Chronicles is describing a time after Nehemiah. Nehemiah has a smaller set of family for these priests. 1 Chronicles has a larger set of family. So, this is why many people, this particular parallel is why many people believe 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, obviously, is written after Nehemiah.

So, that would put it as the last book. Okay? And this is a position I would take. It really is the last book, not just the last in a table of contents. Yes. Not deviating from tradition, no. It's just they are, I believe, when they're putting this together, they're primarily operating off of, like, where the beginning and end of the narratives are.

Right? And they're not considering that particular parallel. Okay. Let's go ahead and look at this passage itself. So, that little exposition will cover the majority of our time here. But, okay, who wants to summarize what this passage was about?

Go for it. Well, it's not just that he's doing them. God is giving them to him. Like, this is displayed as God's gift to Solomon, that he's giving him treasure and horses. Yes. Right. And remember how before we've looked at this passage and seen that God also told them not to worship at the high places, and yet Solomon is worshiping at one of the high places he's not supposed to worship at, Gibeon, because the tabernacle is there, but it doesn't pronounce a judgment on him.

So, maybe there are things that Solomon is doing wrong, but that's not the takeaway that we're supposed to have from this passage. The takeaway we're supposed to have is God is building him up in power and wealth, right?

And as a picture of the goodness of God's kingdom and the one who will ultimately sit on Solomon's throne. Not every last detail is part of the analogy. No, but the wives typically are a symbol of power, right?

Because if you have many sons, you have many people to reign underneath you as princes. Yes. Oh, I'm not asking. I was just asking for a summary of what the passage was about. Yes, this passage was about Solomon, God's response to Solomon.

Solomon had asked for wisdom to rule over God's people. God was pleased with that, and so in addition to giving him wisdom, God also gave him wealth. What things did you notice through here that are different between 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles?

There were several things that I've got written down in my notes. Anybody want to point some out that they noticed that were different? Yes. Good. Yes, silver and gold and abundance in addition to just silver.

Okay. Any other differences you noted? I'm just talking about the whole passage here. Yeah. Any other differences that you noticed between 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles? And you can talk about just big narrative differences too, not just details.

You're talking about the narrative about the prostitutes and the child? Okay. Yeah, so that's one is 2 Chronicles skips the narrative of the prostitutes arguing over the child. All right. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that is the thing that is tying these differences together. So there's a pattern among all these differences, right? It's emphasis on wealth. That's why gold is added here, and a de-emphasis on the wisdom.

So that's why the story about the prostitutes is removed. The queen of Sheba is moved until after the whole description of the temple building. Let's see. Is there... Right. And then, yeah, the long description about his wisdom is omitted as well, right?

And so all of this is so that we can have a focus on the temple. A lot of details are going to be added to the temple. He's going to really focus in on the temple. He's going to take the passages from 1 Kings, put them in there, and then add details to them so we get to know much more about the temple.

And in preparation for that, he's telling us about how God has built up Solomon in wealth. And so his emphasis is on wealth, not that he's denying that Solomon's wise. I mean, we're going to learn more about Solomon's wisdom later, but the emphasis right now is on his wealth so that we can see how God is using him to build the temple to establish the presence of God, right?

And I pointed that out before too with God being happy with His worship because even though He's going to Gibeon where the Tent of Meeting is, but the Ark of the Covenant is not, right? The Ark of the Covenant being the presence of God, He is described as one who God is with.

He can go worship away from the Ark of the Covenant because He is one who God is with, and here He's going to build this temple so that God can be with the people, right? So it's a lot of emphasis on Solomon being, by his strength and wealth, one who establishes the presence of God for the people for their worship.

So these are the things you should be picking up on as the emphasis in all this. In that first Kings passage, yeah, what does it mean? Why does it include all this stuff about plants and animals and everything?

Anybody understand that? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, so this is part of his wisdom. When we're talking about Solomon's wisdom, we're not talking just about wisdom and moral things. We're talking about an understanding of the natural sciences.

He knows everything from the mighty cedar to the lowly hyssop, which is an interesting passage for interpreting some of the temple activities because when we see that the, you know, in Hebrews 10 when it's describing that all these things have meaning, but I don't have enough time to explain them, as the author of Hebrews says, one of those things, you know, the hyssop being applied, applying the blood and water to things to anoint them or to consecrate them, if that is supposed to be the lowliest of all the plants, then it makes sense that this is supposed to, according to Hebrews, represent something about Christ, that it represents something about the humility of the Savior in making that sacrifice to him for us.

So we see that a lot of these things, even with the natural sciences, have application to how we understand spiritual things as well. Yes, right, yeah, he's capable of building up the temple, yeah. I have not heard that particular story, but there is a lot of extra-biblical story around Solomon, especially around Solomon, the queen of Sheba, which is very interesting too, but yes.

Yes, yeah, there is, and going back to Jewish legends, there's something that is, that I've seen mentioned many times and gone and read in Jewish sources, which I think there is, a lot of this stuff, it's not really worth anyone's time.

Other stuff, there might be something to it. Something that is interesting is they've observed that if God made man perfect, then when you see perfections of a particular kind in individuals throughout history, that we should imagine that Adam had them, so we should imagine that he had the wisdom of Solomon.

And yes, with things like that, being able to name all the animals, etc., they will go really far with this. We're supposed to imagine he has the height of Goliath, that he has the hair of Absalom, he has the strength of Samson, etc., which are maybe some of those.

I don't know about the hair, but okay. Let's see. Any other questions about this or thoughts about the importance of strength in the kingdom of God and what prosperity looks like in the kingdom of God?

You know, in Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I think I mentioned that last time. Christ fulfilled this. He has all kinds of riches that he has, one through his perfect work, and then he himself is a great treasure.

He has everything that is needed in order to build the temple, and he is building the temple. There's not only his body as a temple and then us as individuals with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as temples, but then the church the whole that he is building until it is complete and every last stone is placed in, and then he returns, right?

And so he has been given everything to do this. If Solomon's prayer was pleasing to God, how much more pleasing is Christ's prayer as he prays to him in the garden, asking for God's will to be done, right?

This is what's pleasing to God about Solomon. Solomon is not asking for his own will, he's asking for God's will, right? This is what Christ does. He doesn't ask for his own will, he asks for the Father's will, and so God, pleased with that, gives him much more than he asked for so that he can build the temple greatly, right?

Because he's not even asking for the ability to build the temple. He's not asking for the wealth in order to make it great and magnificent, right? He's just asking for wisdom, but then God gives him the wealth to make it magnificent, and that is what Christ has and what he is doing with his own church is building it to be magnificent.

We usually think of the…because the magnificence of the church is not in stones, right? And a lot of people will mock often Baptist churches, right? Or just non-denominational churches for, you know, not having particularly magnificent buildings.

The majesty of Christ's church is not in the building. It is in the spiritual work that Christ is accomplishing in his people, building it up for that great day when its magnificence is manifest. And so, yeah, we shouldn't look at, like, Notre Dame or, you know, all these other, like, these edifices or, you know, the pomp and circumstance that exists in other flavors of Christianity who want to put a lot of the majesty there, right?

That was what Solomon did as a picture of the real majesty which Christ is building up among us, and that should excite you, and it should make you eager to see it built up all the more. I'm going to go ahead and hand this off to Tim to pray a prayer, even though we're about to pray, though.

Let me just do it quickly. Dear Holy Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you are building up your temple. We ask that you would hear our prayers to have your temple built up all the more.

In Jesus' name, amen.