Bible Study - 2 Chronicles 7:4-10

You may be seated.

Prayer and Opening to 2 Chronicles 7:4-10

Dear Holy Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you would bless our time in prayer this evening. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Please turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 7. We're looking at verses 4 through 10 tonight.

4 through 10. Victoria, do you have a book?

I do.

OK, all right.

Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. King Solomon offered as a sacrifice 22 ,000 oxen and 120 ,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. The priests stood at their posts, the Levites also, with the instruments for music to the Lord that King David had made for giving thanks to the Lord for a steadfast love endures forever.

Whenever David offered praises by their ministry opposite them, the priests sounded trumpets and all Israel stood. And Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord.

For there he offered the burnt offering and the fat of the peace offerings because the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat. At that time, Solomon held the feast for seven days and all Israel with him, a very great assembly from Lebo Hamath to the brook of Egypt.

The dedication of the altar, seven days, and the feast, seven days. On the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their homes, joyful and glad of heart for the prosperity that the Lord had granted to David and to Solomon and to Israel, his people.

Amen. All right.

The Number of the Sacrifices and the Unity of All Israel

OK, so verse 4 here, start out with, then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord, before Jehovah. And King Solomon offered sacrifices, 22 ,000 oxen, 120 ,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.

All right, anybody see any significance in the quantity of sacrifices? OK, first of all, they're very large. A lot of people have said this is hyperbole. However, I don't think it is hyperbole given that you have all the explanations of how he manages to do this and how the altar could not even contain it all.

So he gives enough detail here that I don't believe we're supposed to see this as like saying tons or millions, and you might say in a way that's really inaccurate. I think this really is a number that's supposed to be taken as an accurate literal number.

Anybody see any significance in the 22 ,000 oxen and 120 ,000? Minus the tribe of Levi, OK. For the sheep? Sorry, what's your? Oh, you're saying 22 ,000 is, it would be 24 if there were 2 ,000 more. Is that what you're saying?

Right. Yeah.

OK, OK. What, in the Old Testament, where there are sacrifices of goats and of oxen, what usually is the distinction between the oxen and the goats or the sheep? Oxen are typically used a little differently.

Yeah, you have a lot of different things being used as an offering or a guild offering, et cetera. Yeah, there's a different distinction I'm looking for. No, once again, I think you end up seeing a lot for both.

What ends up happening is just like when Hebrew says that this priest has to sacrifice for himself and then he sacrifices for the people. Usually it's an ox for himself and then a goat for the people.

And this happens on the different sacrifices. You know, you see this in the burnt offerings, et cetera, that whenever it's for the priest, it's the oxen, it's for the people. It is goat. Now, that's not always the case.

A lot of times the oxen will be used for the people as a whole, like representatively. But that's kind of what's happening with the priest is he's representing all the people. So when you have 120 ,000 sheep, that seems to have to do with the 12 tribes, like Vinay said.

22 ,000 is when Israel came out of the land of Egypt in Numbers 339, the Levites number 22 ,000, David had specified the number of temple servants. So this is in Ezra 820, speaks of 220 temple servants.

So 22, or even more specifically 22 ,000, seems to be a number that is particular to Levi. So the 120 ,000 is for the 12 tribes, not including Levi. Because Levi's often not counted as one of the tribes, it's the others that are counted.

There's really like 13 tribes, depending on how you count them. And then the Levites are represented by the 22 ,000. All right, so this is the people's response to God's divine favor. They respond with great offerings because he's given them a great sign of his favor, filling the house with his glory.

You note he speaks of all the people in this verse, unlike in 1 Kings. That is significant because the passage, we keep making comparisons to 1 Chronicles 16, where David brings the ark into Jerusalem and how many parallels the chronicler is making with Solomon now, like David, bringing the ark into the temple.

Okay, so David brought it into Jerusalem, Solomon brings it into the temple. In Old Testament history, that's covered by 1 Samuel and then covered by 1 Kings 2, or sorry, not 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel. It's two different, you have two different books covering these things, right?

And so they have, these authors have different objectives, but in Chronicles, those are being brought together and some of the text is being presented in a way to show similarities where before there wasn't the same desire to show the similarities.

So one of the ways that happens is that what was all Israel or all the children of Israel in 1 Kings becomes all the people so that you have a similarity to what David says or what it says about David doing this for all the people in 1 Chronicles 36 and 43.

So I can go ahead and read this. This is still the first question. 1 Chronicles 16, 36 says, say also save us, O God of our salvation and gather and deliver us from among the nations that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory and your praise.

Blessed be, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. And then later on it says in verse 43, then all the people departed each to his house and David went home to bless his household.

So you see, and it's not just here, there's a number of times where it talks about all the people acting, which is a, it's an interesting statement that all the people are gathering because likely there are some that are not there but it speaks of all the people, it speaks of this unity.

And then he is using the same phrase to describe the people as he used in 1 Chronicles 16. Right there, he was just copying Samuel but then as we get into 2 Chronicles to make it match those words from Samuel, he speaks of all the people.

Okay, hopefully that makes sense. All right, 6a, and the priest stood according to their offices, the Levites also with the instruments of the music of David, excuse me, of music of Jehovah, which David the king had made to give thanks to the Lord, to Jehovah for his loving kindness endures forever.

All right, what does it mean to stand according to office?

Yes, great.

Yeah, David had arranged them into different offices. So part of what this is doing is showing that Solomon's continuing in David's tradition of them having their different posts or different offices and significance of David having made the instruments.

Once again, Solomon is continuing what David had started. The Chronicler does a lot to show you that David and Solomon are very similar and in a way, kind of united in their reign. And then this phrase in parentheticals for his loving kindness endures forever.

Once again, what's he doing there? He's taking it back to David because that's what we saw in 1 Chronicles 16 again, right? Verses 34 and 41. So give thanks to the Lord for he is good for a steadfast love endures forever.

Then verse 41, with them were Heman and Jeduthun and the rest of the chosen and expressly named to give thanks to the Lord for a steadfast love endures forever. Okay, so here are these things that were true about David.

The Chronicler is pointing out all these things. All these things were true for David and for a steadfast love endures forever. And everyone's gonna know, oh yeah, that's David who said that, right? You're probably familiar with hymns based on the psalm that say for a steadfast love endures forever, right?

I mean, there was that one in the 90s. I always remember, it's love endures forever. It would just go on and say that a bunch of times. 6b, when David praised by their ministry and the priests surrounded the trumpets before them and all Israel stood.

All right, why did the priests sound trumpets to call Israel to attention? Why does all Israel stand in order to honor the Lord and when does this take place? So presumably, this is taking place at the beginning of the temple dedication.

The next verse is also addressing things at the beginning, at the beginning of the temple dedication. And yeah, we'll see that there's also the Feast of Booths here that is connected to it. But this is probably happening at the beginning.

The Bronze Altar, the Feast of Booths, and the Ideal Borders of the Land

All right, verse seven. Moreover, Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord. I keep doing that, replacing it, before the house of Jehovah. For there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offering and the green offering and the fat.

All right, Solomon consecrated the middle of the court.

Why?

So he goes ahead and does whatever ceremonies needed with blood, et cetera, to consecrate it. But there are just so many sacrifices that you would need more space to get them all in the room and move things through.

Once again, that shows that this really is a real quantity we're talking about here.

Yes, it wasn't a what?

What was the first part? Yeah, it was for practical reasons, yes. No, no, it's just that more space is needed. So he makes that space available for this too. A lot of parts in here are shortened from compared to 1 Kings.

Let's see, some of this, though, once again relates in David. It names him, like saying the king, just like it had named David. Yeah, before, this was the altar that Bezalel had made in 2 Chronicles 1 .5.

Now it's called the altar that Solomon had made. So it's attributing it to him. We've seen that a lot of times in 2 Chronicles, that he is, things that were spoken of more as being, of being Harambe's work are now being attributed to him, and now we see, yeah, the same thing here.

Yes, sure.

No, it's space for the sacrifices to be made, because before, you only have one space for them to be made, right? For there, he offered burnt offerings, the fat of the peace offerings. Before, you couldn't do that there.

Now you can do it there in addition to the, on the altar. Right, so the altar was not sufficient. It was not able to receive all the burnt offerings. Now, if you remember, one of the details the chronicler added to Kings is how large this altar was, and it takes up almost the whole room, and it's very large.

So it's surprising that this is not able to, and in 1 Kings, what this verse says, it doesn't just say it was not able to receive them. It says it was too small to receive them. So you can imagine someone reading 1 Kings, where you're not given the dimensions.

You're told it was too small for the sacrifices. You might think it's actually a small altar, right? But then he explains the dimensions are huge, they're massive, and here he says it's not able to receive it.

You know, he's making sure you don't think that this is too small. It's just the sacrifices were too large. There's 120 ,000 sheep and then 22 ,000 oxen, and you're doing this in a course of a very short number of days for a ceremony.

Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot to go into a small space and to slaughter all that. It's kind of hard to imagine how it could all have been done. That's why people say that this is just hyperbole, that there's no way that there were that many, and I think they're wrong.

I think it's being literal, but yeah, it was just that many that they had to push them through faster and to have more space to do the sacrifices. Okay, let's see. Also, something else that we've seen in previous ones too is the chronicler has been pluralizing a lot of the words to emphasize quantity, so he talks about offerings instead of the offering singular.

That's been happening a number of times for other things. I think one of them was when he talked about enemies during the prayer rather than just enemy. All right, feast. So Solomon held a feast at that time seven days and all Israel with him.

Very great assembly from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. All right, what's the significance of him holding this feast? This is the Feast of Booth. This was already mentioned back in 5 .3, but yeah, this is happening now, and the fact that it's a great assembly demonstrates the prosperity and unity of Israel under Solomon.

Calls it a very great assembly, which is another, that's a word that he's adding in there. That's his own word, very. He's emphasizing it even more. All right, what about Hamath to the brook of Egypt?

Do you know what's up with that?

Yes.

Like you're saying, the journey that they traveled? No, I think he's doing a lot to stress the unity and prosperity of the people. So what the allusion that's being made here is to Genesis 15, 18. It says, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your offspring, I'll give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

So yeah, and speaking of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, he's describing the ideal borders of the land that are being described to Abraham. Now, later on, it goes up to the Jordan, et cetera, and you don't really see it going all the way to the Euphrates, but sometimes you do see it expanding beyond.

And when the people are especially prosperous, it talks about it in this way, where it's all the way to Egypt and then all the way to the Euphrates. So these are the ideal borders of the land, that it spreads all that far.

This is a lot farther than what you would see on a Bible map of Israel. Okay, Bible map of Israel is like this. This is talking about like this. Yes, those are the same thing. Feast of booths and feast of tabernacles.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, there's a number of things that stay there, especially with the order and with Shechem and how they relate to Pentecost, et cetera. There's a lot in there. Okay, that I don't know off the top of my head, but yes.

Let's see.

Yeah, the Chronicler also specifies that the feast was seven days. That clarifies the sequence of events from 1 Kings. We've just talked about this being 14 days. So you have seven days of dedication and seven days for the feast of booths.

That says, and on the eighth day, they held a solemn assembly, for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days. All right, so why did they hold a solemn assembly on the eighth day?

That is part of the command that God gives in Leviticus for the feast of booths. The festival is seven days, and then the eighth day is a solemn assembly.

Yes.

Yeah, that's generally what the eighth day symbolizes. You have the circumcision happening on the eighth day. Right, after the seven days, you have the new creation took, or old creation took six days and God rested on the seventh.

And then the eighth represents a new creation. And that's what circumcision represents, right? A circumcision of the heart is you becoming a new creation. Same thing with Jesus being resurrected on the eighth day.

Right, first day of the week, but the eighth day after the seventh, you know, if you just add one to seven,.

Right, it's the eighth day.

So yes, I do believe that these eighth day instances are designed to point to a new creation, yes. And that's what happens too for us after this life where we are, yes, sojourners here in this land, that finally at the end of that journey, when we are all together, that will be the new heavens and the new earth.

That at the end of our sojourning, there is the new creation. So then that's what the feast of tabernacles represents, them remembering the people being sojourners. And then it ends on the eighth day where they gather in the great assembly, like we will then gather in the great assembly after we're done with our sojourning.

So yes, there's definitely a parallel there. Okay, this event is now referred to as the dedication of the altar. That's interesting because before it was called the dedication of the house of God. This is not the only time we've spoken of those interchangeably.

You know, even in, I think even in the previous chapter, you're saying when the people pray before the house or when they pray before the temple, he uses them very interchangeably. Just like, I don't know, the usual example is like the White House versus the president.

You know, the White House has decided or the president has decided. You can use those interchangeably and people know what you're doing, even though the White House and the president are two very different things.

The Eighth Day, New Creation, and the Dedication of the Temple

Okay, verse 10. And on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the goodness that Jehovah had showed to David and to Solomon and to Israel and his people.

All right, yeah. Chronicler explains that the people departed on the 23rd day of the month, whereas 1 Kings only mentioned they were dismissed on the eighth day of the feast. So just giving more clarity here.

One reason why more clarity might be needed, yeah, let's see. In Nehemiah, it talks about how the Sabbath was not being practiced and you have, and this is being written to that same people. It's likely that they needed extra clarity to understand why the people weren't just going home on the 22nd day, why they were going home on the 23rd day.

That's one possible reason why the chronicler includes this detail, because it may not have been obvious to a people who had really degraded in their observation of the Sabbath, or maybe needed a reminder that people in the past have observed the Sabbath well.

The goodness Jehovah showed to David and to Solomon, to Israel, his people. All right, this is one of those times where the chronicler makes it really clear that he's trying to unite David and Solomon when he says, shown to David and to Solomon, because 1 Kings had just said David his servant, didn't say David and Solomon.

And this connection is picked up by the New Testament. The New Testament also makes relations between David and Solomon. Consider this, Hebrews 1 .5. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you?

Where is that from, anybody know? Anybody know what Old Testament passage Hebrews 1 is quoting? You are my son, today I have begotten you. It's one of the psalms. It's the second psalm, the second psalm, yeah.

Why did the nations rage in the people's plot and vain, et cetera. It says, you are my son, this day I have begotten you. Okay, so who's writing that? David's writing that prophetically about the Messiah, but in an immediate sense about himself.

He is the anointed one that the enemies are coming against, et cetera, right? But this is prophetically about the Son of God. Okay, Hebrews 1 .5 continues, it says, or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.

What's that one from, anybody know? Right, yes, 2 Samuel 7. Or 1 Chronicles also, 17, I believe, had that as well. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. Who was that about in 2 Samuel 7?

Do you remember? It's about Solomon. Well, yeah, okay, ultimately it's prophesying Jesus, but it's about Solomon. So Hebrews 1 .5 pulls together these two passages and says both these things are said about Jesus, this one thing about David and this one thing about Solomon.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Okay, that's about David. Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. That's about Solomon.

Okay, so even in the New Testament, we're pulling these things together and talking about David and Solomon, so united that the prophecies about him are like the prophecies about the other one, and they're both about the Messiah.

He is the one who sits in that line. And this is true about all the kings, but there's a special way that David and Solomon, this is true, if you were to map out the history of Israel, it would go like this.

You get to David, it peaks, goes to Solomon and stays peaked, and then it all goes downhill from there. So, yeah, David and Solomon really are the high point of Israel. You finally have the king of Judah.

He conquers all the Philistines, et cetera, so that there's enough peace that Solomon can build, and everything's just really good and golden, and then it's all downhill after that. Begins in war at the beginning of David's life, and then it ends in war at the end of Solomon's.

And then you never, everything else is just trying to recapture David and Solomon. And so when the New Testament comes on the scene, it's speaking about recapturing David and Solomon once again. And that's kind of what the chronicler's point is.

And later on, when we see the later kings, there's gonna be a lot of allusions made to David, the idea being that we need another king like David. In 2 Samuel 7, you're talking about, it's about Solomon.

Solomon, when he says, I will be a father to him and he will be to me, and he shall be to me a son. He will sit on the throne forever, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, I think it's right to understand, and they would have understood back then that this is pointing to something more than Solomon.

At the same time, even Solomon says, you had promised to my father that I would build this temple, et cetera. So I don't think, I think we're right to see it as applying to both. There's some immediate fulfillment in Solomon, and then there is a greater fulfillment that happens in Christ.

All right, okay. Okay, let's go ahead and, well, we can look at this question real quick. What role does celebration play in your life? How should you celebrate the things of God? How should this passage shape your thoughts about Jesus?

So yeah, they're all celebrating the new temple. They're celebrating also with the Feast of Booths. The application for this is not, go celebrate the Feast of Booths. Probably shouldn't do that, since it would, yeah, elevate types and shadows rather than elevating Christ.

I know people who do go celebrate the Feast of Booths, though. But yeah, I don't think that's helpful.

That's right, yeah.

He gives us every Sunday in particular, too, yeah. And yeah, we should make full use of that.

To celebrate him, right, yeah.

Yeah, gratitude, thankfulness. It's pretty important for joy. You will not be a joyful person if you don't give thanks, because you won't understand the goodness of the things that you have. Yeah, a lot of people wonder why they're so joyless, and they don't think about whether or not they're actually giving thanks for things.

So that's the only way you're going to be joyful, is to give thanks. And then people will decide that, oh, I must have a medical problem or something, when, well, that's not necessarily what's going on here.

Yes, yes, yeah, celebration's necessary.

Yeah, we're supposed to praise. You see all the Psalms that tell us that. Yeah, that's what we're doing each week when we come worship God, is we're celebrating what Christ has done. And he has us, I mean, consider the last thing he did on the night when he was betrayed is to tell us to enjoy a feast together.

Now I get that the communion ceremony doesn't look like a standard feast, but that's what it represents. The joy we're supposed to have. We drink wine. Wine is something that represents joy. You know, that's an all while he has sworn it off.

You know, he is not drinking from the fruit of the vine until we're all gathered together. And so he is not making us joy complete, but he's told us to pursue joy.

While we are, before we gather.

I do think we should use wine at the Lord's Supper, if that's what you're asking.

Yes.

Just in life in general, when you're celebrating. I believe it's lawful, but not necessary.

All right.

Yeah, right. I think that had to do with the impurities in the water at the time, but that required some alcoholic mixture. I was watching a, there's a YouTube channel I used to watch that I still occasionally get recommendations for on, it was 18th century cooking.

And yeah, I was just talking about how people used to drink beer all the time because they wouldn't get sick from the beer, but they knew that water, they couldn't just drink straight water. Yeah, anyway.

What's that? Yeah, sounds good. All right, let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you for the promise that we will be, that our sojourning is one where you are providing for us all the while, and yet at the same time, it is also something that will eventually end and we will be gathered together.

We thank you for that. We thank you for your presence in our assembly that you have inaugurated your temple at Pentecost with fire from heaven, just like we saw in this last passage in 2 Chronicles. We ask that you would continue to bless your church.

In Jesus' name, amen.