Reflections on 2 Chronicles 1

 2 Chronicles 01(Contemporary English Version)

1. King Solomon, the son of David, was now in complete control of his kingdom, because the LORD God had blessed him and made him a powerful king.
   
2. At that time, the sacred tent that Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the desert was still kept at Gibeon, and in front of the tent was the bronze altar that Bezalel had made. One day, Solomon told the people of Israel, the army commanders, the officials, and the family leaders, to go with him to the place of worship at Gibeon, even though his father King David had already moved the sacred chest from Kiriath-Jearim to the tent that he had set up for it in Jerusalem. Solomon and the others went to Gibeon to worship the LORD,
   
3. (SEE 1:2)
   
4. (SEE 1:2)
   
5. (SEE 1:2)
   
6. and there at the bronze altar, Solomon offered a thousand animals as sacrifices to please the LORD.
   
7. God appeared to Solomon that night in a dream and said, "Solomon, ask for anything you want, and I will give it to you."
   
8. Solomon answered: LORD God, you were always loyal to my father David, and now you have made me king of Israel.
   
9. I am supposed to rule these people, but there are as many of them as there are specks of dust on the ground. So keep the promise you made to my father
   
10. and make me wise. Give me the knowledge I'll need to be the king of this great nation of yours.
    
11. God replied: Solomon, you could have asked me to make you rich or famous or to let you live a long time. Or you could have asked for your enemies to be destroyed. Instead, you asked for wisdom and knowledge to rule my people.
    
12. So I will make you wise and intelligent. But I will also make you richer and more famous than any king before or after you.
    
13. Solomon then left Gibeon and returned to Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel.
    
14. Solomon had a force of one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses that he kept in Jerusalem and other towns.
    
15. While Solomon was king of Israel, there was silver and gold everywhere in Jerusalem, and cedar was as common as ordinary sycamore trees in the foothills.
    
16. Solomon's merchants bought his horses and chariots in the regions of Musri and Kue. They paid about fifteen pounds of silver for a chariot and almost four pounds of silver for a horse. They also sold horses and chariots to the Hittite and Syrian kings.
    
17. (SEE 1:16)

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2 Chronicles chapter 1 picks up where 1 Chronicles chapter 29 left off. Some time had passed in between, however, for Solomon had "strengthened his hold on his kingdom" (1:1) by 'cleaning house' and getting rid of challengers to the throne, as recorded in the first three chapters of 1 Kings. Without comment as to the reason, we are told that on this particular occasion Solomon gathered all the leaders of Israel with him at God's tent of meeting in Gibeon and offered sacrifices there to the Lord.

This was unusual since although the tent of meeting was in Gibeon, David had moved the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem and worshiped the Lord there. So it had been years since the king, both David and presumably Solomon, had worshped in Gibeon. We can only guess that Solomon went to Gibeon on this occasion in preparation of beginning his task of building a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem, replacing the tent of meeting. This 'guess' has some support in that the second chapter begins with mention of Solomon beginning to take steps to build the temple.

Following Solomon's offering of sacrifices to the Lord in Gibeon, the Lord appeared to him that evening and asked Solomon, "What should I give you?" It is hard for us to imagine the Lord asking us what He should give us as if we could ask for anything and He would give it to us. But in a sense, God does ask every believer what they want, and what we ask of the Lord determines largely what we get in life. For many, this means asking to live their lives as they want without being bothered by problems. There seems to be this expectation that God's greatest responsibility is to see that people don't have problems in life. We would do better to ask, as did Solomon, for wisdom so we would know how best to deal with those problems we encounter.

God, in His wisdom, knows that it is for our good that we have problems, for they are like spiritual exercise. We are prone to approach spiritual exercise as we do physical exercise by trying to avoid it. But as lack of physical exercise is not good for our physical health, neither is lack of spiritual exercise good for our spiritual health. God knows this and as a loving Father does not always enable us to avoid it. Like spoiled children, though, we get angry with Him when He does not help us avoid problems and fail to look for or acknowledge the help He offers us to deal with those problems.

Solomon must have already had a good measure of wisdom, for he exercised wisdom in requesting greater wisdom of the Lord and nothing else. This pleased the Lord and He granted Solomon even what he didn't ask for, which was wealth and glory. What a great heavenly Father we have. I cannot enumerate the times or the ways in which God has granted me more than what I asked for and in ways I could not even imagine.