الملوك الأول ٩

The Answer of the Lord to Solomon's Dedicatory Prayer (cf. Ch2 7:11-22). - Kg1 9:1, Kg1 9:2. When Solomon had finished the building of the temple, and of his palace, and of all that he had a desire to build, the Lord appeared to him the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon, i.e., by night in a dream (see Kg1 3:5), to promise him that his prayer should be answered. For the point of time, see at Kg1 8:1. כּל־חשׁק, all Solomon's desire or pleasures, is paraphrased thus in the Chronicles: לב על כּל־הבּא, "all that came into his mind," and, in accordance with the context, is very properly restricted to these two principal buildings by the clause, "in the house of Jehovah and in his own house."

God had given a real answer to Solomon's prayer, and tokens of his acceptance of it, immediately, by the fire from heaven which consumed the sacrifices (as we find Ch2 7:1); but here we have a more express and distinct answer to it. Observe, I. In what way God gave him this answer. He appeared to him, as he had done at Gibeon, in the beginning of his reign, in a dream or vision, Kg1 9:2. The comparing of it with that intimates that it was the very night after he had finished the solemnities of his festival, for so that was, Ch2 1:6, Ch2 1:7. And then Kg1 9:1, speaking of Solomon's finishing all his buildings, which was not till many years after the dedication of the temple, must be read thus, Solomon finished (as it is Ch2 7:11), and Kg1 9:2 must be read, and the Lord had appeared. II. The purport of this answer. 1. He assures him of his special presence in the temple he had built, in answer to the prayer he had made (Kg1 9:3): I have hallowed this house. Solomon had dedicated it, but it was God's prerogative to hallow it - to sanctify or consecrate it. Men cannot make a place holy, yet what we, in sincerity, devote to God, we may hope he will graciously accept as his; and his eyes and his heart shall be upon it. Apply it to persons, the living temples. Those whom God hallows or sanctifies, whom he sets apart for himself, have his eye, his heart, his love and care, and this perpetually. 2. He shows him that he and his people were for the future upon their good behaviour. Let them not be secure now, as if they might live as they please now that they have the temple of the Lord among them, Jer 7:4. No, this house was designed to protect them in their allegiance to God, but not in their rebellion or disobedience. God deals plainly with us, sets before us good and evil, the…