2 Chronicles 7 Bible study: If my people

"Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the LORD’s glory filled the house" (7:1) (tap fire and glory). "The priests could not enter into the LORD’s house, because the LORD’s glory filled the LORD’s house" (7:2). It is the second time. Before Solomon prayed, when the singers praised the LORD, "the house was filled with a cloud, even the LORD’s house" (5:13), "so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the LORD’s glory filled God’s house" (5:14). 1 Kings tells the cloud (1 Kings 8:10-11) but not the fire. There, when Solomon had finished praying, "he arose from before the LORD’s altar, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread out toward heaven" (1 Kings 8:54), and "He stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice" (1 Kings 8:55). In 2 Chronicles, when the fire came down, the people "bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement, worshiped, and gave thanks to the LORD" (7:3), in the singers' words of 5:13: "For he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever!" (7:3) (tap loving kindness).

2 Chronicles 7:14→leads toMatthew 18:3-4

The LORD names what his people are to do: "if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (7:14). When the disciples asked, "Who then is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?" (Matthew 18:1), Jesus set a little child among them and said, "Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:3), and "Whoever therefore humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:4). Jesus doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 7, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: turning, and humbling oneself. Some hear in Jesus' words the same humbling and turning 7:14 asks for, now as the way into the Kingdom of Heaven. Others read Matthew 18 in its own setting, the disciples' question of who is greatest (Matthew 18:1), and 7:14 as the LORD's answer to Solomon about his people and their land (7:12-13), and don't look from one to the other.

כָּנַעkana'say ka-NA

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "be humble", and in the form here, "humble oneself". Strong's: "properly, to bend the knee; hence, to humiliate". "if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves" (7:14). It is the first of the four things the LORD names, and in Hebrew it is the first time 2 Chronicles uses the verb. It comes back through the book. When Shishak came, "the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves" (12:6), and the LORD said, "They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them" (12:7). Manasseh "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers" (33:12). Of the last king, Zedekiah, the book says, "He didn’t humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the LORD’s mouth" (36:12). Leviticus had set the verb beside the heart: "if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled" (Leviticus 26:41).