2 Chronicles 1 · a question people ask

Why does 2 Chronicles tell the night at Gibeon differently from 1 Kings?

In the text

Both books tell of a thousand burnt offerings at Gibeon (1 Kings 3:4; 1:6) and of God appearing to Solomon there. They tell it in different words. 1 Kings says, "In Gibeon, the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night" (1 Kings 3:5); 2 Chronicles says, "That night, God appeared to Solomon" (1:7), and doesn't call it a dream. In 1 Kings Solomon says, "I am just a little child. I don’t know how to go out or come in" (1 Kings 3:7), and asks for "an understanding heart to judge your people" (1 Kings 3:9); in 2 Chronicles he asks, "Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people" (1:10). 1 Kings ends God's answer with a condition, "If you will walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days" (1 Kings 3:14), and then "Solomon awoke; and behold, it was a dream" (1 Kings 3:15). 2 Chronicles has neither, and ends, "So Solomon came from the high place that was at Gibeon, from before the Tent of Meeting, to Jerusalem; and he reigned over Israel" (1:13). Some things are close in both: the question "who can judge this great people of yours?" (1:10), which 1 Kings words "who is able to judge this great people of yours?" (1 Kings 3:9), and gifts beyond what was asked (1 Kings 3:13; 1:12). Neither book says why they differ, and these notes don't guess.

From Favor's study of 2 Chronicles 1

2 Chronicles 1: Wisdom and knowledge

2 Chronicles opens with the verbs of David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29, "It is in your hand to make great, and to give strength" (1 Chronicles 29:12). Its first verse says Solomon "was firmly established" and the LORD "made him exceedingly great" (1:1): in Hebrew, chazaq and gadal. And the "riches" and "honor" of that prayer are what God adds at Gibeon (1:12).

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