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2 Chronicles 6 · a question people ask

Solomon built God "a place for you to dwell in forever" (6:2). Why does he then ask whether God will dwell on the earth at all (6:18)?

In the text

The chapter says both. "But I have built you a house and home, a place for you to dwell in forever" (6:2). Then: "But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house which I have built!" (6:18). In Hebrew dwell in both verses is the same verb, yashav. What the prayer asks is "that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, even toward the place where you have said that you would put your name" (6:20), and that the LORD "hear from your dwelling place, even from heaven" (6:21). When the prayer is finished, "the LORD’s glory filled the house" (7:1), and the LORD says, "For now I have chosen and made this house holy, that my name may be there forever; and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually" (7:16). Before he built, Solomon had said in his message to Huram that "heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain him" (2:6), and 1 Kings 8 sets its own two verses side by side (1 Kings 8:13, 8:27). 2 Chronicles doesn't say how 6:2 and 6:18 fit together, and this answer doesn't either.

The verses

“But I have built you a house and home, a place for you to dwell in forever.””
2 Chronicles 6:2 · World English Bible
““But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house which I have built!”
2 Chronicles 6:18 · World English Bible
“that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, even toward the place where you have said that you would put your name, to listen to the prayer which your servant will pray toward this place. Listen to the petitions of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Yes, hear from your dwelling place, even from heaven; and when you hear, forgive.”
2 Chronicles 6:20-21 · World English Bible
“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.”
2 Chronicles 7:1 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Chronicles 6

2 Chronicles 6: Hands toward heaven

Solomon's bronze platform (6:13) is, in Hebrew, the word for the bronze basins of 4:6, and only Chronicles tells that he knelt on it. And only Chronicles ends the prayer with David: "Remember your loving kindnesses to David your servant" (6:42), two Hebrew words, chasdei David, found side by side in just one other verse of the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 55:3.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions