Yet have respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, Jehovah, my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee this day;
Solomon has just praised a God whom the highest heavens cannot hold. In the same breath, he asks that God to listen to one man praying in front of an altar. Why would the infinite God pay attention to "the prayer of your servant"? And what gives a king the right to ask?
Verse 28 begins with a "yet". The verse before it has just said that no house can hold God. One writer, reading the same prayer in 2 Chronicles 6, shows what that thought does to Solomon's tone:
He recognises the infinite majesty of God. "But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" The thought of the infinite greatness of God subdues him, and from here on his prayer becomes more of a supplication.
Solomon is not praying as a private man. He stands in front of the whole nation, and the role he takes up there is not a king's:
Here Solomon really fills the role of priest. He stands before the altar, facing all the congregation of Israel. There he stretches out his hands toward heaven, taking the character of intercessor. He is truly, as we have said, a picture of Melchizedek, king of righteousness and king of peace.
Melchizedek was the king and priest who met Abraham in Genesis. Solomon holds the same two offices here: he rules the nation, and he pleads for it.
Solomon does not pray only for himself. He speaks for a whole nation:
Solomon pleads with God to pay attention to his prayer and supplication. He speaks especially for Israel, whose interests centred on the temple in Jerusalem (v. 28). That is the place where God had said He would put His name (v. 29).
He also senses what he and the people will need once God hears:
Solomon knows these things. So he asks God to put His name there — the name that to faith stands for His very person. He asks God to hear from His dwelling place in heaven: to hear the king, His servant, and His people Israel when they turn toward His house. At the same time he shows he feels that both king and people will need forgiveness: "And when you hear, forgive."
Solomon wants an answer, but he looks past the house he has just built:
Forgiveness is linked with God in His dwelling place, the highest heaven, and not with the house. For grace is sovereign and has its source in God dwelling in the heavens. The temple and its splendour were well suited for the law and the covenant, but forgiveness is with God in His dwelling place. That is where Solomon looks... He did not know, as we do, how that mercy is secured, and indeed abounds, through the cross of Christ.
Solomon asks the same thing again and again. One writer counts the requests in the matching prayer of 2 Chronicles 6:
Then on the side of man's responsibility and privilege, we see that Solomon's temple becomes the gate of heaven. Nine times the king asks that prayer toward this place may be heard in heaven. The house becomes the gate of access to heaven (vv. 21-40).
Solomon asked for God's ear. When God replied, He named something Solomon had not asked for:
Even Solomon, the king, had the desire that God would look at this place: "Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place" (2 Chr. 6:40). Let us listen to God's answer to Solomon's prayer: "Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place... and My eyes and My heart will be there for all time" (2 Chr. 7:15-16). Not only My eyes and My ears, says the Lord, but also My heart is at this place where the saints are gathered to My name.
- Greatness first. Solomon prays only after admitting that the highest heaven cannot hold God. That greatness turns his asking into a plea, not a claim.
- Servant, not sovereign. He prays as God's servant, standing in for a nation — priest and intercessor, with hands stretched toward heaven.
- The name is the ground. The house matters because God put His name there, and that name stands for His own person.
- Heaven is the source. God hears from His dwelling place, not from the building. Forgiveness is sovereign grace, and commentators tie that mercy to the cross of Christ.
- The answer went beyond the ask. Solomon asked for open eyes and attentive ears. God promised eyes, ears, and His heart there for all time.
that thine eyes may be open upon this house night and day, upon the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.
Solomon has just finished the temple, and he asks God to watch it night and day and to hear the prayers turned toward it. Why should God do that — and what does it mean for His name to rest on a place?
Solomon's whole appeal leans on the name. One writer draws out what that name means to faith, and what Solomon knows both he and his people will still need:
Solomon asks God that His name might be there. To faith, that name represents His very person. He asks God to hear from His dwelling place in heaven, when the king, His servant, and His people Israel turn toward His house. At the same time he expresses his feeling that both he and they will need forgiveness: "And when You hear, forgive."
The prayer is bold. Solomon knows that no building can hold God. Yet he asks God to answer every prayer made in this one.
The king confesses that the highest heaven cannot contain Jehovah. Even so, he asks Him to grant every prayer that anyone offers to Him in this house. God granted that plea (chapter 9:3). So the house stood as the throne of the God of heaven on earth — the place where He revealed Himself, and where He had put His name.
Solomon asked for open eyes and an attentive ear. God's answer added something he had not asked for:
Listen to God's answer to Solomon's prayer: "Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place." And: "My eyes and My heart will be there for all time" (2 Chronicles 7:15-16). Not only My eyes and My ears, says the Lord, but also My heart is at this place where the saints gather to My Name. That thought can revive us in these last days.
The next verse asks God to hear "in heaven your dwelling place." Why point to heaven, when God's glory had just filled the house?
The cloud, the symbol of God's presence, filled the house, so that the priests could not stand to minister. One might have thought that heaven would no longer count as the place to seek and find Jehovah. But Solomon begs God to hear from heaven, "Your dwelling place," when anyone prayed toward that house. This is very instructive. Otherwise we might conclude that because God has a dwelling place on earth, we must look for Him there, as One who has abandoned heaven. We learn the same truth today. The Holy Spirit was clearly among God's people in the early days of the church, yet Stephen, while dying for his faith, looked steadily up into heaven and found all his resources there.
Centuries later the temple lay in ruins, and Daniel still prayed toward Jerusalem. One writer explains why that was faith and not sentiment:
Jehovah had said of Jerusalem, "My eyes and My heart will be there for all time." So Daniel would not stop praying toward that blessed centre. The word of the Lord endures forever. Faith takes its stand on that foundation, which can never perish. There is an eternal freshness about every word that has come from the Lord. His truth holds good throughout all generations.
One writer traces a line from the one chosen place to the smallest gathering today:
Deuteronomy 12 says that the people should bring their offerings to the place where He would choose to set His name. That had its definite fulfilment at Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:29). But now we know God in the blessedness of His presence, where two or three gather together in the name of Jesus. There Jesus Himself has said He would be in the midst of them. Sweet encouragement for the feebleness of His people!
- The name — Solomon's plea rests on what God had said: His name would be there. To faith, that name stands for God Himself.
- The promise — God granted the plea and made the house His throne on earth, the place where He revealed Himself.
- The heart — Solomon asked for open eyes and attentive ears; God's answer added His heart, there for all time.
- The hearing — people pray toward the house, but God answers from heaven. He has not traded heaven for a building.
- The reach — Daniel kept praying toward Jerusalem because God's word still stood. That same word now gathers two or three to the name of Jesus, and He promises to be among them.
And hearken unto the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place, and hear thou in thy dwelling-place, in the heavens, and when thou hearest, forgive.
Solomon has just finished the temple, a house of unmatched splendour. In the same breath he asks God to listen from somewhere else — from heaven. Before he names a single sin, he asks God to forgive. One question shapes the whole prayer: if God's Name is on the house, why look to heaven for pardon?
One writer sets the temple God filled beside the place God calls home.
Someone may point me to the temple that Solomon built as a dwelling place for God, a house where God is said to have taken up His home. True, the glory of God filled that temple, and He could be said to sit between the cherubim. Yet in his prayer Solomon speaks to Him as in heaven: "And listen in heaven Your dwelling place."
So what does Solomon ask for the house he has built?
Solomon asks God that His name might be there. To faith, that name stands for His very person. He asks God to hear from His dwelling place in heaven — to hear the king, His servant, and His people Israel when they turn toward His house. At the same time he feels that both the king and the people will need forgiveness: "And when You hear, forgive."
The word "forgive" arrives early — before the list of troubles that fills the rest of the chapter. Why so soon? One writer points to what Solomon knew about human weakness.
Knowing something of what weak human nature can do, Solomon used the word "forgive" before he mentioned any specific evil (verse 30). He then sets out the likely needs and troubles to come: personal trespasses (verses 31-32), military defeat (verses 33-34), drought (verses 35-36), famine, disease and the like (verses 37-40), danger in war (verses 44-45), and captivity in a strange land (verses 46-50).
This prayer was not meant for one day only.
It is the model prayer for Israel. Confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness runs through every petition. It names sin as the one cause of all troubles and disaster. So Solomon's prayer taught Israel to throw itself on the Lord, pleading and repenting of sin, and to find that the Lord hears and delivers His people.
Why does the verse point to the house and to heaven at once?
Forgiveness is linked with God in His dwelling place, the heaven of heavens, and not with the house. For grace is sovereign and has its source in God dwelling in the heavens. The temple and its magnificence were well suited for the law and the covenant, but forgiveness is with God in His dwelling place. That is where Solomon looks. … He did not know, as we do, how the cross of Christ secures that mercy, and makes it overflow.
Solomon asks God to hear prayers made "toward this place." Long after, with the temple in ruins, Daniel still prayed toward Jerusalem. One writer asks what right he had to do it.
Was there any divine reason for Daniel's praying toward Jerusalem? Certainly there was!… Jerusalem was God's centre. It was, it is, and always shall be. True, it was in ruins — the temple was in ruins; but God's word was not in ruins, and here is faith's simple but solid warrant.
The prayer also reaches the days of captivity, when Israel would be far away with no temple to turn to.
Even there would He hear the supplication and confessions of the repentant. Through His inspired servant the Holy Spirit gives this repeated cry: "Then hear from the heavens, Your dwelling place." It teaches the humble and broken-hearted to look up through the surrounding gloom to God's eternal dwelling place. It is a gracious hint for the last, closing days of the people's long captivity. They are in a far country. They have no access to the temple. Every outward mark of their still being God's chosen people is gone. Let them only look up to the heaven of heavens, and He who sits on the throne will hear, and will forgive.
- Place — God's Name rests on the house, and that Name stands for God Himself. Prayer aims at the house; God is never shut inside it.
- Address — Prayer goes toward the temple, but God hears it in heaven, His dwelling place.
- Pardon — Solomon asks for forgiveness before he names a single sin, and he asks heaven for it. The house held law and covenant; grace is sovereign and comes from God above.
- Pattern — Confession runs through every later request. It taught a nation to trace its troubles to sin and throw itself on God.
- Persistence — The appeal goes to heaven, so it still works when the temple is rubble and the worshipper is far from home. Daniel proved it, praying toward a ruined city on the strength of God's unruined word.