And [as for] thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, [and] wilt keep my statutes and mine ordinances;
The temple is finished, God has answered Solomon's prayer, and the Lord appears to him a second time. Verse 4 turns from what God has done for the house to what He now asks of the king. The future of a throne, a nation, and a building hangs on one man's walk.
Solomon has reached the height of his success. One writer explains why the Lord needed to appear to him at that moment.
Solomon was in danger of being puffed up with pride. He was so richly blessed as king of the most famous nation on earth, and he had built the most magnificent building ever built. So the Lord had to appear to him, to give him the sober, humbling sense that he was only a servant of the God of Israel.
The phrase is older than Solomon. God used it with Abraham, and it means living under an eye that watches with interest.
God has always cared about how His saints walk. He wants His own character to show in them, so that in this way they may be for His pleasure and glory as they pass through the world. To Abraham God said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless" (Gen. 17:1). At all times Abraham was to know that the eye of God was on him, taking pleasure in all that matched His mind and will. And he was to be sure in his heart that all the power of the Almighty would protect him and care for him.
God asks Solomon for something inward before anything outward. One writer, on David's confession in Psalm 51, shows what such honesty costs.
I do not excuse the sin by speaking of the poor creature with whom I committed it, of my reputation before men that weighed so much with me, or even of the man I destroyed in order to hide my sin. I stand before You, in Your sight — bare and naked as the day I was born. Now there is nothing, no hope, no rest, no ground of confidence but in You, in Your tender mercies and Your loving-kindnesses… Until you know the practical meaning of this, you do not know what uprightness of heart before God is. You have some reserve, something you are not ready to have searched out, something you are trying to hold back in your heart. In short, you are not fully free with God.
God points Solomon to a father whose own sin brought the sword into his house. One writer asks how such a man could be a pattern, and answers.
All the training that David had was equally for Solomon, and God set David before him as the pattern for his walk. "If you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness," etc. (1 Kings 9:4.) Who, remembering that through David's sin the sword should never depart from his house, would have held him up as a pattern to his son? It was because, in his darkest hours, he always put his trust in God. It is this faith that God calls "integrity of heart."
Verse 3 had spoken without conditions: God's eyes and heart would be on that house forever. Verse 4 adds the other side.
The answer which God gives establishes the house as the place in which He has set His name for ever. His eyes and His heart shall be there always. But at the same time, the enjoyment of the granted blessing rests on one condition: Solomon and his children must stay faithful to the Lord. That condition holds over the dynasty of Solomon, the people of Israel, and even the house itself… We see here how completely the fate of Israel hung upon their king.
Two verses side by side look like a contradiction. One writer faces the difficulty and shows where each half lands.
In two verses God declares, without any condition, that His eyes and His heart shall be on this house forever. He also declares that He shall cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. The conditional warning came true to the letter, and the unconditional promise will come true to the letter as well. That will happen when the true king after God's heart has built Him a house, a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
- Walk — to walk before God is to live conscious that His eye is on you, with His almighty care securing you.
- Integrity — the condition starts inside. Hold nothing back; let God search every part of the heart.
- Pattern — God points to David not as a sinless man but as one who trusted Him at his darkest. That faith is what God calls integrity of heart.
- Weight — on this walk hung the throne, the nation, and the temple itself; Israel's future rested on her king.
- Fulfilment — the warning came true to the letter. So will the promise, when the true King builds a house more glorious than Solomon's.
then will I establish the throne of thy kingdom over Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.
Solomon has finished the temple, and the Lord appears to him a second time. He promises a throne over Israel that lasts forever — but only if Solomon walks before Him as David did.
The first time God spoke to Solomon, He invited the young king to ask for whatever he wanted. This visit has a different purpose.
The Lord's righteous government among His people Israel was now in place. He had given and entrusted that government to Solomon, the son of David. In a sense, Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord, and everything depended on Solomon's faithfulness. So the Lord appeared to him a second time — not to say once more, "Ask what I shall give you," but to assure him that He would keep His promise to David. If Solomon stayed faithful, God would establish his throne. Then He warns against disobedience.
Just before this, God spoke with no conditions at all: He set His name on the house forever. Verse 5 stands on different ground.
But at once, as everywhere in this book, the question of responsibility follows. It is the exact opposite of what came before. Where Solomon stands as a type, a picture, everything is sure. Where Solomon stands under responsibility, everything comes into question. God will not establish his throne forever unless he is upright and faithful. He will not establish his descendants either, except on this condition.
The condition did not stop with Solomon. The house he had just built, his family line, and the whole nation hung on the same thread.
God's answer makes the house the place where He has set His name forever. His eyes and His heart will be there always. But at the same time He places Solomon's dynasty, the people of Israel, and even the house itself under one condition. Solomon and his children must stay faithful to the Lord. Only then will they enjoy the blessing He has granted… We see here how far the fate of Israel hung upon their king.
This promise looks back to what God swore to David. That older pledge runs in two strands.
The promise to David is twofold: absolute and conditional… So when the Spirit has Christ, the Son of David, in view, the promise is unconditional. It announces God's purpose in grace. But when David's children, his immediate descendants, are in view, their continuing on his throne depends on their responsibility — on keeping God's law and walking according to His commandments.
God warned Solomon in plain words. The rest of his story makes those words painful to read.
The later history of Solomon is all the more terrible when we consider these plain words. He should have realised that his departure from God would wreck the whole magnificent order of things around him.
So what happened to the throne when Solomon's own family lost it?
God renewed His pledge that David should never lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel. But He pointedly added that this was no guarantee to the line of Solomon. That line has completely disappeared, but Christ is God's resource. Men crucified the One whom they hailed as "Son of David"; but God raised Him from among the dead. It will be a great day for Israel when suffering teaches them that all their hopes are centred in Him.
In this chapter God seems to say two opposite things about the house.
In the space of two verses God says without any condition that His eyes and His heart will be on this house forever — and also that He will cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? No. The conditional warning came true to the letter, and the unconditional promise will come true to the letter as well. It will happen when the true king after God's heart has built Him a house, a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
- Condition. The throne that lasts forever is not a blank cheque. God holds it out to Solomon on one term: walk as David walked.
- Collapse. His dynasty, the nation, even the temple rested on his obedience. His turning away wrecked it all.
- Covenant. God's promise to David runs in two strands. It is conditional for his natural sons, and unconditional where God's own purpose is in view.
- Christ. Solomon's royal line has vanished, but God's answer to the failure is the risen Son of David.
- Certainty. The warning came true word for word. So will the promise, when the true king builds a house greater than Solomon's.
[But] if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments, my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them;
God has just answered Solomon's prayer and set His name on the new temple. Now He adds a condition. The throne, the people, the house itself — all of it hangs on whether the king and his sons keep following Him.
The Lord's answer gives two things at once: a settled place for His name, and a set of terms for enjoying what He had given.
The answer which God gives establishes the house as the place in which He has set His name forever. His eyes and His heart shall always be there. But at the same time, the granted blessing comes with a condition. Solomon's dynasty, the people of Israel, and even the house itself may enjoy it only if Solomon and his children stay faithful to the Lord.
The warning starts with Solomon alone, then widens to the whole nation.
Still, Solomon is reminded of his own responsibility. The continuation of the kingdom, as it was given to him, hung on his own faithfulness. God says, "If you," and then adds, "if you all turn away," for the people would certainly follow their king. And the resulting judgment would — and did — fall on all Israel.
The verse warns of a king who turns to serve other gods. That is what happened.
Solomon was disobedient, and "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD" (1 Kings 11:6): all these evils fell on them. Solomon's throne fell, the house was destroyed, and the people went into captivity. Even the righteous remnant had to share in the national disaster… So the first idol, after the temple was built and the Lord's name called on it, appeared in the family of the king. This was the king who had prayed so earnestly that the Lord God would not turn away the face of His anointed. And the idol was not a secret thing worshipped by his servants, but his wives worshipped it in the open, and he built altars for them. The man who had led the people in the worship of the Lord now becomes the leader in idolatry.
The threat here is not only loss. The ruined land and house would leave outsiders asking a question, and that question would get an answer.
If Solomon or his sons turned from God's commandments, however, and sank to worshipping false gods, God promised just as firmly to cut off Israel from the land He had given them. He would bring the temple down to nothing. Then other nations would look on Israel with contempt and ask why the Lord had done such a thing to His people. The answer they would be given is that Israel was guilty of forsaking the Lord after He had blessed them so greatly.
Solomon had the finished temple, the throne, and a direct word from God. None of it held him.
Apart from the picture this gives us, we have the old lesson confirmed again: no position, however favoured, can keep a man faithful and true. Solomon's idolatry in his old age is only the outcome of earlier failure. He had horses from Egypt, he had foreign wives; both were forbidden. His wives drew him into idolatry.
Two verses here seem to say opposite things about the same house.
So within two verses God declares, with no condition attached, that His eyes and His heart shall be on this house forever — and that He shall cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. The conditional warning has been fulfilled to the letter. The unconditional promise shall be fulfilled to the letter too. That will be when the true King after God's heart has built Him a house — a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
- Condition — God set His name on the house forever, but enjoying the blessing rested on Solomon and his children staying faithful.
- Contagion — The warning shifts from "you" to "you all". A nation follows its leader, and the judgment fell on all Israel.
- Collapse — Solomon, who led Israel in worship, became the first to bring an idol in after the temple was built.
- Consequence — The ruined house would make outsiders ask why. The answer: the people forsook the God who had blessed them.
- Continuity — God's threat came true to the letter. So will His unconditional promise, when the true King builds a house more glorious than Solomon's.
then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and the house, which I have hallowed to my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a by word among all peoples;
God appears to Solomon a second time at the height of the kingdom. The temple is finished, the prayer answered, the house claimed by God as His own. Yet in the same breath He describes its ruin. The threat is not vague. God names what He will take away: the land, the house He had just consecrated, and Israel's good name among the nations.
Verse 3 and verse 7 stand side by side. One writer separates what Solomon pictures from what Solomon owes.
But at once, as in all this book, the question of responsibility follows. It is the exact opposite of what came before. When it is a matter of Solomon the type, everything is assured; when it is a matter of Solomon in responsibility, everything comes into question. God can establish his throne forever only if he is upright and faithful. He can establish his descendants only on the same condition. Let Israel prove unfaithful as well as her king. Let them bow down before other gods, and nothing will remain of all that the Lord has established by Solomon. The people will be cut off, the house itself rejected and destroyed.
God speaks the warning to Solomon, but the loss falls on a whole nation and on the temple itself — a ruin that would preach to every passer-by.
If he, or his descendants, should turn away to serve other gods, Israel would be cut off. The house would become a testimony of the judgment of God to everyone who passed by. We see here how far the fate of Israel hung upon their king.
The whole arrangement rested on one man's faithfulness. Its collapse was only a matter of time.
The consequences of disobedience do not stop with him, yet everything hangs on him. When he turned away, he drew the people away too. God set that vast outlook of glory and power and dominion before Solomon as the reward of his obedience. But since it rested on his faithfulness, it was only a house built on the sand. The floods of idolatry overthrew it, and great was its fall.
The threat did not stay on paper. One writer traces the line from this night down to the burning of the temple.
This divine communication shows clearly how everything from that moment depended on the king. … The later history of Solomon is all the more terrible when we hold these plain words in view. He should have realised that his own departure from God would wreck the whole magnificent order of things around him. … Josiah was the last king who was worth anything to the nation. … Not long after, the princes of the royal house were eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon, and "our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins" (Isaiah 64:11).
The "if" in this chapter belongs to a particular stage of God's dealings, and it does not last forever.
God shows here the danger that lay before Solomon and his family. He shows the conditional ground he must take until Christ brought in sovereign, unconditional grace. It is impossible not to speak in the language of condition except in view of Christ, of Christ personally. There alone we get the full mind of God and the heart of God. Whenever that is the case, it is no longer a question of conditions but of perfect love — love that works for His own name's sake, and can do so in righteousness through the Lord Jesus.
One man's failure ruined Israel. The same principle, in another Man, will one day bless the world.
There was one person on whom the blessing of the people depended, or who, sadly, involved the people in his own ruin… Miserable, until we come to Christ. How blessed, when Christ comes to reign! Then all the blessing of the whole world hangs on that one Man, and that one Man will make it all good.
God had just said His eyes and heart would be on this house always. Now He says He will cast it out of His sight.
So within the space of two verses God declares unconditionally that His eyes and His heart will be forever on this house — and that He will cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. The conditional warning came true to the letter. In the same way, the unconditional promise will come true to the letter, when the true king after God's heart has built Him a house — a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
- One man. The whole nation's blessing rested on the king's faithfulness. His turning away pulled Israel down with him.
- One condition. Land, throne and temple all rested on one term: obedience. It was a magnificent structure built on sand.
- One collapse. God carried out the threat exactly: the people uprooted, the house burned, the ruin left on public display.
- One question answered. God does not contradict Himself. The conditional warning came true to the letter, and so will the unconditional promise.
- One remedy. Conditions govern only until Christ. When He reigns, all the blessing of the world hangs on that one Man, and He will make it good.
and this house, [which] is high, every one that passes by it shall be astonished at, and shall hiss, and they shall say, Why has Jehovah done thus to this land and to this house?
Solomon has just dedicated the temple, and God has told him that His name, His eyes and His heart will rest on it. In the same breath He describes the day when travellers will stop in front of its wreckage and ask what went wrong.
Everything in this chapter rests on one thing: whether the king stays true. One writer puts both sides of God's answer side by side.
The answer God gives establishes the house as the place where He has set His name forever. His eyes and His heart will be there perpetually. But there was a condition. To enjoy the blessing He granted, Solomon and his children had to stay faithful to the Lord. That condition covered Solomon's dynasty, the people of Israel and even the house itself. If he or his descendants turned away to serve other gods, Israel would be cut off. The house would then stand as a testimony of God's judgment to everyone who passed by. We see here how far the fate of Israel hung on their king.
The ESV reads "this house will become a heap of ruins." Older translations render the same phrase "this house, which is high." The Hebrew word behind "high" is also a name for God.
Elyon occurs fifty-three times, twenty-two of them in the Psalms. Used as a descriptive word it means high — "the high gate" (2 Chron. 23:20; 2 Chron. 27:3), "the high pool," "the house that is high" (1 Kings 9:8). For God I see no reason not to keep the good old English, "the Most High," as the rendering for Him who is The High One.
Within a few verses God says His heart will be on this house forever, and that He will throw it away. Commentators see two promises with two timetables, not a contradiction.
So within two verses God makes two declarations, and neither has a condition attached. His eyes and His heart will be on this house forever. And He will cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. God fulfilled the conditional warning to the letter. He will fulfil the unconditional promise to the letter too. That will happen when the true king after God's own heart has built Him a house: a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's, and a dwelling in heaven where the throne of God and of the Lamb will be.
The verse records the question. The next verse supplies the reply.
If Solomon or his sons turned from God's commandments and sank to the level of worshipping false gods, God promised just as firmly that He would cut Israel off from the land He had given them. He would bring the temple down to nothing. Other nations would then look on Israel with contempt, asking why the Lord had done such a thing to His people. They would receive the answer: Israel was guilty of forsaking the Lord after He had blessed them so greatly.
Even outsiders would come away knowing why God had acted.
God had promised forgiveness, yet He warned that stubborn sin ends in judgment. The first idol after the temple was finished appeared in the king's own household.
If he failed, the Lord would certainly show him and the people the forgiveness He had promised. Yet persistent sin would in the end bring unfailing judgment on them. Solomon was disobedient, and "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD" (1 Kings 11:6). All these evils fell on them. Solomon's throne was overturned, the house was destroyed, and the people were taken captive. Even the faithful remnant had to share in the national disaster… So the first idol came after the temple was built and the Lord's name was called on it. It appeared in the family of the king — the man who had prayed so earnestly that the Lord God would not turn away the face of His anointed. The idol was not a secret thing worshipped by his servants. His wives worshipped it in public, and he built altars for them. The man who had led the people in the worship of the Lord now becomes the leader in idolatry.
God carried out the threat. But David's line does not end there.
We will soon have to trace how all this came to pass: Solomon's idolatry, his disobedience, and the shameful history of Israel's turning away from God that followed. Then God used Nebuchadnezzar to carry out the judgment on Jerusalem and the temple. Another son of David will one day receive the throne, and the government will rest in His hands.
- Condition. The house, the dynasty and the nation were all held on one condition — the king's faithfulness to the Lord.
- Height. The word behind "high" is the word used of God as the Most High. The house that stood highest became the loudest ruin.
- Collapse. Solomon himself broke the condition. The man who led Israel in worship became the man who led them into idolatry.
- Question. God said the passer-by would stop and ask. He meant the ruin to raise that question.
- Answer. The reply is always the same: they forsook the Lord who blessed them. The unconditional half of God's word still waits on a greater Son of David.
And they shall say, Because they forsook Jehovah their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have attached themselves to other gods, and have worshipped them and served them; therefore has Jehovah brought upon them all this evil.
God's second appearance to Solomon ends with a scene, not a promise. Foreigners stand in front of a ruined land and a ruined temple and ask what went wrong. The verse gives their answer in advance: the people let go of the God who rescued them.
God aims this warning at one man first. When God appeared the first time, He offered Solomon whatever he asked for. This second visit had a different purpose.
The Lord appeared to him the second time. He did not come to say once more, "Ask what I shall give you." He came to assure him that He would keep His promise made to David, and that his throne would be established if he stayed faithful. Then He warns against disobedience. If he serves other gods, Israel was to be cut off from the land and the house would be forsaken.
God's warning starts with one man, then widens to the whole people.
God reminds Solomon of his own responsibility. God had given him the kingdom, and its continuing hung on his own faithfulness. God says, "If you," and adds, "if you all turn away," because the people were sure to follow their king. The resulting judgment would fall — and did fall — on all Israel. Even the house called by His own name would become a reproach. But the nations would know why God had dealt with them this way.
One writer traces the same question, and the same answer, to an earlier prediction about that land.
Such evil is to come upon them and upon the land that the stranger from a far land will ask about it. Seeing the plagues on that land, he will say: "Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?" This prediction has come true. Strangers from far lands, tourists and pilgrims, have visited Palestine. They saw the sad state of that land, and they often asked these questions and knew the answer. "Then people will say, 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.'"
The man who received this warning broke it himself. It began in his heart, and it took years.
It is a terrible thing when something from the world lodges in the heart and takes control of it. It turns a person's affections away from their only object and towards things that are vile, shameful and guilty. These things did not arise suddenly in the life of this man of faith, or at least their consequences did not develop all at once. For "when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods." This sowing to the flesh needed time to bear its fruit. Who would have believed that this man would become an idol-worshipper? He was the Solomon of the temple, once on his knees, spreading out his hands toward God in front of all the people.
Earlier in the same conversation God said His eyes and heart would be on this house forever; now He says He will throw it away. One writer faces the tension head-on.
In the space of two verses God declares unconditionally that His eyes and His heart will forever be on this house, and that He will cast it out of His sight! Does God contradict Himself? Certainly not. The conditional warning has come true to the letter. The unconditional promise will come true to the letter too, when the true king after God's heart has built Him a house — a temple on earth far more glorious than Solomon's.
God's presence in Solomon's temple hung on how the king behaved. What Christians have now stands on something else.
How different this is from what we have now! The Church of God is established as "a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Eph. 2:21-22). God's presence in the Church does not depend on our obedience. It rests on the lasting value of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus — a divine work, with no condition of man's work involved at all.
- Forsaking — the ruin had one root. The people let go of the God who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and took hold of other gods.
- Fulfilled — the question and the answer belong to an older prediction. Travellers to that ruined land have asked it ever since.
- First in Solomon — the man warned here became the example of the warning. What he loved turned his heart, and it took years.
- Far-reaching — the king's turning away pulled the whole nation with him, and the watching nations learned why God had acted.
- Finished in Christ — the threat came true to the letter. The promise waits for the true King, and God's dwelling now rests on His work, not ours.