“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,
Solomon stands before the altar at the dedication of the temple. One by one, he lists the disasters that could fall on the land: crop failure, disease, insects, enemy armies at the gates. That is a strange thing to do at a celebration. It raises the question this verse answers: when the worst comes, where do God's people turn?
Disasters with a purpose
The list is not a catalogue of bad luck. A hand sends each one, and sends it for a reason.
Leslie M. GrantThere would also be times of famine, disease, blight or mildew, and swarms of locusts or grasshoppers. God would send these to draw attention to the plague of sin in people's hearts (vs. 37-38). If this produced self-judgment, so that people prayed toward the temple and recognized God's glory, then Solomon would expect the Lord to hear in heaven, to forgive, and to act in grace toward each person as He saw their need (v. 39). This forgiveness would plant a healthy fear of God in their hearts (v. 40).
A prayer shaped by what might go wrong
Our verse belongs to a sequence. The king works through the possible disasters in order, and the tone of the whole prayer is uneasy.
W. W. FeredayHowever favoured and glorious Solomon might be, he was not Christ… He was surrounded by splendour, and he had wisdom and power beyond anything seen before. Yet Solomon felt that stability had not yet come. So his prayer is full of expected trouble… Knowing something of what weak human nature can do, Solomon used the word "forgive" before he mentioned any particular evil (verse 30). He then sets out the likely needs and troubles of the future: (1) Personal trespasses (verses 31-32) (2) Military defeat (verses 33-34) (3) Drought (verses 35-36) (4) Famine, disease, etc. (verses 37-40) (5) Danger in war (verses 44-45) (6) Captivity in a foreign land (verses 46-50)
The terms of God's government
Famine, locusts and siege were not new ideas. Moses had already named such troubles as the result of turning away. Solomon prays inside that framework.
J. N. DarbyThe prayer places the people under a righteous government. That government overflows with kindness and forgiveness, yet it will not treat the guilty as innocent. And it presents God as the people's resource when the consequences of their sin fall on them, according to the principles Moses laid down in Deuteronomy and elsewhere.
Mercy mixed in
Notice how little repentance it takes to turn the situation. One person is enough.
H. L. RossierHe supposes that plagues, drought, famine, locusts, enemy attacks, or the like might strike the land because the people living in it were unfaithful. If they repented in heart, the prayer of only one man would be enough, as they stretched out their hands towards this house. May God then hear in heaven and forgive, while still giving each man what his ways deserve, so that He might be feared. It is still law, but with the mixture of mercy that law could allow if God found truth in the heart.
Notice where the answer comes from. The sufferer faces the building, but the pardon does not come out of the building.
The Bible TreasuryForgiveness belongs to God in His dwelling-place, the heaven of heavens, and not to the house. For grace is sovereign, and its source is 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.
The rare exception
Earlier in the prayer, Solomon treats sin as the odd case. By the time famine and siege come into view, the odds have flipped. (The comment is on the parallel wording in 2 Chronicles 6.)
The Bible TreasuryEarlier he had said, "If any man sin," as though sin would be the exception in Israel. But now in 2 Chron. 6:29, sin is everywhere, and the exception would be a man who prayed or confessed his sin.
Every heart read
Solomon turns God's complete knowledge of every heart into his argument for forgiveness.
The Bible TreasuryEven in this desperate condition of the people, he says, "and render to each man according to all his ways"… He pleads, as it were, God's perfect and complete knowledge of the heart as a reason for forgiveness.
Summary
- Sin first. God sends the famine, disease, insects and siege to draw attention to the plague of sin in the heart. The outward trouble points to an inward one.
- Terms set. These are the very troubles Moses had named. The prayer places the people under a government rich in kindness that still will not call the guilty innocent.
- Self-judgment. When the trouble produces honest self-judgment and prayer toward the house, the prayer of one man is enough.
- Rare prayer. By this point Solomon assumes that everyone sins. The rare thing is a man who prays and confesses.
- Heaven's answer. Pardon rests with God in His dwelling-place, not with the building. He reads every heart, and that knowledge becomes the plea for forgiveness.