2 Chronicles 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~970 BC, the opening of Solomon's forty-year reign, narrated by a writer working around 400 BC
Location
Gibeon, a hilltop town about six miles northwest of Jerusalem, where the tent of meeting from the wilderness years still stood
Audience
Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon and were rebuilding life around the second temple in Jerusalem
Situation
Solomon gathers the national assembly at Gibeon, offers a thousand burnt offerings, and is offered anything he asks for by God in a night vision. He asks for wisdom to govern rather than wealth or long life, and is given both wisdom and extraordinary riches.
Key Background
Chronicles was written for a small, politically powerless community living under Persian rule, and it retells the monarchy with the temple at the centre, leaving out most of the palace intrigue that Samuel and Kings report. That is why Solomon appears here already secure on the throne, with none of the bloody succession struggle described in 1 Kings. Worship was still split between two sites at this point, the old tent at Gibeon and the ark David had brought to Jerusalem, which is the tension the temple project is about to resolve.
Solomon son of David over his kingdom, and Yahweh his God was with him and made him extraordinarily great.
Solomon spoke to all of Israel — to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to every leader in all Israel, the heads of the ancestral families.
Then Solomon and the entire assembly with him went to the at Gibeon, because that's where God's of was — the one Moses, Yahweh's servant, had made in the wilderness.
Now, David had already brought the of up from Kiriath-jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.
But the bronze altar that Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, had made was there in front of Yahweh's and Solomon and the assembly came to seek God there.
Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before Yahweh, which was at the Tent of Meeting, and offered a thousand on it.
That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, "Ask. What should I give you?"
Solomon said to God, "You showed enormous to my father David, and you've made me king in his place.
Now, Yahweh God, let your promise to my father David stand firm, because you've made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
Give me and to lead this people, because who could possibly govern this great people of yours?"
God said to Solomon, "Because this is what was in your heart — you didn't ask for wealth, riches, or honor, or for the death of those who hate you, and you didn't even ask for a long life — but instead asked for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I've made you king —
wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. And I will also give you wealth, riches, and honor unlike anything the kings before you had, and unlike anything those after you will have."
So Solomon came back from the worship site at Gibeon, from the Tent of Meeting, to Jerusalem. And he ruled over Israel.
Solomon accumulated chariots and horses. He had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, and he stationed them in the chariot cities and also with the king in Jerusalem.
The king made silver and gold as common as stones in Jerusalem, and cedar wood as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the
Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from The king's traders purchased them from at the going rate.
They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred pieces of silver and a horse for a hundred and fifty. And through them, they exported these to all the kings of the and the kings of