21 And give ear to the prayers of your servant and of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear from heaven your living-place; and hearing have mercy.
I, even I, am he who takes away your sins; and I will no longer keep your evil doings in mind.
Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.
Then give ear from heaven your living-place to their prayer and their cry, and see right done to them, answering with forgiveness your people who have done wrong against you.
Then the priests and the Levites gave the people a blessing: and the voice of their prayer went up to the holy place of God in heaven.
Is not God as high as heaven? and see the stars, how high they are! And you say, What knowledge has God? is he able to give decisions through the deep dark? Thick clouds are covering him, so that he is unable to see; and he is walking on the arch of heaven.
The wrongdoing of your people had forgiveness; all their sin had been covered. (Selah.) You were no longer angry: you were turned from the heat of your wrath.
<A Song of the going up.> To you my eyes are lifted up, even to you whose seat is in the heavens.
As a dream comes from much business, so the voice of a foolish man comes with words in great number.
I have put your evil doings out of my mind like a thick cloud, and your sins like a mist: come back to me; for I have taken up your cause.
For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 6
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
The glory of the Lord, in the vehicle of a thick cloud, having filled the house which Solomon built, by which God manifested his presence there, he immediately improves the opportunity, and addresses God, as a God now, in a peculiar manner, nigh at hand.
2Ch 6:1-11
It is of great consequence, in all our religious actions, that we design well, and that our eye be single. If Solomon had built this temple in the pride of his heart, as Ahasuerus made his feast, only to show the riches of his kingdom and the honour of his majesty, it would not have turned at all to his account. But here he declares upon what inducements he undertook it, and they are such as not only justify, but magnify, the undertaking.
2Ch 6:12-42
Solomon had, in the foregoing verses, signed and sealed, as it were, the deed of dedication, by which the temple was appropriated to the honour and service of God. Now here he prays the consecration-prayer, by which it was made a figure of Christ, the great Mediator, through whom we are to offer all our prayers, and to expect all God's favours, and to whom we are to have an eye in every thing where we have to do with God. We have opened the particulars of this prayer (1 Ki. 8) and therefore shall now only glean up some few passages in it which may be the proper subjects of our meditation.