Deeper Commentary

2Ch 7:1 Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of Yahweh filled the house-
Fire coming down from Heaven (e.g. 2 Chron. 7:1) to consume acceptable sacrifices probably refers to the Angels being made a flame of fire (Ps. 104:4) to consume the sacrifice. In 2 Chron. 7:1 this would be by the Angel dwelling in the temple. The same scenario was probably seen in Eden, when the Angel cherubim consumed the sacrifices. God accepted the temple. Even though this wasn't His ideal path with man, just as He accepted a human kingship. He works with man on a sub optimal level, just as the Lord Jesus would have accepted the one talant man putting his talant into a bank to get interest which was forbidden under the law. There are different levels of service, resulting in one star differing from another in glory; for different people make different amounts from God's truth, the seed on the good ground brings forth different levels of fruit. The Lord's sacrifice achieved salvation "to the uttermost", "that great salvation". And we likewise should naturally seek the highest level and not be minimalists. 

2Ch 7:2 The priests could not enter into the house of Yahweh, because the glory of Yahweh filled Yahweh’s house-
This was as at the erection of the tabernacle. The idea was that Yahweh's glory was far above the mere religion of the temple system. The glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle when it was erected (Ex. 40:34), as it would later fill the temple (2 Chron. 7:1). But it was God's intention that His glory should fill all the earth; the same words are used in Num. 14:21. The apparently intense manifestation of Himself in a specific place was only a foretaste of what He wished to bring about in "all the earth". And yet Judaism misread this as meaning that His glory was there alone in a specific holy place. They failed to perceive that it was merely a localized foretaste of His intention to make this a universal experience, and the tearing down of the veil at the Lord's death was evidence enough of the progression of this plan. When exiled from the sanctuary, David in his Psalms often perceives that God's glory fills and shall fill all the earth (Ps. 72:19; Hab. 2:14). 

2Ch 7:3 All the children of Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the glory of Yahweh was on the house; and they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and gave thanks to Yahweh saying, For He is good; for His grace endures for ever-
Comparing with 1 Kings 8, it seems that the cloud of glory had already come down, and now fire came down to consume the sacrifices. The grace of it was that God was counting them righteous, sanctifying them, and coming to live amongst an unclean people. They sacrificed in response to that grace (:4). And this is to be our response, as the temple in which He now dwells by His Spirit.

2Ch 7:4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before Yahweh-
We again see the connection between Solomon and "all Israel", whom he considered to be as perfect as he was; see on 1 Kings 8:61. Kings says that these were peace offerings. The peace offering was to be eaten the same day it was killed, and nothing of it was to left until the morning (Lev. 7:15). There is no way Solomon could have personally eaten this massive amount of meat, and so again we see his interest being merely in external religion rather than personal spirituality. And a peace offering was a personal statement between the offerer and God, celebrating their peace with God. There is no way Solomon could legitimately do this for the people.

2Ch 7:5 King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated God’s house-
The usual pattern of sacrifice was sin offering (obtaining forgiveness), burnt offering (promising complete dedication to God) and then peace offering, celebrating the resultant peace with God then experienced. But Solomon has no sense of personal sin, and considered himself dedicated to Yahweh by reason of being David's son. And so he only offers the peace offerings. The huge numbers of sacrifices were not at all what God wanted. But unlike David, he had not been brought to realize that God wants broken, repentant hearts and not offerings (Ps. 51:16). Mic. 6:7 perhaps references Solomon's huge numbers of offerings, again commenting that God doesn't want them; just as He didn't want a physical temple. And yet God went along with Solomon, as He does with us so often, even on the basis of our misplaced idealism. For His glory appeared within the temple and He in that sense agreed to dwell there, just as He agreed to work through a human kingship, even though it meant a degree of rejection of Him as Israel's king.

22,000 oxen are 16.5 million pounds of steak, worth about 90 million US dollars in 2024.  And 12 million pounds of mutton. Slaying these animals would have created a literal river of blood.

2Ch 7:6 The priests stood, according to their positions, the Levites also with instruments of music of Yahweh, which David the king had made to give thanks to Yahweh, when David praised by their ministry saying, For His grace endures forever. The priests sounded trumpets before them; and all Israel stood-
Compare Neh. 12:9 "Also Bakbukiah and Unno, their brothers, were over against them". This is the same Hebrew in 2 Chron. 7:6, "The priests sounded trumpets before them", the idea perhaps being that they answered the Levites in choral praise (see Neh. 12:24). 

There is a link between the name Yahweh, and praise- because the Name epitomizes the characteristics of God. Halle-lu-YAH is saying that for the sake of the Name Yah, therefore praise Him. David sat down and designed musical instruments because of the Name (2 Chron. 7:6). The Psalms often make the link explicit, e.g. "...give thanks unto Your holy name, and to triumph in Your praise" (Ps. 106:47). The Name and praise are paralleled.

Solomon's zealous organization of the temple worship was an exact fulfillment of the order laid down by his father David (1 Kings 7:51; 2 Chron. 7:6; 8:14). Solomon wanted God to bless the temple as a sign of His pleasure with David his father (e.g. 2 Chron. 6:42). Solomon's personal enthusiasm for service to God became subsumed by the huge psychological spiritual dominance of his parents. His zeal for the temple was almost purely a result of living out his father's expectation; he almost admits as much in  1 Kings  8:20: "I  am risen up in the room of David my father... and have (therefore, in the context) built an house for the name of the Lord".

2Ch 7:7 Moreover Solomon made the middle of the court holy that was before the house of Yahweh; for there he offered the burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat-
The huge numbers of animals required more altars, which were presumably placed in the middle court. Although we wonder on what basis Solomon as a non-Levite had the right to declare the court holy. We also wonder as to whether the huge laver, and the ten smaller lavers, were only built with a view to this opening dedication. For the huge laver was too large for normal usage, and there was surely no need for 10 lavers when the tabernacle had only had one. We wonder whether this sudden erection of more altars was also as it were a design fault, and indicates that what he was doing was not according to God's command, but rather his flawed human initiative. See on :8 for another possible design fault.

2Ch 7:8 So Solomon held the feast at that time seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt-
The dedication coincided with the seven day feast of tabernacles (see on 2 Chron. 5:3), and to that was added this seven day feast of dedication (:9). God's law is not a chain, a leash, for man is not a dog. Legalism teaches minimalism. But God's law is rather a springboard to deeper dedication. Rather like Boaz redeeming Ruth and allowing gleaners to glean not at the edge of the fields but in the middle of them, among the ears of grain. There were representatives from the very borders of the land promised to Abraham, implying these areas had been settled by Israelites; or perhaps those who attended from those places were Gentile proselytes.

2Ch 7:9 On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly; for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days-
As explained on 2 Chron. 5:3, the dedication of the temple had been made to coincide with the feast of tabernacles. The dedication of the temple is called here "the dedication of the altar". As discussed on 1 Kings 9:3, God was willing to accept the temple as a "house of sacrifice", as an altar; but didn't necessarily go along with all the other projections Solomon placed upon the temple. There is reason to think that some kind of altar remained operative on the temple site after the temple was destroyed. Perhaps this is why Chronicles, written for the exiles, calls the temple "the altar".

The dedication coincided with the seven day feast of tabernacles (see on 1 Kings 8:1), and to that was added this seven day feast of dedication. There were representatives from the very borders of the land promised to Abraham, implying these areas had been settled by Israelites; or perhaps those who attended from those places were Gentile proselytes. However if "the feast" was the latter seven days, then we observe that the day of Atonement wasn't kept, as this was only a few days before the feast of tabernacles. Indeed they ate and drank joyfully on Yom Kippur when they should have been afflicting their souls for their sins. Again we see Solomon assuming that personal confession of sin could be eclipsed by focus upon merely external religion.

2Ch 7:10 On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the grace that Yahweh had shown to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel His people-
Israel's blessing was dependent on Solomon's obedience (1 Kings 6:12,13); their joy was because of the honour God had given Solomon (2 Chron. 7:10). The blessing of others can be dependent upon a third party (e.g. Mk. 2:5). 1 Kings 8:66: "For all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David His servant, and to Israel His people". The people rejoiced that the promises to David had been fulfilled in the temple and in the prosperity of the nation. But they had only uncritically accepted Solomon's narrative. For this was not at all the fulfilment of the promises to David. They "blessed the king" because they assumed it was Solomon who had brought about this fulfilment; and that was exactly what he thought. And they had bought into that false narrative.

2Ch 7:11 Thus Solomon finished the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house. He successfully completed all that came into Solomon’s heart to make in the house of Yahweh, and in his own house-
The hint seems to be in 2 Chron. 7:11 that the dedication of the temple and the completion of Solomon's house was at the same time. This was after twenty years. Clearly Solomon saw his temple-palace complex as one building. The fact he waited so long to dedicate the temple shows it was all mere religion from his side, he had no genuine desire for the temple to be used by his people to draw closer to God. The way the record of Solomon's house follows straight on from that of God's house (1 Kings 6,7) seems to highlight the similarity between them. The house of Yahweh and Solomon's house are often spoke of together (e.g. 2 Chron. 7:11; 8:1;  9:11).The Temple was smaller than Solomon's house' he took nearly twice as long to build it. Clearly he spent more effort at housing his own glory than he did housing God's. The comparisons are intended to show this. They are listed on 2 Chron. 9:11.

His building of the temple was "all that came into his heart", or "all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do" (1 Kings 9:1). He later admits in Ecc. 2 that he did these building projects from a desire to indulge his fantasies about architecture and building. At this point, he served God in ways that were convenient to him and reinforced his own natural interests. There is a semantic connection between the Hebrew words for "desire" and "pleased" - the point of which is to emphasize that Solomon's work for God was only an expression of his own zest for self-fulfilment; he served God in ways which only confirmed his own natural inclinations. Appreciating the spirit and blood of Christ, his own weakness, the grace of God, and the subsequent desire to live a life of self sacrifice, of carrying a cross in ways we wouldn't naturally chose- this was all foreign to Solomon. And is it so foreign to us? Solomon's materialism and self-fulfilment are sure warnings to our age.

2Ch 7:12 Yahweh appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for a house of sacrifice-
Clearly God was aware that Solomon was going wrong, refusing to realize the conditional nature of the promises made to David about his son, and not personally applying the wisdom given to him in the first vision. So God's response to Solomon's arrogant, mistaken prayer of 1 Kings 8 was in fact to appear to him and warn him that he needed to be obedient, or else the promises would not in fact apply to him. The clear implication was that Solomon's statements in his prayer that the promises were fulfilled in him... were wrong.

God said that He accepted the temple not so much as a place to dwell in (as Solomon assumed it was) but as a place facilitating sacrifice, prayer etc., for the glorification of His Name through these things; He emphasized that He dwelt amongst His people (1 Kings 6:13; 2 Chron. 7:12-16). There are several other places where God’s response to Solomon’s words seems to be corrective rather than affirmatory. See on :14.

Chronicles is clear that the temple was not God's original intention. But He went along with David and Solomon's insistence on building it, just as He does with so many misplaced ideals. "Shall you build me a house for me to live in?" (2 Sam. 7:5) is turned by Chronicles into the indicative, "You shall not build me the house to live in" (1 Chron. 17:4). "I declare to you YHWH shall build a house for you" (1 Chron. 17:1O). This grace was as it were unwanted by David and Solomon; they insisted upon doing the works, and glorying in them. And God in the end gives man what he really wants, as in the Father giving so much to the prodigal son, surely knowing what he would do. And if our heart desire is for the Kingdom, He will grant it.

2Ch 7:13 If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send plague among My people-
These things clearly allude to the curses for breaking the covenant in Dt. 28. But those curses were to be lifted by repentance and renewed faithfulness to the covenant, and their lifting was not predicated upon the existence of the physical temple and praying in it or towards it. This is now made clear by God in :14.

2Ch 7:14 if My people who are called by My name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land-
We could argue that the people called by God's Name were not all the people of Israel, but only those who had His Name on their hearts, the faithful minority. And indeed at the exile, it was the prayers of this group [Daniel etc.] that led to God's restoration of the people. God says that the people were to "seek  / search for My face"- not pray towards Jerusalem or a temple, but go through the struggle of searching for God after sin. They were to seek personal encounter and relationship with God- His face. They were to "humble themselves", literally 'bow the knee' before Him- not turn their bodies in the direction of Jerusalem. They should "turn from their wicked ways" and not turn their bodies towards the temple.

Solomon says that God will hear the prayers of His people because the temple is called by God’s Name; but God’s response is that “my people, which are called by my name” would pray to Him themselves and be heard, quite apart from the temple (2 Chron. 6:33  cp. 7:14). He sees them as bearing His Name rather than the temple building, as Solomon perceived it. See on :12 for another example of God now correcting Solomon's assumptions.

Solomon had asked that God forgive His people for their sins if they prayed in or toward the temple: "If Your people Israel be struck down before the enemy because they have sinned against You, and shall turn again and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this house; then hear from heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel... because they have sinned against You; if they pray toward this place, and confess Your name and turn from their sin, when You afflict them; then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants...  [hear] their prayer from this place" (2 Chron. 6:24-27,40). But God is careful to respond that He will forgive them if they pray- and carefully omits reference to the temple, "in this house". Solomon says 'If they do [ABC] and then [DEF] happens and they pray in / towards this place, then please do [GHI]'. God responds according to the same rubric, repeating what Solomon says, but carefully omitting the central point- if they pray in / towards the temple. The omission is glaring. And it is tantamount to ignoring what was for Solomon the central object of his prayer- to legitimize the temple as the source of efficacy for prayer. His 'religion' was replaced by God's focus on personal spirituality and His response to that.

Jonah learnt this- in the belly of a great fish, he needed forgiveness. He had no access to the temple and didn't know which direction to pray towards. Rather like a navigation system telling you at night to "head north" when you have no idea of where north is. He says that he prayed towards the temple, following Solomon's words rather than God's correction of them. But the grace of it all is that God heard him anyway. 

There soon follows a worked example of this. 2 Chron. 12:6,7 records that Rehoboam, Solomon's son, was attacked by Shishak of Egypt: "Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, Yahweh is righteous. When Yahweh saw that they humbled themselves, the word of Yahweh came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them; but I will grant them some deliverance. My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak". The allusion is to God's words in 2 Chron. 7:14, which is His reply to Solomon's claim that if Israel prayed to the temple, then God would save them in battle. He says simply that if Israel humble themselves in battle [He makes no mention of the temple], then He will save them. And the situation with Shishak was an example of that. We note that even at that stage, God had in mind to destroy the temple and Zion / Jerusalem. Solomon and David's dogmatism that it would last eternally are thus shown to be misplaced right from the start of the temple's 430 year history [the same period of time as Israel were in Egypt, Ex. 12:40,41; Gal. 3:17]. Ezekiel foretold 430 years of judgment upon Israel and Judah (Ez. 4:1-6).

2Ch 7:15 Now My eyes shall be open and My ears sensitive to the prayer that is made in this place-

"Now" may have the idea of 'For now'. For now, at that time, God would hear the prayers made in the temple- if Solomon remained obedient, and until He destroyed the temple.

"Sensitive / attentive" is the word used by Nehemiah in Neh. 1:11 "Lord, I beg You, let Your ear be attentive now to the prayer of Your servant". "Attentive" is s.w. 2 Chron. 6:40; 7:15, where we read of God being "attentive" to prayers offered in the temple. But Nehemiah was praying in exile, not in the temple. The desperation of the situation made him learn a lesson- that God wasn't only accessible in the temple. This may sound obvious to us, but it wasn't for those used to the temple cult. The lesson is that God uses punishments for sin, hard situations, to break our paradigms and lead us to a greater spirituality- if we will follow. S.w. also Neh. 9:34- Israel weren't "attentive" to God's word, but in their time of need they hoped He would be "attentive" to their word of prayer. And He was. His grace isn't 'measure for measure'; He treats us out of proportion to our attentiveness to Him. We must show the same grace.

2Ch 7:16 For now have I chosen and made this house holy, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually-

I would translate and paraphrase 1 Kings 9:3-6 as follows: "I have hallowed this house, which you have built in order that I would put My Name there for ever. My eyes and heart will be there all the days that you walk before Me as David your father walked... [If you swlerve Me with totally perfect obedience to Me] then I will establish you [as the Messianic son I promised to David]... but if you turn from following Me [which God foreknew Solomon would] then... [I will destroy this place and My Name and presence won't be there any more]". Remember that God said these words furiously angry that Solomon had built the temple; Jeremiah records that God was furiously angry with it from the day it was built until the day He tore it down.

God's Name was there for ever in the sense that naming something with your name means ownership. God agreed to accept Jerusalem as His special place, despite His position that He is a God on the move. 2 Chron. 7 could imply that God was willing to go along with it as part of His plan to lead the people towards His Kingdom in the future, when He would etetnally dwell there: "I have chosen and sanctified this house that my name may be there for ever". "That" doesn't mean His Name was there for ever from that point. Because He destroyed the dwelling place of His Name, as later lamented. Or we can allow :7 to explain this. If Solomon turned away from God, then the Name would not dwell there for ever. If he was perfectly obedient, as God's envisaged future Son would be, then it would. Solomon's response should have been that he could not be perfectly obedient, and his focus should have been on the promised future seed who would have an eternal Kingdom.

Solomon prayed that God’s eyes [in Heaven] might be open toward the house; God responds that His eyes and heart are there in the house. The distance Solomon presupposes between earth and heaven is hereby deconstructed by God's reply.

 

It has been argued that the Hebrew olahm, "forever", really means 'a period'. But I am unpersuaded of that argument in every case. Rather I would think that the context in this case requires that we understand God to be saying that He would indeed dwell in the temple "forever", and His particular sensitivity would be found in that place, His eyes and heart. But as He makes clear in 1 Kings 9:4-7, that was all conditional upon obedience. This highlights the tragedy- that eternity was at stake. So much depends upon human freewill decisions; for that is how much He respects us and our freedom of choice.

God's Name, eyes and heart were not for ever focused upon the physical temple. In :20 He states that He can cast the temple out of His sight and special awareness. The temple was destroyed, and the possibility of that is mentioned in :21. But He also says here that His intense presence and sensitivity will always be there. One resolution of this is to recall that God's response to the desire to build the house / temple was to say that He would build a house / temple for David. And that temple was His Son and all in Him. For both the Lord Jesus and all in Him are described as God's temple. The Divine promise here remains true- through His definition of the temple. His special awareness and sensitivity is not now focused upon a small plot of land in Jerusalem, but upon us. Whoever touches us, touches the apple of His eye. His presence and involvement in the temple could only be because He had chosen and "made this house holy", He had sanctified it, counted it as holy / righteous. And this is exactly what Paul says He has done to us His people- elected / chosen us, unto sanctification by Him. The ideas of choosing and sanctification run together in Paul's thought. We are the temple. "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13). "According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy/ sanctified" (Eph. 1:4). Peter likewise: "Elect [chosen] according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit" (1 Pet. 1:2). And the Lord Himself: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained / sanctified you" (Jn. 15:16).

2Ch 7:17 As for you, if you will walk before Me as David your father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My ordinances-
This was a hard act to follow, for David was chosen as being a man after God's own heart. Solomon considered that he was acceptable with God just because of his father, whereas Go wanted him to personally attain his father's spirituality. We note in passing God's high estimation of David, despite David's serious but out of character failings. God constantly warned Solomon about the conditionality of the promises, before the building started (2 Sam. 7:14), during it (1 Kings 6:11-13) and immediately after completing it (1 Kings 9:2-9). Solomon reinterprets this conditional promise in Prov. 20:7: "A righteous man walks in integrity; blessed are his children after him". Solomon has here his own agenda of self justification in view. The man who 'walked in integrity' is without doubt David (s.w. 1 Kings 9:4; Ps. 26:1,11; 101:2). Solomon assumed that because his father had walked in integrity, then he as his child would automatically be blessed. But he was choosing to misunderstand the conditional nature of the promises to him in 1 Kings 9:4; if he walked himself in integrity "as David your father walked", then he would be the prophetically blessed son of David.  

Solomon's prophetic sonship of David was conditional upon him preserving or observing Yahweh's ways (1 Kings 2:4; 1 Chron. 22:13; 2 Chron. 7:17); but he didn't preserve of observe them (1 Kings 11:10,11); despite David praying that Solomon would be given a heart to observe them (1 Chron. 29:19). We can pray for God to work upon the hearts of others, but He will not force people against their own deepest will and heart position. Solomon stresses overmuch how God would keep or preserve the righteous (Prov. 2:8; 3:26), without recognizing the conditional aspect of this. Why did Solomon go wrong? His Proverbs are true enough, but he stresses that obedience to his wisdom and teaching would preserve his hearers (Prov. 4:4; 6:22; 7:1; 8:32; 15:5), preservation was through following the example of the wise (Prov. 2:20); rather than stressing obedience to God's ways, and replacing David his father's simple love of God with a love of academic wisdom: "Yahweh preserves all those who love Him" (Ps. 145:20).

2Ch 7:18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, according as I covenanted with David your father saying, There shall not fail you a man to be ruler in Israel-
This is the same quotation made in Ps. 132:12. But God is picking up on Solomon's claims in 1 Kings 8:24 that God had already fulfilled this. He is pointing out that this promise was conditional, and Solomon had overlooked that. The promise of "a man" suggests one individual; but Solomon was wrong in assuming this referred to himself. He could potentially have been the Messiah, just as various individuals could have been. Indeed the Old Testament is littered with failed Messiahs- all building up to the wonderful climax of the one true Messiah.

David and Solomon had twisted what God actually promised David. He spoke of a singular seed, to be born after David "slept with [his] fathers". The phrase "man to be ruler in Israel" is applied to Messiah individually in Mic. 5:2 ("But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come forth to Me the man that is to be the ruler in Israel"). But Solomon has expanded this into "your children" (2 Chron. 6:16), in line with how David had wanted to interpret God's words as not referring to Messiah, God's begotten Son, but to an unbroken line of kings ruling on his throne. God now seems to agree, reluctantly, to this desire. He says that if Solomon is perfectly obedient (:17), and if the subsequent kings are, then He can also interpret His words of promise as meaning that "There shall not fail you a man to be ruler in Israel". But of course they were not perfectly obedient, the Davidic line of kings ended, and God Himself overthrew Zion. God by all means tried to go along with their desired path of fulfilment, and this is repeated later in 2 Chron. 23:3 ["Let him reign, as the Lord spoke concerning the sons of David"] and 2 Chron. 21:7: "Yet the Lord would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant which he had made with David, and since he had promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons for ever". That promise was however conditional upon their following His ways perfectly. The eternal lamp for David was to be fulfilled in the Messianic King, God's begotten Son. We see in all this how God will go along with human misunderstanding, in a desperate if reluctant bid to retain relationship with man. This is not to be taken as a minimizing of His requirements nor of His word. But we do marvel at the extent to which He is willing to compromise with man. And so we see Christian people with all manner of stubborn, even intentional misunderstandings, still being used by God and God retaining relationship with them. Just as He sent the shekinah into the temple- when so much in the temple was not of His will and indeed He had stated that He did not want a temple. Despite God's reasoning in 2 Samuel 7 as to why He didn't want a temple, He still gave the exiles the plans for a temple in Ez. 40-48, again amending and adjusting the terms of His encounter with man according to what He knew man wanted. Although still man refused to obey those plans in that the exiles didn't build that temple. Just as He worked through a kingship, which He made clear through Samuel He did not want. He gave them a king in His anger and took him away in His wrath; He was angry with the temple from the day it was built until the day He destroyed it. This 'going along' with the idea of an unbroken line of kings and His physical presence in Zion was what led to the huge disillusionment of Lamentations and other passages- when God Himself ended the line of kings and furiously ripped Zion apart. He was thereby seeking to revert His people to His promise of a future Kingdom and Messiah as the fulfilment of the covenant with David. Which was in essence the same as His covenant with Abraham and the fathers.

2Ch 7:19 But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them-
This is what Solomon did finally do, and already at this stage he had married Gentile women, whom the law of Moses had warned would lead his heart away from Yahweh to "other gods". But that apparently inevitable process could still be arrested- if Solomon responded in humility to this appeal. We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal ends in :22. But there is silence; see on :22. This verse is addressed to Solomon personally. If he fell away, then Israel would suffer and the temple would be destroyed (:20). This is the nature of sin- that it affects others. Men can to some degree be saved by third parties (Mk. 2:5) but they can also suffer and lose relationship with God because of third party behaviour. This highlights the huge importance and significance of how we live life. For no man is an island, no man lives or dies unto himself. Despite the claims of the individualistic, postmodern culture in which we live.

2Ch 7:20 then I will pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for My name, I will cast out of My sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples-
Solomon had wrongly reasoned in 2 Chron. 6 that the grandeur of the temple would attract Gentiles to become proselytes to Yahweh. But God warns him that the very opposite could happen, and the ruined temple would become the biggest possible disadvertisment for Yahweh and His people. Solomon had prayed, and in that prayer taught Israel, that if they sinned even in captivity, then all they had to do was pray towards the temple and they would be forgiven. He saw in that building some kind of atonement for sins. He lost sight of the importance of the blood that made atonement; he replaced the blood of Christ with a work of his own hands.  God’s response to the dedication of the temple here corrects what Solomon has just said. He says that if Israel sin then He will cast the temple too out of His sight; which is rather different to how Solomon instructed the people to gain forgiveness for the sake of the temple if they were in dispersion. He saw the temple as a talisman- the need for real, meaningful change and repentance and spiritual mindedness to enable the dwelling of God went unperceived. He failed to perceive the real possibility of the eternal potential he and Israel could miss. They really could be cast out of God's sight in condemnation. Jonah recognized “I am cast out of Your sight” (Jon. 2:4), the very language of condemnation used at his time (2 Kings 17:20; 21:2; 23:27; Jer. 7:15).

2Ch 7:21 This house, which is so high, everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall say, ‘Why has Yahweh done thus to this land, and to this house?’-
God parallels the temple and His people in 2 Chron. 7:21,22, saying that if He punishes the temple He will punish the people. Solomon seems to have thought that the temple would still stand favourably in God’s eyes even if the people were punished. The record records that the temple was “perfected” whereas Solomon’s heart wasn’t perfect [s.w.] (1 Kings 11:4 cp. 2 Chron. 8:16).

This is God's commentary upon the implications in Solomon's prayer that the temple and God's presence within it was to be eternal. Solomon had willfully misinterpreted the promises to David to mean that the temple was the fulfilment of the promise that the seed would build an eternal house. That house David had built was not the house in view, and could easily be destroyed and even become a curse rather than a blessing- if Solomon were disobedient.

2Ch 7:22 They shall answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and took other gods, worshipped them, and served them. Therefore He has brought all this evil on them’-
We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal ends; but there is silence. Solomon had blanked out from his perception any idea that he might fail or was less than perfect. His narrative was that he was the son of David, and the promises about David's son were now fulfilled in him. And he refused to allow anything, not even an appeal from God, disturb that internal narrative.