Yahweh’s Response to Solomon
(2 Chronicles 7:11–22)

1And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of YHWH and the house of the king and all the desire of Solomon that he delighted to do, 2that YHWH appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3And YHWH said to him,

“I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me. I have consecrated this house that you have built to put My Name there even to forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there all the days.

4And if you walk before Me as David your father walked in integrity of heart and with uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you—if you keep My statutes and My ordinances— 5I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I spoke to David your father, saying, ‘You will not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

6If you⁺ at all turn back, you⁺ or your⁺ sons, from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes that I have set before you⁺, and you⁺ go and serve other gods and worship them, 7then I will cut off Israel from the face of the land that I have given them, and this house that I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight, and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all the peoples.

8And this house has become a heap of rubble;† everyone who passes by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Upon what has YHWH done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9And they will answer, ‘Upon that they have forsaken YHWH their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and they have embraced other gods and worshiped them and served them. Upon thus YHWH has brought on them all this calamity.’”

Solomon’s Additional Achievements
(2 Chronicles 8:1–18)

10And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built the two houses—the house of YHWH and the house of the king— 11Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress† wood and gold, as much as he desired, then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12And Hiram went from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, and they were not right in his eyes.

13And he said, “What are these cities that you have given to me, my brother?” And he called them the land of Cabul,† as they are to this day.

14And Hiram had sent to the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.†

And this is the matter of the forced labor that King Solomon raised to build the house of YHWH, and his own house, and the Millo,† and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and taken Gezer and burned it with the fire, and the Canaanite who dwelt in the city he had killed, and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, the wife of Solomon. And Solomon built Gezer, and Lower Beth-horon, and Baalath, and Tamar† in the wilderness in the land,† and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities of the horsemen,† and the desire of Solomon that he desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

All the people remaining of the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite (who were not of the sons of Israel)— their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel had not been able to devote to destruction—† and raised from these Solomon for the forced labor of serving even to this day.

And of the sons of Israel Solomon made none forced laborers, because they were men of war, and his servants, and his officers, and his captains, and commanders of his chariots, and his cavalry. These were the chiefs of the officials who were over the work of Solomon, fifty-five hundred who ruled over the people who did the work.

However, the daughter of Pharaoh came up from the City of David to her house that he had built for her; then he built the Millo.

And Solomon offered three times a year burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he had built for YHWH, and he burned incense with them on that which was before the face of YHWH. And he finished the house.

26And King Solomon built a fleet at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth† on the shore of the Red Sea† in the land of Edom. 27And Hiram sent with the ships his servants, men of ships who knew the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 28And they went to Ophir and acquired from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents,† and they brought it to King Solomon.

Footnotes:

8 Some LXX manuscripts, Syriac, and Arabic; Hebrew And though this house is now exalted; see also 2 Chronicles 7:21.
11 Or pine or juniper or fir
13 Cabul sounds like the Hebrew for good-for-nothing.
14 120 talents is approximately 4.52 tons or 4.1 metric tons of gold.
15 That is, the terrace; also in verse 24
18 Alternate MT reading; the other alternate reads Tadmor
18 That is, in the wilderness of Judah
19 Or cavalry or charioteers
21 Forms of the Hebrew cherem refer to the giving over of things or persons to YHWH, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering.
26 Eloth is a variant of Elath; see LXX, 2 Kings 14:22, and 2 Kings 16:6.
26 Or the Sea of Reeds
28 420 talents is approximately 15.8 tons or 14.4 metric tons of gold.