In Solomon's prayer there seemed to be two different grounds on which he stands to prefer his requests. The first he takes is the promise conditionally given to his father. David. In the second, it is the mercy of God that can forgive after sin is committed. For sin having appeared whether in any man, or in the nation at large even though Solomon himself personally be not guilty, the whole kingdom would be lost unless God in His mercy went beyond the terms of His covenant with David. Hence in the case of transgression there can be no cry but for forgiveness.
These essentially different standpoints appear, the first from vv. 14 to 20, and the second in ver. 21, and following. In the latter Solomon is no longer on covenant ground. Forgiveness would not be needed if he and the people had righteously fulfilled the conditions laid on them, for God's promise was made contingent upon their obedience. In the former part there appears no doubt or fear of his own, or the people's, taking heed to the law; and in this his request is “let thy word be verified.” It is calling on God not to forgive, but to fulfill His promise. There seems this confidence in himself, for though he speaks of any man sinning, or even of all the people, he never says, If we sin. The Lord does not fail to remind him that he was as liable to sin as any man (see 7:17), and that it is upon his failure, dragging all the people with him, the solemn judgment of God is pronounced.
He recognizes the infinite majesty of God. “But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have built.” The thought of the infinite greatness of God subdues him, and henceforth his prayer becomes more supplicatory in character. “Have respect therefore to the prayer of Thy servant and to his supplication; O Lord my God to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which Thy servant prayeth before thee that Thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof Thou hast said that Thou wouldest put Thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which Thy servant prayeth toward this place. Hearken therefore unto the supplications of Thy servants and of thy people Israel which they shall make toward. this place; hear Thou from Thy dwelling-place, even from heaven, and when Thou hearest, forgive.”
Forgiveness is linked with God in His dwelling-place, the heaven of heavens, and not with the house. For grace is sovereign and has its source in 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. Thither Solomon looks. Nothing could be hidden from the all-searching eye of God and as if the thought expressed in ver. 36— “there is no man which sinneth not” —were pressing upon his heart, he prays for forgiveness. For if God judged on the principle of law, and righteousness apart from grace, He would, yea must, forsake His house and leave Israel under the awful judgment of a broken covenant. Often does he say “hear and forgive.” And God did repeatedly hear and forgive (governmentally) till He was compelled to judge, and say “why should ye be stricken any more?” Solomon's prayer to this point is general; but he knows there is no man that sinneth not, and he is in presence of the holiness and righteousness of God, Who can only meet man on the ground of infinite mercy and sovereign grace. He did not know, as we, how that mercy is secured, yea, abounds, through the cross of Christ.
“If any man sin against his neighbor.” Such a thing might happen as an exception to the general obedience of the people. Had the people never become idolators and externally at least maintained the righteousness of the law, there was still the possibility of an individual sinning against his neighbor. And Solomon's prayer in such a case is not, Hear and forgive, but “Hear thou from heaven [where he knew that forgiveness could only be found] and do, and judge Thy servants by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head, and by justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness.” This is law. If the sinner had been immediately requited in judgment, neither land nor people would have been polluted. But when the whole nation are sinners, when those whose office it was to vindicate the law were equally guilty, who then could righteously take vengeance for a broken law? Such the whole had become in the time of the prophets, and for this reason the prophets were sent, and dark pictures are given of the chosen people's sin and guilt. It was even worse when the Lord was here; for in His presence they dared. to appear as vindicators of the law when their own conscience could and did bear witness against them. Their incompetency to act was made manifest (see John 8). Only the mercy that endureth forever could act for such a people. And he who at the first said “Verify Thy word” can only now say “Hear and forgive.”
What a mingling of law and grace is here, if the way of the wicked is recompensed upon his own head? where is forgiveness? The law never brought out the depths of sin in man. Nor, while the law obtained as a rule of life, could forgiveness be known as the gospel proclaims it. While the saint of old as under law knew that if the Lord marked iniquity none could stand, and has not the knowledge, nor could have of a perfect redemption—can only say, “But there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared” (Psa. 130), he had not the knowledge of God's perfect love which casteth out all fear. By the unspeakable grace of God this knowledge is ours. The experience of these saints never rose to Christian experience. Looking to law as a rule of life, along with grace for forgiveness, was a condition that did not meet the mind and love of God (see Heb. 8:88For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: (Hebrews 8:8)). Now the believer in Christ has died to law, is separated from the whole order of things, which was suited for God's earthly people, and quite right then, but wrong now.
The believer now has a heavenly calling, being in a sphere which is beyond the reach of the law which pressed upon the saints of old so that they were in bondage all their life. Is then the believer lawless? Nay, but as risen with Christ, he is to live to God, and Christ is his law in the new resurrection sphere. The grace that came by Christ teaches us to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age; the law said, Thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, &c. But the grace goes farther, giving the impelling power to fulfill the righteousness of the law (which the law itself never could, and was never intended to do). The grace adds, to look for the appearing of the glory, and this is a chief part of Christianity, and is always accompanied (where it is not mere sentiment but a divine reality) with power so to live as the grace given teaches. Shall a forgiven man go to the law for the measure of his holiness and obedience? That same law which when in force by the authority of God could only stir up the flesh and excite its opposition?
There was a time when obedience to the law, or disobedience, was the dividing line between the saints of God, and all others. But it did not separate saints from the world. For there was then no cross. Now saints, believers, are crucified to the world, and the world to them. This is a complete and absolute severance not merely from its sins and condemnation, but from it as a system which may have good things (good naturally) as well as bad. We as believers in Christ belong to an entirely different sphere, as separate from the old system in which Solomon lived, as the Lord Jesus risen.
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17).
The requests of Solomon go not beyond temporal evils and temporal judgments. For Israel is God's earthly people; but they are Jehovah's people and Solomon constantly says Thy people. And though the wickedness of the people seems to spread out before his eye, so does also the goodness of God, and for the worst sins he can beseech forgiveness. He had before said, “If any man sin,” as if such a thing would be an exception in Israel; but now in ver. 29, the exception to the general prevalence of iniquity would be if any man prayed or confessed his sin.
Still in this desperate condition of the people, he says, “and render unto every man according unto all his ways” (ver. 30). But forgiveness is blended with the law, which had no place in the law as given by Moses, though the forgiving character of God was revealed to him in the mount (Ex. 34:6, 76And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6‑7)). It is now brought prominently out, and God's perfect absolute knowledge of the heart is, as it were, pleaded as a reason for forgiveness. Under the gospel it is not law alone, nor law and grace mixed, as under the intercession of Moses, but grace reigning through righteousness by Christ our Lord.
The stranger is prayed for, and comes in to share in Israel's blessings and privileges, even to pray in this house. The Lord said it was written “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:1717And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves. (Mark 11:17)). The comparatively few strangers that worshipped in that temple cannot be the full answer to Solomon's request, He was led by the prophetic Spirit of God beyond the time then present to the time when all Israel shall know the Lord; and he goes on to say “that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name as doth Thy people Israel.” In that day Israel will be the greatest nation and bear rule over the gentiles, but will also be a model of obedience and worship.
But before the brightness of that millennial day bursts on the world, a greater sin and a heavier judgment than all before it shall be found with that people. Their sins and their judgments had been in the land; the outpouring of the wrath of Jehovah drove them out of their own land into one afar off. Captivity to the Gentiles was to succeed pestilence and famine and war. These which they suffered in the land were sufficient to teach them to be obedient to the law of God if they had had ears to hear and hearts to understand. But they were heedless to every call, their hearts were impervious to God's patient dealing, restoration after chastisement only gave them further opportunity for sin until the cup ran over. And God said, Why should ye be stricken (chastised) any more? and gave them up to the Gentile. Even the sorrows of the Babylonish captivity so deeply felt by Jeremiah were comparatively light before those under the power of the Romans, and the two tribes that represent Israel feel Gentile oppression much more now than when carried to Babylon. And greater woe awaits them before that day comes. But the prophetic prayer of Solomon comprehends a return and a gathering of all back again to their land. He reaches forward to the millennial day. “Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into Thy resting-place. Thou, and the ark of Thy strength; let Thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let Thy saints rejoice in goodness” (41). It is in the form of a prayer, but it is not the less a prophetic description of their millennial gladness. And as it were recognizing that all this blessing is not because of Israel's repentance, but for His sake Who is appointed to reign over them, Solomon closes with the feeling that all rests with Him. “O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine Anointed; remember the mercies of David Thy servant.”
Sin and its judgment, a possible repentance, and forgiveness from God, occupy his mind and are the subject of his prayer. But the mercy of God is as prominent in Solomon's prayer, as was the inflexible righteousness of God in the law given by Moses; and it was on this mingled system of grace and righteousness that God dealt with Israel until, the Lord came, the fruit of mediatorial intercession really. God (to speak after the manner of men) accepts Solomon's modification of the old covenant. “And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer” (7:12), and takes up special cases of judgment; if the people repent, He will hear and forgive. But He did more; He did not wait for their repentance, but sent prophets to rebuke, warn, of the inevitable judgment that must follow sin; to invite, yea plead with, them to repent, and if they did repent, to say what grace would do for them.
God's gracious words to Solomon form a fresh starting point with Israel, and the message of the prophets is founded on it. Isaiah says, “Repent, and God will abundantly pardon.” The law visited the sins of the fathers upon the children. Ezekiel says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,” nor his own, if he turn from his unrighteousness. And in view of this grace rising above law, both the people and their kings sank deeper in iniquity until God says, as if giving a reason for His judgment, “What could I have done more for my vineyard that I have not done?” The first words of Isaiah are that God had brought and nourished children that became rebellious, and that the ox and the ass were more faithful to their owners than Israel to God.
Nevertheless Solomon is reminded of his own responsibility. The continuation of the kingdom, as it was given to him, hung upon his own faithfulness. God says, “If thou,” &c., and adds, “if ye turn away,” for the people would assuredly follow their king. And the consequent judgment would (and did) fall upon all Israel. “I will root up them “: even the house called by His own name should become a reproach. But the nations, the Gentiles, would know why God so dealt with them.
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