2 Chronicles 1:1-6--Solomon Worships at Gibeon

2 Chronicles 1:1-6
English Standard Version

Solomon Worships at Gibeon
1 Solomon the son of David established himself in his kingdom, and the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.

2 Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to all the leaders in all Israel, the heads of fathers' houses. 3 And Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness, was there. 4 (But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.) 5 Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the LORD. And Solomon and the assembly sought it out. 6 And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the LORD, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.

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We just finished the book of 1 Chronicles which mostly chronicles the life of King David.  As we start the book of 2 Chronicles it will cover all the kinds of Judah from the time of Solomon to the Babylonian captivity.  This also happens to be the last book of the Hebrew Bible (the TNK) as the order of their books is The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  This is the last of the books in the Writings.  We are going to see some good kings, some bad kings and quite a few good kings who do some bad things and a few bad kings who do some good things.  The easiest way to judge if the people thought the king was "good" or "bad" is if they buried the king in the royal tombs with/near David when they died or if they buried them somewhere else because they didn't deserve to be buried with the "good" kings.

None of these kings are truly good though, because only God is good.  There is only one king of Israel and Judah, and that is the LORD, and we will see that in the midst of all thse good rulers and bad rulers, the LORD is still ultimately in control.

Let's dive into today's text where Solomon worships the LORD at Gibeon.  This sounds strange as we just came off of the description of the charge to Solomon to build the Temple but, since it will take several years to build, the Tabernacle was still the place to go and offer sacrifices to the LORD, and it was at Gibeon. 

​He took all the leaders of the people and the whole assembly with him into the wilderness to go worship at the Tabernacle (it makes sense that the people would want to keep the sight of the continual sight and smell and sounds of the slaughter of these animals for blood sacrifices away from them, but all that is about to change).  The Ark has already been moved to Jerusalem by David, awaiting the building of the Temple, and the rest of the articles and functions of the Tabernacle will soon move to Jerusalem, the capital city, once the Temple is finished.

Solomon and the people knew to make sacrifices on the Bronze Altar in the courtyard of the Tabernacle, and Solomon went to offer 1,000 burnt offerings on it (Solomon didn't do things halfway--everything he did was extravagant, and when it comes time for the dedication of the Temple, we will see even more extravagant numbers of sacrifices made.