Week 20 2 Chronicles 7
The story of the Lord appearing to Solomon in chapter 7 was also told in 1 Kings 9 so I page back and do a quick comparison.
The bible I’m looking at subdivides the Lord’s speech into paragraphs. The 1 Kings version has three paragraphs (seven verses). 2 Chronicles has four paragraphs (eleven verses). Flipping back-and-forth I see that the content of paragraphs #1 #2 & #3 in Kings matches up pretty closely with Chronicles’ paragraphs #1 #3 & #4. And so Chronicles’ paragraph #2 is the odd-paragraph-out.
That second paragraph says that in the event of a national disaster – drought or crop-failure & famine or plague – if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (It seems like pretty important advice and I wonder why Kings didn’t include it.)
In the event of meteorological or ecological or medical crises – whatever other material actions I take first – there’s this short list of non-material emergency responses. I should:
Reel-in my arrogance
Seriously search for the Lord
Start talking to the Lord
Quit doing evil things.
It’s a fairly abstract list of recommendations for pretty concrete material-world crises. So they might not be the first things I’d try. Still…there they are. Part of my emergency prep resources.
Note: quote from 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 (NIV). See 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 & 1 Kings 9:1-9.