2 Chronicles 6:32-33 - Exposition

The stranger … c ome from a far country for thy great Name's sake. These two verses, with every clause in them, must be felt most refreshing by every reader; but they ought also to be particularly observed, as both corrective of a common but strictly erroneous impression as to exclusiveness and a genius of bigotry inhering in the setting apart of the Jewish race for a certain purpose in the Divine government and counsel, and also as revealing very significantly that that setting apart was nothing but a method and means to an end, as comprehensive and universal as the world itself The analogies, in fact, in the world's history are linked, in one unbroken chain, to what sometimes seems to a mere reader of the Bible pages as an artificial and somewhat arbitrary decree or arrangement (see, amid many significant parallels, Exodus 22:21 ; Le Exodus 25:35 ; Numbers 15:13-17 ; Deuteronomy 10:19 ; Deuteronomy 31:12 ). Not of thy people Israel ( John 10:16 ; John 12:20-26 ; Acts 8:27 ). For thy great Name ' s sake. The insertion of the adjective "great" here ( גָּדוֹל ) is not Pentateuchal, but is found in Joshua 7:9 ; in our parallel, 1 Kings 8:42 ; Psalms 76:1 ; Psalms 99:3 ; Ezekiel 36:23 ; Jeremiah 10:6 ; Jeremiah 44:26 . All people of the earth . Not only are many of the psalms utterly in harmony with the spirit of this verse, but also the light of it is reflected brilliantly in such passages as Acts 17:22-31 . This house is called by thy Name; literally, thy Name is called upon (or perhaps, into ) this house, meaning that God himself is invoked there, or present there in order that he may be constantly invoked.