2 Chronicles 3 Devotional

A Temple on Ground of Mercy

“Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David. This was the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”2 Chronicles 3:1 (BSB)

Chapter 3 is mostly measurements and gold: a foundation sixty cubits long, a Most Holy Place overlaid with fine gold, two cherubim with outstretched wings, and two bronze pillars at the entrance (3:3-17). But the first verse holds the detail that matters most. Solomon builds on Mount Moriah, at the place where the LORD had appeared to David, on the threshing floor of Ornan (3:1).

That site had a history. After David's sinful census, a plague struck Israel, and David built an altar on that threshing floor. He called on the LORD, the LORD answered with fire from heaven, and the angel put his sword back in its sheath (1 Chronicles 21:26-27). So the temple rises on ground where judgment was halted and mercy was shown in answer to sacrifice. God chose the place where he had forgiven. For Christians, the cross is the final place of that kind, where judgment fell on Jesus and mercy came to us. Every approach to God still begins on ground he has already made safe.

To think about: Where do you go first when you know you need mercy, and what would it look like to begin with what God has already done?