Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 8:12
At that time Solomon offered burnt offerings to the LORD on the altar of the LORD he had built in front of the portico.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records Solomon’s action immediately after relocating the Egyptian princess from the City of David and just before detailing his regular sacrificial schedule. It captures a specific moment of temple worship at the newly constructed altar.
The words — עֹל֖וֹת (o.Lot) denotes burnt offerings, and מִזְבַּ֣ח (miz.Bach) specifies the altar where the sacrifice was placed. These terms anchor the verse in the concrete ritual practice of the period.
The thread — The altar Solomon built connects to the bronze altar described in 2 Chronicles 4:1, while the act of offering ties directly to the daily and feast-day requirements outlined in 2 Chronicles 8:13. This establishes a continuous line of regulated worship within the Chronicles narrative.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to recognize that temple worship operates through designated locations and prescribed rituals rather than spontaneous devotion. It demands an acknowledgment of how Solomon institutionalized sacrificial practice according to established command.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had built before the porch,
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 4:1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.
- 1 Chronicles 28:17 the weight of the pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls, and pitchers; the weight of each gold dish; the weight of each silver bowl;
- 2 Chronicles 15:8 When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He then restored the altar of the LORD that was in front of the portico of the LORD’s temple.
- Ezekiel 8:16 So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.
- Joel 2:17 Let the priests who minister before the LORD weep between the portico and the altar, saying, “Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not make Your heritage a reproach, an object of scorn among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”
- John 10:23 and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade.