Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
2 Chronicles 6:21 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 21. 21Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place: hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness.
Read It With
- 2 Chronicles 6:12–6:21
Asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness. Read 2 Chronicles 6:21 within 6:12–6:21. The complete unit records: From a bronze platform Solomon praises unmatched covenant loyalty, affirms conditional Davidic succession, denies that the house can contain God, and asks for attentive hearing and forgiveness from heaven.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The prayer corrects any simplistic house theology by locating God beyond the temple while making it a direction for communal appeal. In this exact position, the line beginning “Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which…” asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness.
Follow the Context
- From a bronze platform Solomon praises unmatched covenant loyalty, affirms conditional Davidic succession, denies that the house can contain God, and asks for attentive hearing and forgiveness from heaven.
- The prayer corrects any simplistic house theology by locating God beyond the temple while making it a direction for communal appeal.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which…”
In plain language: Asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness.
The line beginning “Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which…” asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness.
Why it matters: The wording carries a material literary, historical, temple, royal-power, violence, ethnic, illness, gender, exile, reception, or misuse boundary.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
Public prayer does not make a ruler priestly without limit, guarantee dynastic continuity regardless of conduct, or confine God to a building.
What Remains True
Asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness. This concrete detail supports a bounded truth: Faithful memory tells the truth about worship and power together: it preserves covenant hope while naming labor, victims, institutional limits, human agency, and uncertainty.
How It Can Shape Life
- Because this verse asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness, keep it inside 6:12–6:21, compare its Samuel-Kings relationship honestly, protect affected people from coercion or stigma, and apply only the accountable principle the complete unit supports.
Teach It Back
Explain why 2 Chronicles 6:21 asks heaven to hear Israel and join hearing with forgiveness. Use 6:12–6:21, paraphrase “Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 2 Chronicles 6:12–6:21 — Solomon kneels and asks heaven to hearSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
2 Chronicles 6:21 remains within this thought-unit limit: The received text's literary claim is clear, while source history, exact chronology, numbers, speech wording, and event-level reconstruction remain questions of graded historical judgment.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Chronicles 6:12–6:21, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 6:12–6:21
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 2 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 6:12–6:21, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗