2 Chronicles 1

2 Chronicles 1:7

John Chrysostom: Do thou also therefore ask nothing worldly, but all things spiritual, and thou wilt surely receive. For so Solomon, because he asked what he ought, behold how quickly he received. Two things now, you see, should be in him that prays, asking earnestly, and asking what he ought: “since ye too,” saith He, “though ye be fathers, wait for your sons to ask: and if they should ask of you anything inexpedient, ye refuse the gifts; just as, if it be expedient, ye consent and bestow it.” Do thou too, considering these things, not withdraw until thou receive; until thou have found, retire not; relax not thy diligence, until the door be opened. For if thou approach with this mind, and say, “Except I receive, I depart not;” thou wilt surely receive, provided thou ask such things, as are both suitable for Him of whom thou askest to give, and expedient for thee the petitioner. But what are these? To seek the things spiritual, all of them; to forgive them that have trespassed, and so to draw nigh asking forgiveness; “to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting.” If we thus ask, we shall receive. As it is, surely our asking is a mockery, and the act of drunken rather than of sober men. “What then,” saith one, “if I ask even spiritual things, and do not receive?” Thou didst not surely knock with earnestness; or thou madest thyself unworthy to receive; or didst quickly leave off. “And wherefore,” it may be inquired, “did He not say, what things we ought to ask”? Nay verily, He hath mentioned them all in what precedes, and hath signified for what things we ought to draw nigh. Say not then, “I drew nigh, and did not receive.” For in no case is it owing to God that we receive not, God who loves us so much as to surpass even fathers, to surpass them as far as goodness doth this evil nature. — Homily on Matthew 23

2 Chronicles 1:10

Gregory of Nazianzus: The truth, and the whole Word, is full of difficulty and obscurity; and as it were with a small instrument we are undertaking a great work, when with merely human wisdom we pursue the knowledge of the self-existent, and in company with, or not apart from, the senses, by which we are borne hither and thither and led into error, we apply ourselves to the search after things that are only to be grasped by the mind, and we are unable by meeting bare realities with bare intellect to approximate somewhat more closely to the truth and to mold the mind by its concepts. Now the subject of God is harder to come at, in proportion as it is more perfect than any other and is open to more objections, and the solutions of them are more laborious. For every objection, however small, stops and hinders the course of our argument and cuts off its further advance, just like people who suddenly check with the rein the horses in full career and turn them right round by the unexpected shock. Thus Solomon, who was the wisest of all people, whether before him or in his own time, to whom God gave breadth of heart and a flood of contemplation, more abundant than the sand, even he, the more he entered into the depth, the more dizzy he became, and he declared the furthest point of wisdom to be the discovery of how very far off it was from him. — ON THEOLOGY, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 2(28).21

Origen of Alexandria: Hence, finally, Solomon is reported to have had several wives at once, to whom the Lord had said: “There has not been a wise man like you before you, and after you there shall not be.” Because, therefore, the Lord had given him a multitude of prudence, “like the sand of the sea,” that he might judge his people “in wisdom,” therefore he was able to exercise several virtues at once. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 11.2