2 Chronicles 1:10 — the prayer of a man who feels small for the job
10Give to me wisdom and understanding, so that I may enter and depart before your people. For who is able worthily to judge this, your people, who are so great?”
The request is justified by a task, not by a desire for personal growth. And it ends in a question that gives away what drives it: who could handle this?
Short answer
In 2 Chronicles 1:10 Solomon asks for wisdom and understanding so that he may enter and depart before the people, and closes by asking who could worthily judge so great a people. It answers an open offer from God, and the stated reason is the size of the task.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
It is one of the most quoted requests as an example of good prayer. What usually gets lost is the reason Solomon gives — and it is not spiritual, it is administrative.
Where this verse appears
Solomon has just taken the throne after David. He goes to Gibeon with a great assembly, and that night God appears with an unrestricted offer: ask what you want me to give you.
Before asking, Solomon recalls the mercy shown to his father and the fact that he was set over a numerous people. Verse 10 comes after that framing, and God’s answer follows immediately.
What it says
The stated purpose is functional. Entering and departing before the people is an idiom of practical leadership — leading, deciding, showing up. Solomon does not ask for illumination or a spiritual experience: he asks for competence in a role that is already his.
The closing question gives away his state of mind: who could possibly be equal to judging a people this numerous? That is not the rhetoric of modesty; it is someone counting the crowd and concluding he cannot cope. The request grows out of the gap between the task and the person.
God’s answer, in the following verses, praises mostly what Solomon did not ask for: riches, glory, long life, the death of his enemies. And then adds those things. It is honest to note that Solomon’s story ends badly, which blocks reading this episode as a formula — wisdom granted did not guarantee a life well lived to the end.
What to do with it today
If you are carrying a responsibility that is too large for you, this verse offers a model of prayer that is not abstract: ask for what the job requires, and name the job.
It also offers a useful test of motive. Solomon asks in order to serve a particular people well. The uncomfortable, good question is this: what you have been asking for serves whom?
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, the task in front of me is larger than I am. Give me the judgment to decide well, and let it serve the people who depend on those decisions. Amen.