This appearance is fixed by 1-Kings 9:1 to Solomon's twenty-fourth year, the year in which he completed his palace 1-Kings 6:37-38; 1-Kings 7:1. The fact seems to be that, though the temple was finished in Solomon's eleventh year, the dedication did not take place until his twenty-fourth year. The order of the narrative in Kings agrees with this view, since it interposes the account of the building of the palace 1-Kings 7:1-12, and of the making of the furniture 1 Kings 7:13-51, between the completion of the building of the temple 1-Kings 6:38 and the ceremony of the Dedication 1 Kings 8.

The Lord appeared to Solomon - The design of this appearance, which was in a dream, as that was at Gibeon, was to assure Solomon that God had accepted his service, and had taken that house for his dwelling-place, and would continue it, and establish him and his descendants upon the throne of Israel for ever, provided they served him with an upright heart; but, on the contrary, if they forsook him, he would abandon both them and his temple.

That the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time,.... Junius and Tremellius read this verse with the following, to the end of the ninth, in a parenthesis, and render this clause, "for the Lord had appeared", &c. and Piscator translates it, "moreover the Lord appeared", &c. as beginning a distinct narrative from the former; and indeed if the words are to be connected with the preceding, as in our version, this appearance must be thirteen years after the building of the temple, which is not probable; but rather it was the night after the dedication of it, when an answer was returned to Solomon's prayer in the preceding chapter; for that it should be deferred twelve or thirteen years is not reasonable to suppose; and this appearance was the second of the kind and manner:
as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon; in a dream and a vision, and by night, 1-Kings 3:5, see 2-Chronicles 7:12.

That--rather, "For."
the Lord appeared--This appearance was, like the former one at Gibeon, most probably made in a supernatural vision, and on the night immediately following the dedication of the temple (2-Chronicles 7:12). The strain of it corresponds to this view, for it consists of direct answers to his solemn inaugural prayer (1-Kings 9:3 is in answer to 1-Kings 8:29; 1-Kings 9:4-5 is in answer to 1-Kings 8:25-26; 1-Kings 9:6-9 to 1-Kings 8:33-46; see also Deuteronomy 29:22-24).