1 Kings 9:8

8 Though this temple is [now] exalted,^[a] every passerby will be appalled and will hiss. They will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?

1 Kings 9:8 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 9:8

And at this house which is high
The house of the most High, as some render it, and in high esteem, fame, and glory, as well as it was built on an high hill, and was itself one hundred and twenty cubits high, ( 2 Chronicles 3:4 ) , the Targum is,

``and this house which was high shall be destroyed:''

everyone that passeth by it shall be astonished;
at the ruins of the temple, and of the city of Jerusalem, which had been so magnificent:

and shall hiss;
in scorn and derision of the people of Israel, rejoicing in their ruin:

and they shall say, why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and to
this house?
or suffered it to be done, to lie thus in waste and ruins; a land in which it had been said he delighted, and looked unto from one end of the year to the other, and a house he had taken up his dwelling in; surely something more than ordinary, they suggest, must be the cause of all this.

1 Kings 9:8 In-Context

6 If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands-My statutes that I have set before you-and if you go and serve other gods and worship them,

7 I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for My name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

8 Though this temple is [now] exalted, every passerby will be appalled and will hiss. They will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?

9 Then they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.

10 At the end of 20 years during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Lord's temple and the royal palace-

Footnotes

• [a]. Some ancient versions read temple will become a ruin