1 Kings 9:1-13

The Lord Appears to Solomon

1 ¹As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD ²and the king's house and ³all that Solomon desired to build,

2 ⁴the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

3 And the LORD said to him, "I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, ⁵by putting my name there forever. ⁶My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

4 And as for you, if you will ⁷walk before me, ⁸as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules,

5 ⁹then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

6 ¹⁰But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

7 ¹¹then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, ¹²and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, ¹³and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

8 And this house will become a heap of ruins.^[a] Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ¹⁴'Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?'

9 Then they will say, 'Because ¹⁵they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.'"

Solomon's Other Acts

10 ¹⁶At the end of ¹⁷twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the LORD and the king's house,

11 and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him.

13 Therefore he said, "What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?" So they are called the land of ¹⁸Cabul to this day.

1 Kings 9:1-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 9

This chapter relates a second vision Solomon had at Gibeon, in which he received an answer to his prayer in the preceding chapter, 1Ki 9:1-9 that passed between him and Hiram king of Tyre, 1Ki 9:10-14, the places that Solomon built or repaired, 1Ki 9:15-19, the Canaanitish people that became bondmen to him, and the officers he had among the children of Israel, 1Ki 9:20-23 the removal of Pharaoh's daughter to the house built for her, 1Ki 9:24. Solomon's attention to religious services, 1Ki 9:25 and the navy of ships he employed, which brought him in great riches, 1Ki 9:26-28.

Cross References

• 1. For ver. 1-9, see 2 Chronicles 7:11-22
• 2. 1 Kings 7:1; 2 Chronicles 8:1
• 3. ver. 19; 2 Chronicles 8:6
• 4. 1 Kings 3:5; 1 Kings 11:9
• 5. 1 Kings 8:16, 29
• 6. Deuteronomy 11:12
• 7. [Genesis 17:1]
• 8. 1 Kings 11:4, 6, 38; 1 Kings 14:8; 1 Kings 15:5
• 9. 1 Kings 6:12; 1 Chronicles 22:10; See 1 Kings 2:4
• 10. [2 Samuel 7:14; Psalms 89:30, 32]
• 11. Deuteronomy 4:26; 2 Kings 17:23; 2 Kings 25:21
• 12. Jeremiah 7:14
• 13. Deuteronomy 28:37; [Psalms 44:14]
• 14. Deuteronomy 29:24-26; Jeremiah 22:8, 9
• 15. 1 Kings 18:18
• 16. For ver. 10-28, see 2 Chronicles 8:1-18
• 17. [1 Kings 6:37, 38; 1 Kings 7:1]
• 18. [Joshua 19:27]

Footnotes

• [a]. Syriac, Old Latin; Hebrew will become high