1 Kings 8:44

44 If thy people go out to battle against their enemies by the way which thou shalt send them and shall pray unto the LORD toward the city which thou hast chosen and toward the house that I have built for thy name,

1 Kings 8:44 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 8:44

If thy people go out to battle against their enemy
In a foreign country, threatening to invade them, or having trespassed on their borders, or some way or other infringed on their liberties and privileges, and so given them just occasion to go to war with them:

whithersoever thou shalt send them;
this case supposes their asking counsel of God, or having a direction and commission from him by a prophet, or some other way, to engage in war with the enemy:

and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen,
and toward the house I have built for thy name:
for, notwithstanding the justness of their cause, and having a warrant from God to go to war, yet they were to pray to him for success when at a distance, even in a foreign land, and about to engage the enemy; and this they were to do, turning their faces towards the city of Jerusalem, and the temple there; declaring thereby that their dependence was upon the Lord that dwelt there, and their expectation of victory was only from him.

1 Kings 8:44 In-Context

42 (for they shall have heard of thy great name and of thy strong hand and of thy stretched out arm), when he shall come to pray in this house,

43 thou shalt hear in the heavens, in the habitation of thy dwelling place, and do according to all that for which the stranger shall have called unto thee, that all peoples of the earth may know thy name and fear thee as do thy people Israel and that they may know that thy name is invoked upon this house, which I have built.

44 If thy people go out to battle against their enemies by the way which thou shalt send them and shall pray unto the LORD toward the city which thou hast chosen and toward the house that I have built for thy name,

45 thou shalt hear in the heavens their prayer and their supplication and do their judgment.

46 If they have sinned against thee (for there is no man that does not sin) and thou should be angry with them and deliver them to the enemy so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near,