1 Kings 8:29-39

29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you said, "My name shall be there,' that you may heed the prayer that your servant prays toward this place.
30 Hear the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place; O hear in heaven your dwelling place; heed and forgive.
31 "If someone sins against a neighbor and is given an oath to swear, and comes and swears before your altar in this house,
32 then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding them according to their righteousness.
33 "When your people Israel, having sinned against you, are defeated before an enemy but turn again to you, confess your name, pray and plead with you in this house,
34 then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave to their ancestors.
35 "When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin, because you punish them,
36 then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.
37 "If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in any of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;
38 whatever prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch out their hands toward this house;
39 then hear in heaven your dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know—according to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart—

1 Kings 8:29-39 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 8

This chapter gives an account of the introduction of the ark into the temple, 1Ki 8:1-9 of the glory of the Lord filling it, 1Ki 8:10,11 of a speech Solomon made to the people concerning the building of the temple, and how he came to be engaged in it, 1Ki 8:12-21, of a prayer of his he put up on this occasion, requesting, that what supplications soever were made at any time, or on any account, by Israelites or strangers, might be accepted by the Lord, 1Ki 8:22-53, and of his blessing the people of Israel at the close of it, with some useful exhortations, 1Ki 8:54-61, and of the great number of sacrifices offered up by him, and the feast he made for the people, upon which he dismissed them, 1Ki 8:62-66.

Footnotes 2

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.