1 Kings 9:8

8 And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, ^[a] all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to 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 But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods,

7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.

8 And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

9 And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

10 Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace,

Footnotes

• [a]. Some LXX manuscripts, Syriac, and Arabic; Hebrew And though this temple is now exalted; see also 2 Chronicles 7:21.