1 Kings 8:39

39 may You hear in heaven, Your dwelling place, and may You forgive, act, and repay the man, according to all his ways, since You know his heart, for You alone know every human heart,

1 Kings 8:39 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 8:39

Then hear thou in heaven thy dwellingplace
Which was more properly so than this Solomon had built, and the Lord had taken possession of:

and forgive;
remove the calamity and distress, be it what it may:

and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart
thou knowest:
that his prayer is cordial and sincere, his confession and repentance genuine, and that he is truly sensible of his sin, and sorry for it, and is pure in his intentions and resolutions, through divine grace, to depart from it for the future:

(for thou, [even] thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of
men;)
he knows all men, the hearts of them all, what is in them, what comes out of them, and is according to them; omniscience belongs only to God; it is his prerogative to know the heart and search the reins, see ( Jeremiah 17:9 Jeremiah 17:10 ) .

1 Kings 8:39 In-Context

37 When there is famine on the earth, when there is pestilence, when there is blight, mildew, locust, or grasshopper, when their enemy besieges them in the region of their fortified cities, [when there is] any plague or illness,

38 whatever prayer or petition anyone from Your people Israel might have- each man knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple-

39 may You hear in heaven, Your dwelling place, and may You forgive, act, and repay the man, according to all his ways, since You know his heart, for You alone know every human heart,

40 so that they may fear You all the days they live on the land You gave our ancestors.

41 Even for the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of Your name-