1 Kings 8:38-48

38 whatever prayer and supplication be made by any man, [or] by all your people Yisra'el, who shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

39 then hear in heaven, your dwelling-place, and forgive, and do, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know; (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men;)

40 that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.

41 Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Yisra'el, when he shall come out of a far country for your name's sake

42 (for they shall hear of your great name, and of your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm); when he shall come and pray toward this house;

43 hear in heaven, your dwelling-place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the eretz may know your name, to fear you, as does your people Yisra'el, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by my name.

44 If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the LORD toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name;

45 then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

46 If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn't sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;

47 yet if they shall repent themselves in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have dealt wickedly;

48 if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name:

1 Kings 8:38-48 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.