1 Kings 8:23-53

(23-53) The prayer of Solomon, uttered (see 1 Kings 8:54) on his knees with hands uplifted to heaven, long and detailed as it is, is yet of extreme simplicity of idea. It begins (a), in 1 Kings 8:23, with a thankful acknowledgment of the fulfilment of one part of the great promise to David, and a prayer for the like fulfilment of the other; next (b), in 1 Kings 8:26, acknowledging that God’s presence can be limited to no Temple, it yet Asks that His peculiar blessing may rest on prayer uttered toward the place which He has hallowed; and then (c), in 1 Kings 8:31, applies that petition to the various contingencies, of oath taken in His name, of rain withheld, of disaster in battle, of famine and pestilence, of captivity in a foreign land, and extends it not only to Israel, but to the stranger who shall acknowledge and invoke the Lord Jehovah. Its constantly recurring burden is, “Hear Thou from heaven thy dwelling-place, and when Thou hearest, Lord, forgive.” It is plain that before Solomon’s mind there are continually present in some form the blessing and the curse pronounced in the Law (see Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28); and it is most true to human nature, and especially characteristic of the thoughtfulness of his philosophic temper, that over the bright hour of exultation there seems to hover a constant foreboding of evils and trials to come.