1 Kings 8:37

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

²²Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven, ²³and said: "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth below, keeping Your covenant of loving devotion with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts. ²⁴You have kept Your promise to Your servant, my father David. What You spoke with Your mouth You have fulfilled with Your hand this day. ²⁵Therefore now, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for Your servant, my father David, what You promised when You said: 'You will never fail to have a man to sit before Me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants guard their way to walk before Me as you have done.' ²⁶And now, O God of Israel, please confirm what You promised to Your servant, my father David. ²⁷But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built. ²⁸Yet regard the prayer and plea of Your servant, O LORD my God, so that You may hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is praying before You today. ²⁹May Your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, 'My Name shall be there,' so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place. ³⁰Hear the plea of Your servant and of Your people Israel when they pray toward this place. May You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place. May You hear and forgive. ³¹When a man sins against his neighbor and is required to take an oath, and he comes to take an oath before Your altar in this temple,

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

in the land famine: Leviticus 26:16, Leviticus 26:25, Leviticus 26:26-46, Deuteronomy 28:21, Deuteronomy 28:22, Deuteronomy 28:25, Deuteronomy 28:38-42, Deuteronomy 28:52-61, 2 Kings 6:25-29, 1 Chronicles 21:12, 2 Chronicles 6:28-31, 2 Chronicles 20:9, Psalms 105:34, Psalms 105:35, Jeremiah 32:2, Jeremiah 39:1-3, Ezekiel 14:21, Joel 1:4-7, Joel 2:25, Joel 2:26

cities: or, jurisdiction

Reciprocal: Exodus 10:14 - the locusts 2 Chronicles 12:6 - humbled Ezekiel 14:19 - if I Amos 4:9 - with Haggai 2:17 - with blasting Mark 5:29 - plague Luke 7:21 - plagues

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Ver. 37 If there be in the land famine,.... Through want of rain, or any other cause, as there had been a three years' famine in the time of David, and it is supposed it might be again, though Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey:

if there be pestilence; as there had been, for David's numbering the people:

blasting; or blights, occasioned by the east wind:

mildew; a kind of clammy dew, which falling on plants, corn, c. corrupts and destroys them, see Amos 4:9,

locust, or

if there be caterpillar creatures very pernicious to the fruits of the earth, and cause a scarcity of them, see Joel 1:4,

if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; so that they cannot go out to gather the increase of the earth, or till their land:

whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be; whatever stroke from the hand of God, or what judgment or calamity soever befalls.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In the land of their cities - literally, “in the land of their gates.” Hence, the marginal translation “jurisdiction,” because judgments were pronounced in the town gates Deuteronomy 16:18. Another reading gives “in one of their cities.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 8:37. If there be in the land famine - pestilence — The FOURTH case includes several kinds of evils:

1. Famine; a scarcity or total want of bread, necessarily springing from the preceding cause, drought.

2. Pestilence; any general and contagious disease.

3. Blasting; any thing by which the crops are injured, so that the ear is never matured; but instead of wholesome grain, there is a black offensive dust.

4. Mildew; any thing that vitiates or corrodes the texture of the stalk, destroys the flowers and blossoms, or causes the young shaped fruits to fall off their stems.

5. Locust, a well known curse in the East, a species of grasshopper that multiplies by millions, and covers the face of the earth for many miles square, destroying every green thing; leaving neither herb nor grass upon the earth, nor leaf nor bark upon the trees.

6. Caterpillar; the locust in its young or nympha state. The former refers to locusts brought by winds from other countries and settling on the land; the latter, to the young locusts bred in the land.

7. An enemy, having attacked their defenced cities, the keys and barriers of the land.

8. Any other kind of plague; that which affects the surface of the body; blotch, blain, leprosy, ophthalmia, c.

9. Sickness whatever impaired the strength, or affected the intestines, disturbing or destroying their natural functions.

All such cases were to be brought before the Lord, the persons having a deep sense of the wickedness which induced God thus to afflict, or permit them to be afflicted: for only those who knew the plague of their own hearts, (1 Kings 8:38), the deep-rooted moral corruption of their nature, and the destructive nature and sinfulness of sin, were likely to pray in such a manner as to induce God to hear and forgive.