1 Kings 8:30

8:30 Respond to the request of your servant and your people Israel for this place. ¹  Hear from inside your heavenly dwelling place ²  and respond favorably. ³ 

1 Kings 8:36

8:36 then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Certainly ⁴  you will then teach them the right way to live ⁵  and send rain on your land that you have given your people to possess. ⁶ 

1 Kings 8:39

8:39 then listen from your heavenly dwelling place, forgive their sin, ⁷  and act favorably toward each one based on your evaluation of his motives. ⁸  (Indeed you are the only one who can correctly evaluate the motives of all people.) ⁹ 

1 Kings 12:10

12:10 The young advisers with whom Rehoboam ¹⁰  had grown up said to him, “Say this to these people who have said to you, ‘Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden.’ ¹¹  Say this to them: ‘I am a lot harsher than my father! ¹² 

1 Kings 20:25

20:25 Muster an army like the one you lost, with the same number of horses and chariots. ¹³  Then we will fight them in the plains; we will certainly overpower them.” He approved their plan and did as they advised. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel which they are praying concerning this place.”

² tn Heb “and you, hear inside your dwelling place, inside heaven.” The precise nuance of the preposition אֶל (’el), used here with the verb “hear,” is unclear. One expects the preposition “from,” which appears in the parallel text in 2 Chr 6:21. The nuance “inside; among” is attested for אֶל (see Gen 23:19; 1 Sam 10:22; Jer 4:3), but in each case a verb of motion is employed with the preposition, unlike 1 Kgs 8:30. The translation above (“from inside”) is based on the demands of the immediate context rather than attested usage elsewhere.

³ tn Heb “hear and forgive.”

⁴ tn The translation understands כִּי (ki) in an emphatic or asseverative sense.

⁵ tn Heb “the good way in which they should walk.”

⁶ tn Or “for an inheritance.”

⁷ tn The words “their sin” are added for clarification.

⁸ tn Heb “and act and give to each one according to all his ways because you know his heart.” In the Hebrew text vv. 37-39a actually contain one lengthy conditional sentence, which the translation has divided up for stylistic reasons.

⁹ tn Heb “Indeed you know, you alone, the heart of all the sons of mankind.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Rehoboam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tn Heb “Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter upon us.”

¹² tn Heb “My little one is thicker than my father’s hips.” The referent of “my little one” is not clear. The traditional view is that it refers to the little finger. As the following statement makes clear, Rehoboam’s point is that he is more harsh and demanding than his father.

¹³ tn Heb “And you, you muster an army like the one that fell from you, horse like horse and chariot like chariot.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “he listened to their voice and did so.”