1 Kings 8:29-30

8:29 Night and day may you watch over this temple, the place where you promised you would live. ¹  May you answer your servant’s prayer for this place. ²  8:30 Respond to the request of your servant and your people Israel for this place. ³  Hear from inside your heavenly dwelling place ⁴  and respond favorably. ⁵ 

[8:29]  ¹ tn Heb “so your eyes might be open toward this house night and day, toward the place about which you said, ‘My name will be there.’”

[8:29]  ² tn Heb “by listening to the prayer which your servant is praying concerning this place.”

[8:30]  ³ tn Heb “listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel which they are praying concerning this place.”

[8:30]  ⁴ 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.

[8:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “hear and forgive.”