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 8:32

8:32 Listen from heaven and make a just decision about your servants’ claims. Condemn the guilty party, declare the other innocent, and give both of them what they deserve. ⁴ 

[8:30]  ¹ tn Heb “listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel which they are praying concerning this place.”

[8:30]  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.

[8:30]  ³ tn Heb “hear and forgive.”

[8:32]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you, hear [from] heaven and act and judge your servants by declaring the guilty to be guilty, to give his way on his head, and to declare the innocent to be innocent, to give to him according to his innocence.”