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 8:38

8:38 When all your people Israel pray and ask for help, ⁴  as they acknowledge their pain ⁵  and spread out their hands toward this temple,

1 Kings 8:44

8:44 “When you direct your people to march out and fight their enemies, ⁶  and they direct their prayers to the Lord ⁷  toward his chosen city and this temple I built for your honor, ⁸ 

1 Kings 8:48-50

8:48 When they return to you with all their heart and being ⁹  in the land where they are held prisoner, ¹⁰  and direct their prayers to you toward the land you gave to their ancestors, your chosen city, and the temple I built for your honor, ¹¹  8:49 then listen from your heavenly dwelling place to their prayers for help ¹²  and vindicate them. ¹³  8:50 Forgive all the rebellious acts of your sinful people and cause their captors to have mercy on them. ¹⁴ 

1 Kings 8:2

8:2 All the men of Israel assembled before King Solomon during the festival ¹⁵  in the month Ethanim ¹⁶  (the seventh month).

1 Kings 6:38

6:38 In the eleventh year, in the month Bul ¹⁷  (the eighth month) the temple was completed in accordance with all its specifications and blueprints. It took seven years to build. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 5:7

5:7 But as for me, ¹⁹  because of your great faithfulness I will enter your house; ²⁰ 

I will bow down toward your holy temple as I worship you. ²¹ 

Jonah 2:4

2:4 I thought ²²  I had been banished from your sight, ²³ 

that I would never again ²⁴  see your holy temple! ²⁵ 

Hebrews 4:16

4:16 Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help. ²⁶ 

[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.”

[8:38]  ⁴ tn Heb “every prayer, every request for help which will be to all the people, to all your people Israel.”

[8:38]  ⁵ tn Heb “which they know, each the pain of his heart.”

[8:44]  ⁶ tn Heb “When your people go out for battle against their enemies in the way which you send them.”

[8:44]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps “to you, O Lord.” See 2 Chr 6:34.

[8:44]  ⁸ tn Heb “your name.” See the note on the word “reputation” in v. 41.

[8:48]  ⁹ tn Or “soul.”

[8:48]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the land of their enemies.”

[8:48]  ¹¹ tn Heb “your name.” See the note on the word “reputation” in v. 41.

[8:49]  ¹² tn Heb “their prayer and their request for help.”

[8:49]  ¹³ tn Heb “and accomplish their justice.”

[8:50]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and forgive your people who have sinned against you, [forgive] all their rebellious acts by which they rebelled against you, and grant them mercy before their captors so they will show them mercy.”

[8:2]  ¹⁵ sn The festival. This was the Feast of Tabernacles, see Lev 23:34.

[8:2]  ¹⁶ sn The month Ethanim. This would be September-October in modern reckoning.

[6:38]  ¹⁷ sn In the month Bul. This would be October-November 959 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[6:38]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he built it in seven years.”

[5:7]  ¹⁹ sn But as for me. By placing the first person pronoun at the beginning of the verse, the psalmist highlights the contrast between the evildoers’ actions and destiny, outlined in the preceding verses, with his own.

[5:7]  ²⁰ sn I will enter your house. The psalmist is confident that God will accept him into his presence, in contrast to the evildoers (see v. 5).

[5:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “in fear [of] you.” The Hebrew noun יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”), when used of fearing God, is sometimes used metonymically for what it ideally produces: “worship, reverence, piety.”

[2:4]  ²² tn Heb “And I said.” The verb אָמַר (’amar, “to say”) is sometimes used to depict inner speech and thoughts of a character (HALOT 66 s.v. אמר 4; BDB 56 s.v. אָמַר 2; e.g., Gen 17:17; Ruth 4:4; 1 Sam 20:26; Esth 6:6). While many English versions render this “I said” (KJV, NKJV, NAB, ASV, NASB, NIV, NLT), several nuance it “I thought” (JPS, NJPS, NEB, REB, NJB, TEV, CEV).

[2:4]  ²³ tn Or “I have been expelled from your attention”; Heb “from in front of your eyes.” See also Ps 31:22; Lam 3:54-56.

[2:4]  ²⁴ tc Or “Yet I will look again to your holy temple” or “Surely I will look again to your holy temple.” The MT and the vast majority of ancient textual witnesses vocalize consonantal אך (’kh) as the adverb אַךְ (’akh) which functions as an emphatic asseverative “surely” (BDB 36 s.v. אַךְ 1) or an adversative “yet, nevertheless” (BDB 36 s.v. אַךְ 2; so Tg. Jonah 2:4: “However, I shall look again upon your holy temple”). These options understand the line as an expression of hopeful piety. As a positive statement, Jonah expresses hope that he will live to return to worship in Jerusalem. It may be a way of saying, “I will pray for help, even though I have been banished” (see v. 8; cf. Dan 6:10). The sole dissenter is the Greek recension of Theodotion which reads the interrogative πῶς (pws, “how?”) which reflects an alternate vocalization tradition of אֵךְ (’ekh) – a defectively written form of אֵיךְ (’ekh, “how?”; BDB 32 s.v. אֵיךְ 1). This would be translated, “How shall I again look at your holy temple?” (cf. NRSV). Jonah laments that he will not be able to worship at the temple in Jerusalem again – this is a metonymical statement (effect for cause) that he feels certain that he is about to die. It continues the expression of Jonah’s distress and separation from the Lord, begun in v. 2 and continued without relief in vv. 3-7a. The external evidence favors the MT; however, internal evidence seems to favor the alternate vocalization tradition reflected in Theodotion for four reasons. First, the form of the psalm is a declarative praise in which Jonah begins with a summary praise (v. 2), continues by recounting his past plight
(vv. 3-6a) and the Lord’s intervention (vv. 6b-7), and concludes with a lesson (v. 8) and vow to praise (v. 9). So the statement with אֵךְ in v. 4 falls within the plight – not within a declaration of confidence. Second, while the poetic parallelism of v. 4 could be antithetical (“I have been banished from your sight, yet I will again look to your holy temple”),
synonymous parallelism fits the context of the lament better (“I have been banished from your sight; Will I ever again see your holy temple?”). Third, אֵךְ is the more difficult vocalization because it is a defectively written form of אֵיךְ (“how?”) and therefore easily confused with אַךְ (“surely” or “yet, nevertheless”). Fourth, nothing in the first half of the psalm reflects any inkling of confidence on the part of Jonah that he would be delivered from imminent death. In fact, Jonah states in v. 7 that he did not turn to God in prayer until some time later when he was on the very brink of death.

[2:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Will I ever see your holy temple again?” The rhetorical question expresses denial: Jonah despaired of ever seeing the temple again.

[4:16]  ²⁶ tn Grk “for timely help.”