Discovery Box1 Kings 8:48-66
Context8:48 When they return to you with all their heart and being 1 in the land where they are held prisoner, 2 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, 3 8:49 then listen from your heavenly dwelling place to their prayers for help 4 and vindicate them. 5 8:50 Forgive all the rebellious acts of your sinful people and cause their captors to have mercy on them. 6 8:51 After all, 7 they are your people and your special possession 8 whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. 9
8:52 “May you be attentive 10 to your servant’s and your people Israel’s requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you. 11 8:53 After all, 12 you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, 13 just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”
8:54 When Solomon finished presenting all these prayers and requests to the Lord, he got up from before the altar of the Lord where he had kneeled and spread out his hands toward the sky. 14 8:55 When he stood up, he pronounced a blessing over the entire assembly of Israel, saying in a loud voice: 8:56 “The Lord is worthy of praise because he has made Israel his people secure 15 just as he promised! Not one of all the faithful promises he made through his servant Moses is left unfulfilled! 16 8:57 May the Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he not abandon us or leave us. 8:58 May he make us submissive, 17 so we can follow all his instructions 18 and obey 19 the commandments, rules, and regulations he commanded our ancestors. 8:59 May the Lord our God be constantly aware of these requests of mine I have presented to him, 20 so that he might vindicate 21 his servant and his people Israel as the need arises. 8:60 Then 22 all the nations of the earth will recognize that the Lord is the only genuine God. 23 8:61 May you demonstrate wholehearted devotion to the Lord our God 24 by following 25 his rules and obeying 26 his commandments, as you are presently doing.” 27
8:62 The king and all Israel with him were presenting sacrifices to the Lord. 8:63 Solomon offered as peace offerings 28 to the Lord 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. Then the king and all the Israelites dedicated the Lord’s temple. 8:64 That day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that is in front of the Lord’s temple. He offered there burnt sacrifices, grain offerings, and the fat from the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that stood before the Lord was too small to hold all these offerings. 29 8:65 At that time Solomon and all Israel with him celebrated a festival before the Lord our God for two entire weeks. This great assembly included people from all over the land, from Lebo Hamath in the north to the Brook of Egypt 30 in the south. 31 8:66 On the fifteenth day after the festival started, 32 he dismissed the people. They asked God to empower the king 33 and then went to their homes, happy and content 34 because of all the good the Lord had done for his servant David and his people Israel.
[8:48] 2 tn Heb “in the land of their enemies.”
[8:48] 3 tn Heb “your name.” See the note on the word “reputation” in v. 41.
[8:49] 4 tn Heb “their prayer and their request for help.”
[8:49] 5 tn Heb “and accomplish their justice.”
[8:50] 6 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.”
[8:51] 8 tn Heb “inheritance.”
[8:51] 9 tn The Hebrew term כּוּר (kur, “furnace,” cf. Akkadian ku„ru) is a metaphor for the intense heat of purification. A כּוּר was not a source of heat but a crucible (“iron-smelting furnace”) in which precious metals were melted down and their impurities burned away (see I. Cornelius, NIDOTTE 2:618-19). Thus Egypt served not as a place of punishment for the Israelites, but as a place of refinement to bring Israel to a place of submission to divine sovereignty.
[8:52] 10 tn Heb “May your eyes be open.”
[8:52] 11 tn Heb “to listen to them in all their calling out to you.”
[8:53] 13 tn Heb “your inheritance.”
[8:54] 14 tn Or “toward heaven.”
[8:56] 15 tn Heb “he has given a resting place to his people Israel.”
[8:56] 16 tn Heb “not one word from his entire good word he spoke by Moses his servant has fallen.”
[8:58] 17 tn Heb “to bend our hearts toward him.” The infinitive is subordinate to the initial prayer, “may the
[8:58] 18 tn Heb “to walk in all his ways.”
[8:59] 20 tn Heb “May these words of mine, which I have requested before the
[8:59] 21 tn Heb “accomplish the justice of.”
[8:60] 23 tn Heb “the
[8:61] 24 tn Heb “may your hearts be complete with the
[8:61] 25 tn Heb “walking in.”
[8:61] 27 tn Heb “as this day.”
[8:63] 28 tn Or “tokens of peace”; NIV, TEV “fellowship offerings.”
[8:64] 29 tn Heb “to hold the burnt sacrifices, grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings.”
[8:65] 30 tn Or “the Wadi of Egypt” (NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “the Egyptian Gorge.”
[8:65] 31 tn Heb “Solomon held at that time the festival, and all Israel was with him, a great assembly from Lebo Hamath to the Brook of Egypt, before the
[8:66] 32 tn Heb “on the eighth day” (that is, the day after the second seven-day sequence).
