1 Kings 8:50-53

8:50 Forgive all the rebellious acts of your sinful people and cause their captors to have mercy on them. ¹  8:51 After all, ²  they are your people and your special possession ³  whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. ⁴ 

8:52 “May you be attentive ⁵  to your servant’s and your people Israel’s requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you. ⁶  8:53 After all, ⁷  you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, ⁸  just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”

[8:50]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Or “for.”

[8:51]  ³ tn Heb “inheritance.”

[8:51]  ⁴ 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]  ³ tn Heb “May your eyes be open.”

[8:52]  ⁴ tn Heb “to listen to them in all their calling out to you.”

[8:53]  ⁴ tn Or “For.”

[8:53]  ⁵ tn Heb “your inheritance.”