1 Kings 8:30

1Ki 8:30 And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive.

Ver. 30. And hearken thou, &c.] These repetitions of the selfsame petitions, argue greatest earnestness.

And when thou hearest, forgive,] q.d., Whatever else thou deniest us, grant us pardon; yea, forgive the sin of our prayers; for when we have prayed for the forgiveness of sins, we had need pray again for the forgiveness of our prayers; such a spring and sink of sin there is within us.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki_8:30

When thou hearest, forgive.

The first prayer in Solomons Temple

Simple, touching, and beautiful were the words of the first prayer offered under the roof of Solomons Temple. Forgiveness is the first thing asked for. Solomon takes it for granted that forgiveness will be the great thing needed by those who in after days would pray in that house. He does not tell us what shall be the prayer, further than as the nature of the prayer is implied in the nature of the answer he bespeaks for it. In that single request, in that one word, Solomon gathers up the essence, as it were, of all the prayers that ever should be offered beneath that Temples roof.

I. That all men are sure to need forgiveness: that whatever differences there may be among them in other respects, they all agree in this, that they are sure to need forgiveness. Now, what is forgiveness? Forgiveness implies that a man has done something that is wrong--some wrong that is especially directed against some other being--and so which might justly excite the being wronged to regard the wrong-doer with an unfriendly and angry feeling, and seek to inflict punishment upon him: but that the being wronged resolves to pass by the offence done him--to blot it out from recollection, so far as may be--to cherish no angry spirit towards the offender, and to take no vengeance upon him for that which he has done.

II. The chief thing which beings like us ought to ask for in our prayers, is the pardon of our sins. Solomon seems to have thought that there was nothing which men needed so much; nothing which it was so important that they should get; nothing which included and meant so much. It was of this, no doubt, that our Blessed Lord was thinking, when, alluding to something which He did not name, but which all would understand, He said, One thing is needful. For see what is meant by being an un-forgiven sinner. It means that a man has the anger of the Almighty God resting upon him. It means that the creature, weak, helpless, dependent, is at enmity with the Creator, without whose aid he cannot draw a breath, move a limb, live a moment. It means that the word of the True is solemnly plighted to destroy him: that the power of the Almighty is solemnly engaged to destroy him. It means that he is one of those, concerning whom God has declared that when they leave this world, they must enter into a place of infinite and never ending woe and wretchedness; and there dwell through eternity still under the burden of His wrath. That is what is meant by being a sinner, not forgiven; it means that everything is wrong! And what is meant by being forgiven? It means that everything that was wrong before, is now set right. It means that everything that was ban before, is now made good. It means that God, before an enemy, is now a friend. It means that God, formerly the angry Judge, is now the reconciled and gracious, Father. It moans that Gods true word, formerly plighted to destroy us, and God s Almighty power, formerly engaged to destroy us, are now plighted and engaged to preserve and bless us.

III. God is the only being who can forgive, in the large and full sense of that word. Yell will remember, when I say this, the remark of the Scribes and Pharisees when our Saviour told a certain man that his sins were forgiven: they said, This man blasphemeth: who can forgive sins but God only? And they said what was true, if Christ had been a mere man. No one but God can forgive sin. And it is quite easy to show you how and why it is so. For, you know quite well, an offence can be forgiven only by the person against whom it was committed. Now all sin is in its essential nature, something committed against God; and therefore it can only be forgiven by God. There is a striking illustration in Scripture of this great truth, that sin especially consists in wrong done to God--that its great aggravation consists in this--and that when the conscience is awakened, the thing that weighs most heavy on a man s heart is, that he has sinned against God.

IV. Prayer is the way to obtain the forgiveness of sins. You see Solomon looked forward to days when sinful beings should, under the consciousness of guilt, employ the natural and recognised means for getting that guilt forgiven. He took it for granted, that when men felt they needed forgiveness, they would pray to God to forgive them: and so he himself, in anticipation of very many prayers which would be offered for pardon, says, Hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling-place; and when Thou hearest, forgive. But indeed it is so plain that when you want anything from God, the right way to get it is to ask for it: this is so completely the dictate of common sense, that the matter needs no enforcement or illustration. (A. K. H. Boyd.)

Possibility of the souls recovery

If Kant emphasised the starry heavens and the moral law, if Daniel Webster emphasised the thought of personal responsibility to God, Hawthorne believed the greatest thought that can occupy the human mind is the thought of justice and its retributive workings through conscience. Doubtless there are a thousand problems that compete for the attention of youth; but for men grown mature and strong life offers no more momentous question than this: Can the soul, injured by temptation and scarred by sin, ever recover its pristine strength and beauty? Is there no place of recovery, though men seek it long with tears? I do not know, answers the old Greek, I do not know that God has any right to forgive sin. But Dante, having affirmed that man cannot forgive himself, thinks that sin may be consumed, and therefore makes the transgressor walk up a stairway of red-hot marble that pain may consume his iniquities. Hawthorns felt that somewhere life holds a fountain divine for cleansing the dust from the souls wing. Therefore, at the very gates of the jail into which the prisoner enters, Hawthorne makes a rose-bush grow, with thorns indeed to typify the sharp pains that society inflicts upon the wrong-doer, but with blossoms, too, offering fragrance to the prisoner as he goes in, and suggesting that if the petals fall through the frosts of to-day, these falling petals, passing into the roots will reappear in me richer blossoms of to-morrow. As if another life might recover the disasters of this; as if, no matter what mans harshness, great nature and natures God hold a wide, deep pity that can atone, forgive, and save. (N. A. Hillis, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki 8:30. When they shall pray toward this place — None but the priests might enter that place, but when the people worshipped in the courts of the temple, it was to be with an eye toward it, not with a superstitious regard or veneration, as though it were holy in itself, or in any respect the ground of their confidence in their worship, which would have been idolatry; but, as an instituted medium of their worship, helping the weakness of their faith, and typifying the mediation of Jesus Christ, who is the true temple, and to whom we must have an eye in all our approaches to, and intercourse with, God. Hence, the pious Jews that were at a distance looked toward Jerusalem for the sake of the temple, even when it lay in ruins, Dan 6:10. Hear thou in heaven — Which he adds to direct them, in their addresses to God in or looking toward this temple, to lift up their eyes above it, even to heaven, where God’s most true and most proper dwelling-place is. When thou hearest, forgive — The sins of thy people praying, and even of their prayers; which sins, if not pardoned, will certainly hinder the success of all their prayers, and the course of all thy blessings.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, from.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 30. Toward this place] Both tabernacle and temple were types of our Lord Jesus, or of God manifested in the flesh; and he was and is the Mediator between God and man. All prayer, to be acceptable, and to be entitled to a hearing, must go to God through Him. The human nature of Christ is the temple in which dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; therefore with propriety all prayer must be offered to God through Him. "If they pray toward this place, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place; and when thou hearest, forgive." This appears to me to be the true sense and doctrine of this verse.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray towards this place,.... Not only he desires his prayers might be heard, but those of the people of Israel, then, and at all times in succeeding ages, whenever they should look towards the temple, and to him that was typified by it; to whose blood, righteousness, sacrifice and mediation, the acceptance of prayers with God is to be ascribed:

and hear thou in heaven thy dwellingplace; for though he condescended to take up his residence in the temple, yet his more proper and more glorious dwelling was in heaven, and from whence, notwithstanding the distance of it, he could hear the prayers of his people, and does:

and when thou hearest, forgive; manifest and apply pardoning grace and mercy on account of sins confessed, and repented of; or remove calamities and distresses on account of sin, which sometimes is meant, and frequently in this prayer, by the forgiveness of sin.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And when thou hearest, forgive - literally, “both hear and forgive” - i. e., “hear the prayer, and forgive the sin” which alone causes God to chasten men or to withhold from them His choicest blessings.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thy dwelling-place; which he adds, that the people might not idolize the temple, nor presume upon it, as if God were now fast tied to them, as having no other dwelling-place; and to direct them in all their addresses to God in his temple, to lift up their eyes above it, even to heaven, where God’s most true and most glorious dwelling-place is.

And when thou hearest, forgive, to wit, the sins of thy people praying, and even of their prayers; which, if not pardoned, will certainly hinder the success of all their prayers, and the course of all thy blessings upon them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear thou in heaven Heb. unto heaven, a pregnant censtruction hear the prayer that ascends unto heaven. The chronicler here, as elsewhere, simplifies the meaning by reading "from heaven," VhAmi thy dwelling place Here, and in vers. 39, 43, and 49, heaven is described as the true dwelling place of Deity. Confidently as Solomon believes that he has built a habitation for the Lord, he never dreams that the "Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands": (Act_7:48 Act_17:4) and when thou hearest, forgive. There is possibly a play of words here Tmv

With the next verse the special or particular supplications begin. Like those of the Lord"s prayer, they are seven in number, and no doubt for the same reason, viz., because seven was the number of covenant, the number which expressed the relationship between the Lord and His people ("die Signatur der Verbindung Gottes und der Welt Bahr, Symbolik, 1:187 sqq.) In fact, to the Jew the number "seven" was something like the sign of the cross to a large portion of Catholic Christendom, for it spoke to him of God"s covenant of mercy and peace.

And the first of the seven concerns oaths. The king implores the covenant-keeping God to watch over the covenants of words made in the now consecrated sanctuary, and to protect their sanctity by punishing the false swearer. There were cases in which the Mosaic law provided that an oath should be administered to suspected persons. (Exo_22:11 Lev_5:1, Lev_5:4, etc.) And there were other cases in which men of their own accord, for "an end of all strife," would make oath. Now every oath, whatever its form, (Mat_23:16-22) is in reality an affirmation" by the God of truth"; (Isa_65:16) it is an appeal to the knowledge and power and justice of the Most High. (Lev_19:12 Deu_6:13 Deu_10:20 Isa_48:1 Jer_12:16 Jer_44:26) A false oath, consequently, dishonoured the Divine name, and polluted the sanctuary dedicated to that name, and if it went unpunished, contradicted the principles and provisions of the dispensation Of temporal punishments, and so encouraged falsehood and impiety. God is here entreated, consequently, to take cognizance of the oaths sworn before His altar (ver. 31), and to be a swift witness against the false swearers. (Mal_3:5) It is, perhaps, because of the direct dishonour which perjury offers to the Divine name that, as Bahr suggests, this prayer stands first among the seven, thus corresponding to the "Hallowed be Thy name" in the Lord"s prayer, and to the third among the ten commandments.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In heaven - Which he adds to direct them in their addresses to God in this temple, to lift up their eyes above it, even to heaven, where God's most true, and most glorious dwelling-place is. Forgive - The sins of thy people, praying, and even of their prayers; which, if not pardoned, will certainly hinder the success of all their prayers, and the course of all thy blessings.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.