9:1-9 God warned Solomon, now he had newly built and dedicated the temple, that he and his people might not be high-minded, but fear. After all the services we can perform, we stand upon the same terms with the Lord as before. Nothing can purchase for us liberty to sin, nor would the true believer desire such a licence. He would rather be chastened of the Lord, than be allowed to go on with ease and prosperity in sin.

Verse 8. - And at this house, which is high [Heb., And this house shall be high, עֶלְיון יִהְיֶה. Our translators were probably influenced by 2 Chronicles 7:21, the text of which is אֲשֶׁר הָיהָ עֶלְיון which would seem to be an emendation, designed to clear up the difficulty rather than an accidental variation of the text. But here the literal rendering is probably the truer, the meaning being "this house shall be conspicuous, as an example" - so the Vulg. domus haec erit in exemplum. The LXX. accords with the Hebrew text, ὁ οῖκος οῦτος ἔσται ὁ ὐψηλὸς, but the Syriac and Arabic read, "this house shall be destroyed." Keil sees in the words an allusion implicite to Deuteronomy 26:19, and Deuteronomy 28:1, where God promises to make Israel עֶלְיון, and says "the blessing will be turned into a curse." The temple should indeed be "high," should be what Israel would have been, but it shall be as a warning, etc.; but this connexion is somewhat far fetched and artificial. Thenius would read for, עִיִּין עֶלְיון. "ruins," after Micah 3:12; Jeremiah 26:18; Psalm 79:1; but it is hardly right to resort to conjectures, unsupported by a single version or MS., so long as any sufficient meaning can be extracted from the words as they stand, and no one can deny that "high" may surely signify "conspicuous." Cf. Matthew 11:23], every one that passeth by it shall be astonished. [שָׁמֵם primarily means to be dumb with astonishment, Gesen., Thessalonians 3. p. 1435] and shall hiss [שָׁרַק, like "hiss," is an onomatopoetic word. It does not denote the hissing of terror (Bahr) but of derision; cf. Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 49:17; Job 27:23; Lamentations 2:15, 16. Rawlinson aptly remarks, as bearing on the authorship of the Kings, that this is a familiar word in Jeremiah (see 1 Kings 18:16; 25:9; 29:18; 50:13; 51:37, in addition to the passages cited above), and that the other prophets rarely use it. The fact that much of this charge is in Jeremiah's style, confirms the view taken above (note on ver. 4), that the ipsissima verba of the dream are not preserved to us. The author indeed could hardly do more than preserve its leading ideas, which he would naturally present in his own dress]; and they shall say, Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land and to this house? [Similar words Deuteronomy 29:24, 25; Jeremiah 22:8.]

And at this house which is high,.... The house of the most High, as some render it, and in high esteem, fame, and glory, as well as it was built on an high hill, and was itself one hundred and twenty cubits high, 2 Chronicles 3:4, the Targum is,

"and this house which was high shall be destroyed:''

everyone that passeth by it shall be astonished; at the ruins of the temple, and of the city of Jerusalem, which had been so magnificent:

and shall hiss; in scorn and derision of the people of Israel, rejoicing in their ruin:

and they shall say, why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and to this house? or suffered it to be done, to lie thus in waste and ruins; a land in which it had been said he delighted, and looked unto from one end of the year to the other, and a house he had taken up his dwelling in; surely something more than ordinary, they suggest, must be the cause of all this.

8. this house, which is high—"high," either in point of situation, for it was built on a hill, and therefore conspicuous to every beholder; or "high" in respect to privilege, honor, and renown; or this "house of the Most High," notwithstanding all its beauty and magnificence, shall be destroyed, and remain in such a state of ruin and degradation as to be a striking monument of the just judgment of God. The record of this second vision, in which were rehearsed the conditions of God's covenant with Solomon and the consequences of breaking them, is inserted here as a proper introduction to the narrative about to be given of this king's commercial enterprises and ambitious desire for worldly glory; for this king, by encouraging an influx of foreign people and a taste for foreign luxuries, rapidly corrupted his own mind and that of this subjects, so that they turned from following God, they and their children (1Ki 9:6).

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