Kindly human sympathy is one of the most marked characteristics of this prayer of Solomon. This is seen in the way in which he enters into various supposed conditions of need and suffering among his people; takes the burden and the "plague" upon himself as if it were his own; a true intercessor on their behalf. His royalty assumes here the aspect of fatherhood. The model king is one in heart and interest with those over whom he rules. We are reminded, too, that before the "mercy seat" of God all human distinctions are lost. All suppliants stand on one common level, subject to the same dangers and necessities. All true prayer, therefore, is thus broad in its sympathies. But in this passage the king's supplications take a wider range than the needs of his own people. He pleads for the "stranger," the foreigner from a "far country." This is strictly in harmony with the Divine economy of the time, however much it may seem to be otherwise. It is remarkable how much there was in the Mosaic law that was expressly intended to enforce on the people a generous regard for those who were beyond their pale. They were commanded not to "vex a stranger" (
Exodus 22:21), to relieve his poverty (
Leviticus 25:85), even to "love" him as "God loveth him in giving him iced and raiment" (
Deuteronomy 10:18, 19), and all this in memory of the fact that they themselves were once "strangers in the land of Egypt." Strangers, moreover were to be permitted to hear the solemn reading of the law in the "year of release" (
Deuteronomy 31:12), and to offer sacrifices on the same conditions as themselves. "One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you" (
Numbers 15:16). So that Solomon gave expression to the spirit of the dispensation to which he belonged when he thus prayed. Certain broad truths underlie this prayer -
I. JEHOVAH'S UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY. He is the "God of the whole earth," and not merely of any particular portion of it (Isaiah 54:5). "Is he the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentries?" (Romans 3:29.) "The God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numbers 16:22). The whole Mosaic economy was built on the grand truth of the unity and absolute worldwide supremacy of Jehovah. The heathen according to their principle of local deities, might acknowledge the God of the Hebrews as having authority over his own, but a Hebrew who should in any way recognize the gods of other nations and think of Jehovah merely as a national deity could be a traitor to the commonwealth. The only living and true God can have no rival. The gods of the nations are idols, and "an idol is nothing in the world" - "a lying vanity," a vile "abomination." "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God" (1 Corinthians 8:4, 5; 1 Corinthians 10:20). To "know God," to have "him whom they ignorantly worship" declared to them, is "eternal life" to men. The absence of this knowledge is death. The curse and misery of the world is that it "knows not its God." Solomon here dimly recognizes this truth; and the case he contemplates is that of some child of the Universal Father in whom the sense of need has been awakened, "coming from a far country" to "seek the Lord, if haply he may feel after him and find him" (Acts 17:27, 28).
II. THE REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER OF ISRAEL. They were a representative people in two respects.
(1) Inasmuch as they were called to bear witness to the glory of the "great name" of Jehovah. His name is the symbol of His personality, the attributes of His being and character - spirituality, purity, righteousness, love, etc. Their mission was to make known to mankind the God who had revealed Himself in wondrous forms to them. How they failed to rise to the height of this mission their national history only too sadly tells. The utterances of the psalmists and prophets are full of the spirit of it, but all this was far above the comprehension of the great mass of the people. They utterly mistook the meaning of the distinction conferred upon them, and God taught them by the discipline of subjection and captivity the lesson that in the day of their national glory they failed to learn. In this mission as a witness Israel was a type of the Christian Church. Christ declared the Father's name to His disciples and He sent them forth on an errand like His own (John 17:18-26). How grand a vocation, to reflect the glory of His "great name" on the world's darkness, to say to the nations, "Behold your God!"
(2) They were a representative people also in the sense that in their history God illustrated the general method and the uniform laws of His moral government. The "strong hand and the stretched out arm" here suggests the marvellous manifestation of Divine power that marked the career of the people from the beginning, the whole course of providential training and moral discipline through which they passed. But the principles on which God deals with one nation are the principles on which He deals with all. He is no "respecter of persons." The history of the "chosen people" unfolds His universal purpose and plan, illustrates unvarying laws, the conditions of all personal, social, and national life. And so it comes to pass that after every review of Israel's experiences we may say, "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples," etc. (1 Corinthians 10:11).
III. THE ATTRACTION OF THE TEMPLE FOR ALL LONGING HUMAN HEARTS AS THE SCENE OF GRACIOUS DIVINE MANIFESTATION. That which made it the centre of interest to pious Jews made it so also to earnest souls of other lands. The truth and mercy symbolized and enshrined there - promises, atoning sacrifices, benedictions - answered to universal needs of humanity. Solomon supposes a case in which the vague sense of this should lead the "stranger in a far off land" to look with longing eyes, or to bend his steps, towards "the house over which God's name is called." We have no historical record of strangers actually worshipping in the first temple as they did in that built after the captivity; but God said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people" (Isaiah 56:6, 7; Mark 11:17); and there may have been many who, with a far reaching hand of faith, "took hold of His covenant" as established there.
IV. THE RESPONSE GOD GAVE TO EVERY TRUE SUPPLIANT, WHOEVER HE MIGHT BE. "Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place," etc. This intercessory prayer, we may be sure, was answered. God does not awaken holy yearnings in any soul that He will not satisfy. "In every nation, he that feareth him," etc. The sovereignty that reigns over all lands is that of Almighty Love. There is room in the infinite Father's heart for all, even the far. off "stranger," and "the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him." - W.
When Thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy.
I. THE CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY. When any one desires to understand what is meant by a nation, he had better look unto God's people Israel first of all, for they fulfilled the two great conditions of national unity. The first is faith in God, and no nation has ever risen to greatness, and no nation, having arisen, has ever maintained its greatness except so far as it believed in — and publicly as a nation, and privately by individuals — acknowledged Almighty God. There is this analogy between the individual and the nation, that an individual is not able to say "I," with any intelligence of what "I" means, except in God; and an individual is not able to say "I will," with any force in the will, except in God. It is in the Unseen and Eternal that we realise ourselves. The other condition of national unity with Israel was vocation. Therefore the prophets were perpetually telling the people that their fathers had been called and blessed not for their own sake — and there is no man ever blessed for his own sake, but for the sake of the man that is next him — that their fathers had not been called and blessed for their own sake, but for the sake of the world. They were the receptors of a Revelation, and received the touch of truth to pass it down from hand to hand, and every man to blow it brighter as it went from patriarch to prophet, from prophet to psalmist, from psalmist to martyr, till the day came when the nation could be sent out, each man a torch-bearer, unto the ends of the earth, carrying the light of eternal truth.
II. A MESSAGE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. What was the message they were to carry to the world? The message they were to carry to the world was righteousness. As the Greek was raised up of God to give us the sense of beauty, so was the Jew raised up to give us what is far better than beauty, the sense of righteousness; and to write the ten words of Moses upon the conscience of the individual and the conscience of the nation. Comes then the question: Is there any nation to-day that has, as it were, succeeded to a great and world-wide mission, and a mission of the same practical and ethical nature as that which God gave to His people Israel? Is there any nation that has been secluded in its island home, and guarded round from other people so that the invader could not touch it; is there any nation that within its own home, being men of mixed blood, has gradually been welded together by common human sympathy and common faith in God; is there any nation that has gradually been led into a fuller sense of the truth of God; into political, and religious, and social liberty; is there any nation whose ordered and beneficent freedom is the admiration of every people, of its enemies and friends alike? Finally, is there any nation whose members have gone unto the ends of the earth, and wherever they have gone have been able to teach, to govern, to give justice unto the nations placed under their charge? There is only one nation of whom these things can be said; only one nation with whose history you can draw out this analogy to Israel, and that is the English people. Ought we not to ask ourselves whether as a nation — and having had this great favour of the Eternal — whether, as a nation we have borne ourselves like the servant of God? In one — in perhaps the most tender and beautiful passage in all the Old Testament, Isaiah 53. — there is a description of God s servant, which is supposed by some to be the Messiah, by some to be God's people Israel; but the mark of Him is not only that He is the means of great blessing to the world, but His humility, His tenderness, His sympathy, His lowliness. Have we been, as a nation, courteous to foreign nations, as we go by individuals through their midst? Have we, in our Literature and in our tress, always done justice to foreign peoples, and never blown our trumpet, our brazen trumpet, loudly in their faces? Is our character such — the character which we have earned through centuries such — that a foreigner will at once appreciate the goodness that is in us?
III. THE SIN OF MATERIALISM. The other sin which we always realise in a national crisis is the sin of Materialism, which also greatly beset Israel. While Israel was a handful of farmers, Israel was more or less spiritual. When Israel became rich and increased in goods, you have only to read the prophets to note how the race for wealth entered, and the power of the rich and the suffering of the poor made an unhappy and miserable nation. We have grown rich, and I am told — though you know better about these things than I do — that we were never richer than at the present day. Rich in goods? I pray you to define goods; and when we define goods, how are they defined? I think it is the money in the savings bank, which is very good so far as it represents thrift and intelligence; and the railways which we have made, which represent enterprise and the development of the country; these things and many other things. But these in themselves. are not the goods of a nation. No, not exports and imports, and population and money — these are not the goods of a nation. The goods of a nation are its intelligence; the goods of a nation are its integrity; the goods of a nation are its charity; the goods of a nation are its high and just spirit before God. Wherefore be not too lifted up, but let us remember this, that if our nation ever decay, it will not be from any power from without, or any unfaithfulness on the part of our God. It will be because some men have too much money, and some other people-have too little; and the west end of a city is one place, and the east end is another, and the west and the east they come not together.
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People
David,
Israelites,
Levites,
SolomonPlaces
Brook of Egypt,
Egypt,
Holy Place,
Horeb,
Jerusalem,
Lebo-hamath,
Most Holy Place,
ZionTopics
Asks, Bears, Builded, Built, Calleth, Calls, Desire, Dwelling, Dwelling-place, Ear, Fear, Foreigner, Hast, Heaven, Heavens, Living-place, Named, Order, Peoples, Settled, Stranger, Truly, Whatever, WorshippingOutline
1. The feast of the temple12. Solomon's blessing22. Solomon's prayer54. Solomon's blessing62. His sacrifice of peace offeringsDictionary of Bible Themes
1 Kings 8:43 5340 house
8334 reverence, and God's nature
1 Kings 8:41-43
7511 Gentiles, in OT
Library
'The Matter of a Day in Its Day'
'At all times, as the matter shall require.'--1 KINGS viii. 59. I have ventured to diverge from my usual custom, and take this fragment of a text because, in the forcible language of the original, it carries some very important lessons. The margin of our Bible gives the literal reading of the Hebrew; the sense, but not the vigorous idiom, of which is conveyed in the paraphrase in our version. 'At all times, as the matter shall require,' is, literally, 'the thing of a day in its day'; and that is …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureThe King 'Blessing' his People
And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. 55. And he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying, 56. Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto His people Israel, according to all that He promised: there hath not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised by the hand of Moses …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
Blighted Blossoms
In our yard, a few feet from the door, stands an apple-tree. In the early spring I watched its swelling buds from day to day. Soon they burst forth into snowy blossoms, beautifying the tree, and filling the air with their fragrance. There was the promise of a bountiful crop of fruit. In a few days the petals had fallen like a belated snow. As the leaves unfolded and grew larger, there appeared here and there a little apple that gave promise of maturing into full-ripened fruit. But, alas! how few …
Charles Wesley Naylor—Heart Talks
The Next Words Are, which Art in Heaven. ...
The next words are, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN. From this we are not to infer that he is enclosed and confined within the circumference of heaven, as by a kind of boundaries. Hence Solomon confesses, "The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee" (1 Kings 8:27); and he himself says by the Prophet, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool" (Isa. 56:1); thereby intimating, that his presence, not confined to any region, is diffused over all space. But as our gross minds are unable to conceive of …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith
In the Dungeon of Giant Discourager
IN THE DUNGEON OF GIANT DISCOURAGER I feel very discouraged at times, and sometimes the spells of discouragement hang on for a long while. I wonder if I am sanctified. From unaccountable sources, bad feelings of every description depress my soul, and along with these bad feelings come doubts that cast gloom over me. I have prayed and prayed that these feelings of discouragement might leave me; but they have not done so. I despair of prayer bringing me the help I need. Really, I know not what to do. …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan
Whether the Old Law Enjoined Fitting Precepts Concerning Rulers?
Objection 1: It would seem that the Old Law made unfitting precepts concerning rulers. Because, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 4), "the ordering of the people depends mostly on the chief ruler." But the Law contains no precept relating to the institution of the chief ruler; and yet we find therein prescriptions concerning the inferior rulers: firstly (Ex. 18:21): "Provide out of all the people wise [Vulg.: 'able'] men," etc.; again (Num. 11:16): "Gather unto Me seventy men of the ancients of …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica
Sanctification.
VI. Objections answered. I will consider those passages of scripture which are by some supposed to contradict the doctrine we have been considering. 1 Kings viii. 46: "If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near," etc. On this passage, I remark:-- 1. That this sentiment in nearly the same language, is repeated in 2 Chron. vi. 26, and in Eccl. …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
The New Temple and Its Worship
'And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo: and they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. 16. And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture
The Law Given, not to Retain a People for Itself, but to Keep Alive the Hope of Salvation in Christ Until his Advent.
1. The whole system of religion delivered by the hand of Moses, in many ways pointed to Christ. This exemplified in the case of sacrifices, ablutions, and an endless series of ceremonies. This proved, 1. By the declared purpose of God; 2. By the nature of the ceremonies themselves; 3. From the nature of God; 4. From the grace offered to the Jews; 5. From the consecration of the priests. 2. Proof continued. 6. From a consideration of the kingdom erected in the family of David. 7. From the end of the …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion
"If we Confess Our Sins, He is Faithful and Just to Forgive us Our Sins, and to Cleanse us from all Unrighteousness. If we Say We
1 John i. 9, 10.--"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar," &c. And who will not confess their sin, say you? Who doth not confess sins daily, and, therefore, who is not forgiven and pardoned? But stay, and consider the matter again. Take not this upon your first light apprehensions, which in religion are commonly empty, vain, and superficial, but search the scriptures, and …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Entire Sanctification
By Dr. Adam Clarke The word "sanctify" has two meanings. 1. It signifies to consecrate, to separate from earth and common use, and to devote or dedicate to God and his service. 2. It signifies to make holy or pure. Many talk much, and indeed well, of what Christ has done for us: but how little is spoken of what he is to do in us! and yet all that he has done for us is in reference to what he is to do in us. He was incarnated, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead; ascended to heaven, and there …
Adam Clarke—Entire Sanctification
The Whole Heart
LET me give the principal passages in which the words "the whole heart," "all the heart," are used. A careful study of them will show how wholehearted love and service is what God has always asked, because He can, in the very nature of things, ask nothing less. The prayerful and believing acceptance of the words will waken the assurance that such wholehearted love and service is exactly the blessing the New Covenant was meant to make possible. That assurance will prepare us for turning to the Omnipotence …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants
The Gospel of John
As we turn to the fourth Gospel we come to entirely different ground from that which we have traversed in the other three. True, the period of time which is covered by it, is the same as in the others; true, that some of the incidents that have already been looked at will here come before us again; and true it is that he who has occupied the central position in the narratives of the first three Evangelists, is the same One that is made preeminent by John; but otherwise, everything here is entirely …
Arthur W. Pink—Why Four Gospels?
Scriptural Types.
1. The material world is full of analogies adapted to the illustration of spiritual things. No teacher ever drew from this inexhaustible storehouse such a rich variety of examples as our Saviour. His disciples are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city set on a hill. From the ravens which God feeds and the lilies which God clothes, he teaches the unreasonableness of worldly anxiety. The kingdom of heaven is like seed sown in different soils, like a field of wheat and tares …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible
Its Meaning
Deliverance from the condemning sentence of the Divine Law is the fundamental blessing in Divine salvation: so long as we continue under the curse, we can neither be holy nor happy. But as to the precise nature of that deliverance, as to exactly what it consists of, as to the ground on which it is obtained, and as to the means whereby it is secured, much confusion now obtains. Most of the errors which have been prevalent on this subject arose from the lack of a clear view of the thing itself, and …
Arthur W. Pink—The Doctrine of Justification
The Promises of the Law and the Gospel Reconciled.
1. Brief summary of Chapters 15 and 16. Why justification is denied to works. Argument of opponents founded on the promises of the law. The substance of this argument. Answer. Those who would be justified before God must be exempted from the power of the law. How this is done. 2. Confirmation of the answer ab impossibili, and from the testimony of an Apostle and of David. 3. Answer to the objection, by showing why these promises were given. Refutation of the sophistical distinction between the intrinsic …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Fact of the Redeemer's Return had a Spectacular Setting Forth on the Mount of Transfiguration.
The Transfiguration of Christ is perhaps as familiar as any of the leading events recorded in the four Gospels, yet is it less understood than the other great crises in His blessed life. The purpose and meaning of the Transfiguration is defined in the closing verse of Matthew 16--"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom." This is a verse which has puzzled many Bible readers, yet its meaning is simple if …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return
How to Make Use of Christ for Taking the Guilt of Our Daily Out-Breakings Away.
The next part of our sanctification is in reference to our daily failings and transgressions, committed partly through the violence of temptations, as we see in David and Peter, and other eminent men of God; partly through daily infirmities, because of our weakness and imperfections; for, "in many things we offend all," James iii. 2; and, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," 1 John i. 8; "a righteous man falleth seven times," Prov. xxiv. 16; "there is not …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life
The Doctrine of God
I. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: (Vs. Atheism). 1. ASSUMED BY THE SCRIPTURES. 2. PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. a) Universal belief in the Existence of God. b) Cosmological:--Argument from Cause. c) Teleological:--Argument from Design. d) Ontological:--Argument from Being. e) Anthropological:--Moral Argument. f) Argument from Congruity. g) Argument from Scripture. II. THE NATURE OF GOD: (Vs. Agnosticism) 1. THE SPIRITUALITY OF GOD: (Vs. Materialism). 2. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD: (Vs. Pantheism). 3. THE UNITY …
Rev. William Evans—The Great Doctrines of the Bible
Every Thing Proceeding from the Corrupt Nature of Man Damnable.
1. The intellect and will of the whole man corrupt. The term flesh applies not only to the sensual, but also to the higher part of the soul. This demonstrated from Scripture. 2. The heart also involved in corruption, and hence in no part of man can integrity, or knowledge or the fear of God, be found. 3. Objection, that some of the heathen were possessed of admirable endowments, and, therefore, that the nature of man is not entirely corrupt. Answer, Corruption is not entirely removed, but only inwardly …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate,
CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND LARGELY IMPROVED, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL BELIEVERS. 1 John 2:1--"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." By JOHN BUNYAN, Author of "The Pilgrim's Progress." London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1689. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This is one of the most interesting of Bunyan's treatises, to edit which required the Bible at my right hand, and a law dictionary on my left. It was very frequently republished; …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3
The Song of Solomon.
An important link in the chain of the Messianic hopes is formed by the Song of Solomon. It is intimately associated with Ps. lxxii., which was written by Solomon, and represents the Messiah as the Prince of Peace, imperfectly prefigured by Solomon as His type. As in this Psalm, so also in the Song of Solomon, the coming of the Messiah forms the subject throughout, and He is introduced there under the name of Solomon, the Peaceful One. His coming shall be preceded by severe afflictions, represented …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament
The Fact of the Redeemer's Return was Typified in the Lives of Joseph and Solomon.
In the Old Testament there are numerous references to the Second Coming of Christ, references both direct and typical, but in every instance it was His return to the earth which was in view. The secret coming of Christ into the air, to catch up the saints to Himself, was an event quite unknown to the Old Testament prophets, an event kept secret until revealed by God to the apostle Paul who, when writing to the Corinthians upon this particular aspect of our subject, said, "Behold, I show you a mystery …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return
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