Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 8:29
That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, [even] toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place.
29. even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there ] These words refer back to 1Ki 8:16, and appear to imply all that is contained in the expansion there alluded to from 2Ch 6:6 that God had chosen Jerusalem as the place for His temple. ‘My name’ indicates God’s revelation of Himself with all His attributes.
towards this place ] For the king was not in the Temple but looking towards it, as would be the case with all future worshippers except the priests who were allowed to enter into the building. Hence it came to pass that in foreign lands the Israelite turned his face in the direction of Jerusalem. Cf. Dan 6:10; Jon 2:4; Psa 5:7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The choice of Jerusalem as the place seems to have been made by special revelation to David. See Psa 78:68; Psa 132:13; and compare 1Ch 22:1.
Toward this place – Better (here and in 1Ki 8:30) than the marginal in. Wherever they were, the Jews always worshipped toward the temple. (See margin reference.)
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Ki 8:29
This place.
Meditations in a new church
I. What the house of God is not.
1. In this place is no architectural type; it is no homage to the esthetics of form. Architecture is but a help and a convenience; it is not a religion.
2. This place is not reared in homage to any principle, so called, of Natural Religion; on the contrary, it is an admission that Natural Religion is not enough to satisfy the heart of the worshipper; it is true the groves were God s first temples; it is equally true that the early Persian made his peak an altar, and worshipped the Lord of nature from the tops of earths oer-gazing mountains; it may be true that our Gothic architecture is an attempt to torture the stone to the grace and grandeur of the forest aisles, but it will not do, it will not do. This place is not reared to emulate in the long-drawn aisle and the fretted vault, the mysteries of the groves and the trees; it is to point to one tree–the Cross; it is not to celebrate the mountain majesties of heaven, but to be a cleft of the rock, in which the people may hide themselves while the tempest and the wrath pass by.
3. This place is not an Ecclesiasticism; it is not the place for mere hierarchical assumption; it does not exist to symbolise any particular creed; it derives any value it may boast, not from man or men, but from God.
4. This Place is not built in homage to Intellectual Achievement, or to the consecrating efforts of Taste.
II. What the house of God is.
This place is the assertion that a new church has come to view. Hebraism was a church–the Jew was, in fact, a Christian. But he was so pictorially, and he must represent to us God as working the salvation over and independent of him. What, then, is suggested to us by this place?
1. It is Consecration. This is the stone for a memorial; and the prayers of the people and their dedication words are the holy oil poured upon the stone. This is the place of an almond-tree, beneath whose shade the weary Jacob rests, and beholds the vision of ascending and descending angels; and says, Lo, God is in this place; this is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.
2. And with that idea goes this other of seclusion, seclusion even here. But it will be said, is not every place Gods–is not every place equally Divine? To Him, Yes; to us, I must say, No, certainly not. Is not God equally diffused over all creation? To Himself, Yes; to us, No, certainly not. As well ask, Does magnetism reside equally in all substances? Is there not a loadstone, and a magnetic needle? The Sabbath is an answer to our necessities, by being a seclusion in time; the temple is an answer to our necessities by being a seclusion in space. Man needs, not only Sabbath hours, he needs Sabbath spots. Cannot man worship alone, it is said, in his own life and heart, and have there his own still Sabbath? What some may do, I will not say; but on the whole, I shall reply, Certainly not; mans true seclusion will be the temple; seclusion in such a place is very beautiful. As consecration is the act of setting apart, to and for God, so seclusion is that retiring into ourselves; we always enter into our closet when we retire into ourselves; but how large and mighty is the idea that in this place we retire not only into ourselves but into and with God.
3. But this place reveals the principle of association as surely as of seclusion or consecration. Here is revealed the unity of the Church–here is realised the image of the harmonious interworkings of countless spirits, who, though scattered over the whole globe, endowed with freedom, and possessing the power to strike off into every deviation to the right or to the left, yet preserving still their various peculiarities, constitute one great brotherhood for the advancement of each other s spiritual existence, representing one idea, that of the reconciliation of men with God, who, on that account, have been reconciled with one another, and have become one body.
4. But, again, this place is not merely emotional, it is conservative, it is the centre of doctrine, and therefore there is associated with it the idea of teaching it is the House of God; it is the home of the chosen of the living God; it is the depository of the pillar and ground of the truth.
5. Another sentiment suitable to this place is, that it is perfectly in harmony with all that has gone before; it may be naturally described as the centre of conversion. Repent and be converted, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand–this is the word which must often be uttered here, and of this man it shall be said, he was born there. These buildings exist for the purpose for which the Gospels were written; they were built that believers may have life, but they were built also that men may believe. Lessons: To regenerated hearts this place is a memory. Here we pierce back into the night of time, and the eye surveys the splendid piles of ancient days. This place is an anticipation: it is a promise from God to man of his future home, and it is the declaration to mans heart, from the deeper instincts of his being, of the great, the hallowed, and all-hallowing truth that there remaineth a rest for the people of God–our rest in this place is the assurance of our rest yonder. (B. P. Hood.)
The place of worship
I. The house of god. Our text speaks of heaven as Gods dwelling-place. Perfectly true. But where is heaven? Heaven is above us, but it is also beneath and about us. Now it was this thought that appealed even to Solomon aa he knelt with outspread hands before the glory lit altar of the new temple. For a moment he seems to have been staggered: But he recovers himself speedily, however. It was Gods house. Why was it Gods house? He Himself had selected the site; it had been built on the Divine-plan; the builders had been directed in all the arrangements. Gods own promise was in the matter, and it had been fulfilled to the letter.
II. The house of prayer. I like, however, to remember that it is, in the second title, a place of worship, a House of Prayer. Solomon used the first Temple for that purpose at the outset, and named it so from the beginning. And those who could not tread its sacred courts were to open their windows toward Jerusalem, and throw the arrows of their prayers through the lattice which looked that way. The Temple, in a word, was to be the medium and the mediator between the yearning hearts of men and the bounteous hands of the Lord God of Israel. Things have changed since then; old things have passed, away; behold, all things have become new.
III. The house of mercy.–When thou hearest, forgive. Forgive! Ah yes, yes, we shall need to pray that prayer amongst the rest. Prayers for succour and for strength, prayers for comfort and for joy, will need to be supplemented with prayers for pardon. Some nowadays profess to have got far away beyond this. I am not ashamed to confess in one sense that I have not. The Lord has taught us so to pray, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors (Thomas Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 29. My name shall be there] I will there show forth my power and my glory by enlightening, quickening, pardoning, sanctifying, and saving all my sincere worshippers.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That thine eyes may be open to behold, to wit, with an eye of favour and compassion. So it is a synecdochical expression: compare Psa 33:18; 34:15; Zec 12:4.
My name; my presence, and glory, and grace. See Poole “1Ki 8:16“.
Towards this place; this temple, to which Solomon did now look, and, it may be, point; and towards which the godly Israelites directed their looks in their prayers. See Dan 6:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
That thine eyes may be open towards this house night and day,…. That is, to the people that pray in it, as they are to his righteous ones, Ps 33:14 even towards the place of which thou hast my name shall be there; there should be some displays of his presence, power, and providence, of goodness, grace, and mercy:
that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make towards this place; not only to what he should make in it, but to what he should make in his own house, with his face directed towards this, as would be, and was the practice of good people in later times, yea, even when the temple lay in ruins; see Da 6:10 figuring the respect gracious souls have to Christ by faith in their prayers, in whom the Godhead dwells bodily, see Jon 2:4 and it is observable, according to a Jewish canon b, one at a distance, in another land, was not only to turn his face to the land of Israel, but direct his heart to Jerusalem, and the temple, and the holy of holies; and if in the land, to Jerusalem, c. and if in Jerusalem, not only to the temple, and holy of holies, but if behind the mercy seat, he was to turn his face to it which was a symbol of Christ, the propitiatory and throne of grace, to be looked unto by faith, Ro 3:25.
b Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 94. sect. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“ That your eyes may be open towards this house night and day, even towards the place of which you have said, “My name shall be there,” to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray towards this place.”
And his prayer was that YHWH would now accept this new Temple as he had accepted the Tabernacle so that YHWH’s eyes would be opened towards this house night and day, causing Him to listen to all the prayers that Solomon His servant would, as Israel’s intercessor, pray towards this place.
“The place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there”. He wanted the Temple to be acknowledged as one of the places where He had ‘recorded His Name’ (Exo 20:24. Throughout their history YHWH had chosen places where He would ‘record His Name.’ It had been so wherever the Tabernacle was established, for it had contained the ARK which ‘whose Name is called by the Name of YHWH of hosts Who sits among the Cherubim’ (2Sa 6:2). And that Tabernacle had finally settled in Shiloh (Jos 18:1) once the country had rest (Jos 11:23; Jos 18:1; Jos 23:1), at ‘the place which YHWH chose to put His Name there’ (Deu 12:5; Deu 12:11; Deu 12:21; Deu 14:23-24; Deu 16:2; Deu 16:6; Deu 16:11; Deu 26:2), and it had been there for centuries.
But as a result of the failure of the people to respond fully to the covenant Shiloh had ceased as the place where ‘YHWH had chosen to put His Name there’, and there had been a stage of fluidity. Now Solomon was praying that He would accept this Temple as such a place. The prophecy ‘My Name shall be there’ (see 1Ki 8:16) had, according to Solomon, been made to his father David. And the very fact that He had allowed them to build the Temple indicated that that was His purpose for it. The idea of His Name being there was that it would be one place where He was present to listen to the prayers of His people without His being limited to that place.
For the idea of ‘eyes being opened’ see Gen 3:5; Gen 3:7; Num 24:3-4; Num 24:15-16. For ‘my Name shall be there’ compare 1Ki 8:16. For the idea of ‘the Name’ see Gen 4:25; Gen 13:4; Exo 20:24; Exo 23:21; Exo 34:5; Deu 12:5 etc.).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Ki 8:29 That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, [even] toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place.
Ver. 29. That thine eyes may be open. ] See Psa 34:15 . See Trapp on “ Psa 34:15 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
tow
ard. So written, but some codices read “upon”.
make toward. Hence Daniel’s act (Dan 6:10).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
That thine: 1Ki 8:52, 2Ki 19:16, 2Ch 6:20, 2Ch 6:40, 2Ch 7:15, 2Ch 16:9, Neh 1:6, Psa 34:15, Dan 9:18
My name: 1Ki 8:16, 1Ki 8:43, *marg. 1Ki 11:36, Exo 20:24, Deu 12:11, Deu 16:2, Deu 16:6, Deu 26:2, 2Ki 21:4, 2Ki 21:7, 2Ki 23:27, 2Ch 6:5, 2Ch 6:6, 2Ch 6:20, 2Ch 7:16, 2Ch 20:8, 2Ch 33:4, 2Ch 33:7, Neh 1:9, Joh 14:13, Joh 14:14
toward this place: or, in this place, Dan 6:10
Reciprocal: Deu 12:5 – But unto 1Ki 8:35 – confess 1Ki 8:48 – pray unto 1Ki 9:3 – to put 1Ki 12:27 – go up 1Ch 22:7 – unto the name Psa 5:7 – I worship Psa 138:2 – toward Eze 8:16 – with their Eze 23:4 – Aholibah Zec 12:4 – I will open