1 Raja-raja 8:30

8:30 Respond to the request of your servant and your people Israel for this place. ¹  Hear from inside your heavenly dwelling place ²  and respond favorably. ³ 

1 Raja-raja 8:32

8:32 Listen from heaven and make a just decision about your servants’ claims. Condemn the guilty party, declare the other innocent, and give both of them what they deserve. ⁴ 

1 Raja-raja 8:34

8:34 then listen from heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land you gave to their ancestors.

1 Raja-raja 8:36

8:36 then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Certainly ⁵  you will then teach them the right way to live ⁶  and send rain on your land that you have given your people to possess. ⁷ 

1 Raja-raja 8:39

8:39 then listen from your heavenly dwelling place, forgive their sin, ⁸  and act favorably toward each one based on your evaluation of his motives. ⁹  (Indeed you are the only one who can correctly evaluate the motives of all people.) ¹⁰ 

1 Raja-raja 8:43

8:43 Then listen from your heavenly dwelling place and answer all the prayers of the foreigners. ¹¹  Then all the nations of the earth will acknowledge your reputation, ¹²  obey ¹³  you like your people Israel do, and recognize that this temple I built belongs to you. ¹⁴ 

1 Raja-raja 8:45

8:45 then listen from heaven to their prayers for help ¹⁵  and vindicate them. ¹⁶ 

1 Raja-raja 8:49

8:49 then listen from your heavenly dwelling place to their prayers for help ¹⁷  and vindicate them. ¹⁸ 

[8:30]  ¹ tn Heb “listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel which they are praying concerning this place.”

[8:30]  ² tn Heb “and you, hear inside your dwelling place, inside heaven.” The precise nuance of the preposition אֶל (’el), used here with the verb “hear,” is unclear. One expects the preposition “from,” which appears in the parallel text in 2 Chr 6:21. The nuance “inside; among” is attested for אֶל (see Gen 23:19; 1 Sam 10:22; Jer 4:3), but in each case a verb of motion is employed with the preposition, unlike 1 Kgs 8:30. The translation above (“from inside”) is based on the demands of the immediate context rather than attested usage elsewhere.

[8:30]  ³ tn Heb “hear and forgive.”

[8:32]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you, hear [from] heaven and act and judge your servants by declaring the guilty to be guilty, to give his way on his head, and to declare the innocent to be innocent, to give to him according to his innocence.”

[8:36]  ⁵ tn The translation understands כִּי (ki) in an emphatic or asseverative sense.

[8:36]  ⁶ tn Heb “the good way in which they should walk.”

[8:36]  ⁷ tn Or “for an inheritance.”

[8:39]  ⁸ tn The words “their sin” are added for clarification.

[8:39]  ⁹ tn Heb “and act and give to each one according to all his ways because you know his heart.” In the Hebrew text vv. 37-39a actually contain one lengthy conditional sentence, which the translation has divided up for stylistic reasons.

[8:39]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Indeed you know, you alone, the heart of all the sons of mankind.”

[8:43]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and do all which the foreigner calls to [i.e., “requests of”] you.”

[8:43]  ¹² tn Heb “your name.” See the note on the word “reputation” in v. 41.

[8:43]  ¹³ tn Heb “fear.”

[8:43]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “that your name is called over this house which I built.” The Hebrew idiom “to call the name over” indicates ownership. See 2 Sam 12:28.

[8:45]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “their prayer and their request for help.”

[8:45]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and accomplish their justice.”

[8:49]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “their prayer and their request for help.”

[8:49]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and accomplish their justice.”