1 Raja-raja 8:51-53

8:51 After all, ¹  they are your people and your special possession ²  whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. ³ 

8:52 “May you be attentive ⁴  to your servant’s and your people Israel’s requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you. ⁵  8:53 After all, ⁶  you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, ⁷  just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”

[8:51]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[8:51]  ² tn Heb “inheritance.”

[8:51]  ³ tn The Hebrew term כּוּר (kur, “furnace,” cf. Akkadian ku„ru) is a metaphor for the intense heat of purification. A כּוּר was not a source of heat but a crucible (“iron-smelting furnace”) in which precious metals were melted down and their impurities burned away (see I. Cornelius, NIDOTTE 2:618-19). Thus Egypt served not as a place of punishment for the Israelites, but as a place of refinement to bring Israel to a place of submission to divine sovereignty.

[8:51]  sn From the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. The metaphor of a furnace suggests fire and heat and is an apt image to remind the people of the suffering they endured while slaves in Egypt.

[8:52]  ⁴ tn Heb “May your eyes be open.”

[8:52]  ⁵ tn Heb “to listen to them in all their calling out to you.”

[8:53]  ⁶ tn Or “For.”

[8:53]  ⁷ tn Heb “your inheritance.”