1 Kings 8:22 - Meaning and Application

After Solomon gave this house over to God, and God showed his acceptance by taking possession of it, Solomon next offers his prayer. In that prayer, he explains more fully what he means by this dedication, with deep humility and reverence, asking God to approve it. In short, he asks that this temple be accepted not only as a house for sacrifice, which is assumed throughout the prayer, but as a house of prayer for all people. In this way it pointed forward to the gospel church, as seen in (Isaiah 56:7) and compared with (Matthew 21:13). So Solomon opened this house not only with a special sacrifice, but with a special prayer.

First, the one who prayed was a great man. Solomon did not call on one of the priests or one of the prophets, but prayed himself before all Israel, (1 Kings 8:22). It was good that he was able to do this, because it showed he had made good use of the godly training his parents gave him. With all his learning, he had also learned how to pray well and how to speak to God in a fitting way, right there in the moment, without a set form. In the middle of his wisdom sayings, songs, and other work, he did not neglect prayer. He had gained much through prayer (1 Kings 3:11), and he seems to have practiced it often enough to excel in prayer.

It was also good that he was willing to pray publicly before such a large crowd. He did not think it beneath him to be his own chaplain and the one who spoke for the whole assembly before God. Should anyone think themselves too important to do that for their own families? Solomon, even in all his royal splendor, and even on his ivory throne, did not look as great as he did here. Great people should support public worship and use their influence to honor God. In this, Solomon pointed ahead to Christ, the great intercessor who speaks for all his people.

Second, the posture of his prayer was very reverent and showed humility, seriousness, and earnestness. He stood before the altar of the Lord, showing that he expected his prayer to succeed because of the sacrifice that would one day be offered in full, which the altar sacrifices pictured beforehand. But when he began to pray, he knelt down, as we see in (1 Kings 8:54), where it says he rose from his knees, and compare (2 Chronicles 6:13). Kneeling is the most fitting posture for prayer (Ephesians 3:14). The greatest people should never think it below them to kneel before the Lord who made them.

He also spread his hands toward heaven, and it seems he kept them lifted through the prayer, as (1 Kings 8:54) suggests. This showed his desire for God and his expectation of help from a Father in heaven. He opened his hands as if to offer the prayer from a sincere and enlarged heart, and also to receive mercy from heaven with both arms. Such outward signs of focused and earnest devotion should not be mocked or treated lightly.

Third, the prayer itself was very long, and may have been much longer than the part recorded here. At the throne of grace, we have freedom to speak, and we should make good use of that freedom. Christ condemns long prayers only when they are made for show. In this excellent prayer, Solomon does what we should do in every prayer. He gives glory to God first.

He begins by addressing God as the Lord God of Israel, the God who is in covenant with them. He praises God for who he is, the greatest being in existence, with no one in heaven or earth like him. He is also the best master to his people, keeping covenant and mercy with his servants. That means he keeps his promises, and even goes beyond what he promised, showing mercy to those who walk before him with all their heart and are truly devoted to him. Solomon also thanks God for what he had done for David, his father, and for his family (1 Kings 8:24). God had kept the promise he made to David. The promise had been a great comfort, support, and joy to David, and now its fulfillment was the crown of it. God had fulfilled it that very day. New experiences of God keeping his promises should lead us to give him fuller praise.

After that, Solomon asks God for grace and favor. He asks that God would carry out for him and his family the mercy he had promised (1 Kings 8:25, 1 Kings 8:26). Notice how he frames this request. He first gratefully admits that God has already kept part of his promise. God had been faithful so far, because David’s son now sat on the throne and had built the temple. So Solomon asks God to keep the rest of the promise in its proper time. The mercies we have already received should strengthen our trust in God’s promises and give weight to our prayers. Those who hope for further mercies should be thankful for former ones. God has helped us until now (2 Corinthians 1:10).

Solomon repeats the promise, that David would always have a descendant to sit on the throne, but he does not leave out the condition, that his children must watch their way. We cannot expect God to fulfill the promise apart from our part in the covenant. Then he humbly asks, “Now, O God of Israel, let your word come true” (1 Kings 8:26). God’s promises should guide our desires and form the basis of our hope in prayer. David had prayed in a similar way, “Lord, do as you have said” (2 Samuel 7:25). Children should learn from their godly parents how to pray and how to plead God’s promises in prayer.

Solomon also asks that God would look with favor on this temple, which he had now taken possession of, and that his eyes would always be open toward it (1 Kings 8:29), so that he would own it graciously and honor it. With that in mind,

Solomon begins with humble wonder at God’s gracious coming near to people (1 Kings 8:27). “Will God really live on the earth?” he asks in effect. Can a Being who is infinitely holy, high, and happy stoop so low that it can be said he dwells on the earth and blesses sinful people with his presence? Even the earth itself is corrupt, full of sin, and under judgment. Solomon also admits that the house he built, though large and splendid, cannot hold God. “Heaven, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you,” because no place can hold the God who is present everywhere.

The lesson is clear: when we do the best we can for God, we must still admit the vast distance between us and him. Our service is never equal to his greatness. After this humble start, Solomon asks God to hear the prayer he is now offering (1 Kings 8:28). It is a prayer from a servant, and it is an urgent prayer, like a cry. It is also a prayer of faith, offered before the Lord as his God. Solomon asks God not to listen to him because he is Israel’s king, since rank and honor do not win God’s favor, but because he is God’s servant.

He then asks God to hear all prayers offered in or toward this house, which God said would bear his name (1 Kings 8:29). He includes his own future prayers, the prayers of all Israel, and the prayers of every individual Israelite (1 Kings 8:30). Solomon asks God to hear in heaven, his true dwelling place, of which the temple is only a sign. And when God hears, Solomon asks him to forgive sin, even the sin that clings to holy things. God’s people are to be a praying people, and Solomon means to keep to that duty himself.

Solomon also points worshipers toward that place where God chose to show his glory in a special way. Only priests could enter the inner part of the temple, but the people were still to pray with their eyes turned toward it. The temple itself was not the object of worship. It was a God-given help for weak faith, and it pointed ahead to the mediation of Jesus Christ, the true temple, through whom we come to God in everything. Even those far away were to face Jerusalem because of the temple, as Daniel did even in exile (Daniel 6:10).

Solomon also asks that God would hear the prayers and forgive the sins of all who pray in this direction. He does not mean that prayers from people who knew nothing of the temple were therefore rejected. Rather, he wants the visible signs of God’s presence there to give real comfort to believers. The temple should strengthen their trust as they pray.

He then names several situations in which people would bring their prayers toward this house. First, if a dispute between two people were settled by an oath before the altar, he asks God to make the truth known and judge between them (1 Kings 8:31, 8:32). In hard cases, this throne of grace should also be a throne of judgment, where God would defend the wronged person who came in faith and punish the person who lied and acted wrongly. People later swore by the temple and altar (Matthew 23:16, 23:18), and that custom may have grown out of this idea of swearing at or near the holy place for greater seriousness.

Second, Solomon thinks of public trouble and private trouble alike. If Israel suffers war, lack of rain, famine, pestilence, or any other disease or disaster, he asks that God would hear their prayers in or toward this house (1 Kings 8:33, 8:35, 8:37). He assumes three things. One, that sin is the cause of the judgment. If they are defeated or if the rain stops, it is because they have sinned against God. Two, that the result of the trouble will be prayer. Those who ignored God before will seek him when trouble comes. Three, that God will not remove the judgment unless they turn from their sin and turn back to him. We cannot ask for mercy on any other terms, either in this life or the next.

If they do repent, Solomon asks that God would hear from heaven, his holy temple above, as they look toward this earthly temple. He asks that God would forgive their sin, because judgment is only removed in mercy when sin is pardoned. He also asks that God would teach them the right way to walk, through his Spirit, his word, and his prophets. Trouble can then do them good, because God uses discipline to teach his people. Then, when deliverance comes, it will come in love, after they have been brought back to God’s good way and duty. He asks, too, that God would remove the judgment and restore what had been lost, not only accepting the prayer but giving the mercy they asked for.

Solomon then turns to personal afflictions (1 Kings 8:38-40). If any Israelite has a burden and turns to God in prayer here, let him find God’s favor. Solomon does not list specific troubles, because human suffering comes in so many forms. He assumes that each sufferer will feel his own burden deeply and will bring to God the matter he has kept to himself and perhaps has not told anyone else. Each person will know the plague of his own heart, what truly troubles him, where the pain is sharpest, and he will spread out his hands in prayer toward this house, as Hezekiah spread out the letter before God. Whether the trouble is in body or in mind, he is to lay it before God. The inward burden is especially in view here. Sin itself is the plague of our own heart, and our inner corruptions are our spiritual sickness.

Every true Israelite works to know these sins so he can put them to death and guard against their first stirrings. These are the sins he complains about. This is the burden he groans under: “O wretched man that I am!” They drive him to his knees and to the sanctuary. As he mourns over them, he lifts his hands in prayer.

Solomon also turns every case of this kind over to God. First, he looks to God’s all-knowing wisdom. “You alone know the hearts of all people,” not only their heart troubles and needs, though God knows those too, but also the heart’s desire and purpose, whether it is sincere or false. God knows which prayer comes from the heart and which only comes from the lips. Even the hearts of kings are open before him.

Second, he looks to God’s justice. He asks God to give each person according to his ways. God will do this, but he does it according to grace, not strict law, because strict law would leave us all ruined. Third, he looks to God’s mercy. He asks God to hear, forgive, and act (1 Kings 8:39), so that his people may fear him all their lives (1 Kings 8:40). When God hears our prayers and forgives our sins, that mercy should lead us to fear him while we live. “Fear the Lord and his goodness.” “There is forgiveness with him, so that he may be feared.”

Solomon next speaks of the foreigner, someone who is not an Israelite, but who has come to the temple to pray to the God of Israel. This person has seen the folly and evil of worshiping the gods of his own country and has become a worshiper of the true God. Solomon assumes there will be many such people (1 Kings 8:41, 42). The report of God’s great works for Israel, by which he showed himself greater than all gods, indeed God alone, would spread to far countries. People who live far away would hear of his mighty hand and outstretched arm, and that would lead thoughtful people to pray toward this house, hoping to find favor with a God who can truly help them.

Solomon asks God to accept and answer the foreigner’s prayer (1 Kings 8:43): “Do according to all that the stranger asks of you.” This is an early sign of God’s favor toward Gentile sinners. Just as there was one law for the native-born and the stranger (Exodus 12:49), so there was one gospel for both.

Solomon also cares about God’s honor and the spread of his knowledge. He wants the foreigner to be answered in a special way, so that when he returns home he can tell others good things about the God of Israel. Then “all people may know you and fear you,” as your people Israel do. If they truly know God, they will fear him. Solomon is far from wanting God’s knowledge and worship kept for Israel alone, which is what the Jews later wanted in Christ’s day and in the days of his apostles. He prayed that all peoples would fear God as Israel did. Would that all people might receive adoption, that is, be received as God’s children. “Father, glorify your name” in this way.

Next, Solomon asks God to show favor to an army going out to battle. He pictures the army camped far away, sent by God’s command against the enemy (1 Kings 8:44). When the soldiers are ready to fight, and they think about the dangers and uncertain outcome of battle, if they pray to God for protection and success with their eyes toward this city and temple, Solomon asks God to hear them. He asks God to encourage their hearts, strengthen their hands, protect them, and uphold their cause so they may win victory. Soldiers in the field should not think it is enough that people at home pray for them. They must pray for themselves too, and here they are encouraged to expect a gracious answer. Prayer should always go with fighting.

The last case Solomon mentions is that of poor captives, those taken prisoner and needing God’s mercy. He begins by assuming Israel will sin. He knew both Israel and himself, and he knew human nature too well to think otherwise. There is no person who does not sin, no one who is not guilty enough to deserve God’s hardest rebukes. There is also no one who is safe from falling into serious sin if God leaves him to himself.

He then assumes, as may well be expected, that if Israel turns away from God, God will be angry with them and hand them over to their enemies, so that they are carried captive to a foreign land (1 Kings 8:46). Then he assumes they will come to their senses and think about their ways, because suffering often makes people reflect. Once they begin to think, they will repent and pray. They will confess their sins and humble themselves, saying, “We have sinned and have done wrong” (1 Kings 8:47). Even in the land of their enemies, they will return to the God they had forsaken in their own land.

He assumes that in their prayers they will face toward their own land, the holy land, toward Jerusalem, the holy city, and toward the temple, the holy house, and he tells them to do so (1 Kings 8:48). They should do this for the sake of the one who gave them the land, chose the city, and had the house built for his honor. He then asks God to hear their prayers, forgive their sins, defend their cause, and move their enemies to show them pity (1 Kings 8:49, 50). God holds all hearts in his hand and can, whenever he wills, turn the strongest current the other way and make former persecutors feel compassion for his people. We see this prayer answered in Psalm 106:46. He made them objects of pity in the eyes of those who had carried them away captive. This did not end their captivity, but it did make it easier to bear.

Solomon also pleads their covenant relation to God and God’s interest in them. “They are your people,” he says, people God has taken into his covenant and under his care, his inheritance, from whom, more than from any other nation, the tribute of his glory comes and rises (1 Kings 8:51). They are separated from all other peoples to belong to him, and by his special favors they are set apart for him (1 Kings 8:53).

At the end, after naming all these cases, Solomon closes with one broad request. He asks God to listen to all his praying people in whatever they call on him for (1 Kings 8:52). Under the gospel, no place can now be thought to make prayers more acceptable just because they are offered there or toward there, as the temple did then. That temple was only a shadow. Christ is the substance. Whatever we ask in his name, we shall receive.