Do You Pray About Prayer? (1 Kings 8.31–43)

If someone sins against a neighbor and is given an oath to swear, and comes and swears before your altar in this house, then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the guilty by bringing their conduct on their own head, and vindicating the righteous by rewarding them according to their righteousness.

When your people Israel, having sinned against you, are defeated before an enemy but turn again to you, confess your name, pray and plead with you in this house, then hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them once more to the land that you gave to their ancestors.

When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin because you punish them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and grant rain on your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.

If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in any of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever plea there is from any individual or from all your people Israel, all knowing the afflictions of their own hearts so that they stretch out their hands toward this house; then hear in heaven your dwelling place, forgive, act, and render to all whose hearts you know—according to all their ways, for only you know what is in every human heart—so that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our ancestors.

“Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name-for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm—when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.

Background

This is the third part of the Temple dedication prayer, and it consists of a series of seven petitions. Let’s look at the first five. In these requests, Solomon addresses five situations in which the Temple will play a role. All the petitions have to do with prayer at the Temple—Solomon is asking that such prayers be heard by God. While God can, of course, hear prayers not offered at the Temple, this is another indication that the Temple held a special role in prayer—it was a ”thin place.”¹

These petitions are prayers about prayer. Solomon is asking that those prayers which are connected with the Temple be heard by God. Here is a description of the five petitions: