I Kings 8:35
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When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The building and furniture of the temple were very glorious, but the dedication of it exceeds in glory as much as prayer and praise, the work of saints, exceed the casting of metal and the graving of stones, the work of the craftsman. The temple was designed for the keeping up of the correspondence between God and his people; and here we have an account of the solemnity of their first meeting there. I. The representatives of all Israel were called together (Kg1 8:1, Kg1 8:2), to keep a feast to the honour of God, for fourteen days (Kg1 8:65). II. The priests brought the ark into the most holy place, and fixed it there (Kg1 8:3-9). III. God took possession of it by a cloud (Kg1 8:10, Kg1 8:11). IV. Solomon, with thankful acknowledgments to God, informed the people touching the occasion of their meeting (Kg1 8:12-21). V. In a long prayer he recommended to God's gracious acceptance all the prayers that should be made in or towards this place (v. 22-53). VI. He dismissed the assembly with a blessing and an exhortation (Kg1 8:54-61). VII. He offered abundance of sacrifices, on which he and his people feasted, and so parted, with great satisfaction (Kg1 8:62-66). These were Israel's golden days, days of the Son of man in type.
Open source ↗8:35-36 Solomon prayed about drought brought on by the people’s sin (Lev 26:19; Deut 28:23-24). Solomon prayed that if the people confessed and truly repented, God would forgive them and restore fertility to the land so that the people would learn to live righteously before God.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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When Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and they return to You and confess Your name, praying and pleading with You in this temple,
or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is giving you.
I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,
So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”
But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.
These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.
that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
“Son of man, if a land sins against Me by acting unfaithfully, and I stretch out My hand against it to cut off its supply of food, to send famine upon it, and to cut off from it both man and beast,
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.