1 Kings 8:25 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Therefore now keep, &c. Make good the other branch of thy promise. He considered God's fulfilling the foregoing part of his promise, as an earnest that he would accomplish the other part also, made at the same time, concerning David's posterity, 2 Samuel 7:12-13. So that thy children take heed to their way Solomon here acknowledges that the accomplishment of the promise respecting the continuance of the kingdom in David's family, depended on their continuance in the faith and worship of God: and that, if they became idolaters, they rendered themselves unworthy of this privilege, and forfeited all right to the inheritance of the kingdom, being no longer David's genuine children. And therefore, according to Solomon's own acknowledgment, after he and Rehoboam had departed from the worship of God, and began to follow idols, God might justly have taken away the kingdom from their posterity. And indeed when all Israel forsook the Lord, and worshipped the gods of the nations round about them, he did forsake their land, and would no longer dwell among them.