CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 9:3. Sept. inserts, after “Supplication that thou hast made before me,” “I have done to thee according to all thy prayer.”
1 Kings 9:6. If ye shall at all turn.—A. V. implies only the slightest dereliction, “at all turn;” whereas שוֹב תְּשֻׁבוֹן is an intensive Hebraism, implying entirety, absolute apostasy. Which I have set before you: or, Moses set before you; so Sept. Notice also that the threatening (1 Kings 9:7) is a quotation from Moses (Deuteronomy 28:37).
1 Kings 9:8. This house is high—Omit italicised words at and which; is high=future tense, shall be high עֶלְיוֹן not exalted in renown (as Von Meyer, De Wette, Bähr), but shall stand high, a conspicuous example, a pre-eminent illustration of destruction. Others (the Peshito and Dr. Böttcher), “this house shall be a heap.” Sept.=ὁ οἶκος οὗτος ἔσται ὁ υψηλός. Vulg., et domus hæc crit in exemplum.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 9:3-9
RELIGION THE GLORY OF A NATION
I. That the religion of a nation does not consist in anything external.
1. Not in the grandeur of its temples. Architecture and artistic decoration are not essential to true piety. The most exquisite creations of the trowel and mallet can never rival the glorious edifice which has been already reared by the master hand of Deity. Nature is one vast cathedral, with its roof fretted with clouds and gemmed with stars; its aisles are the long-extended valleys; its pillars the lofty, massive hills; its altar the spot where the worshipper reverently bends his knee; and its music the manifold voices that rise from bird, or forest, or sea. Some of the costliest temples built by the art and adorned by the genius of man are consecrated to the worship of other than the only true God.
2. Not in the elaborateness of its ritual. The rites and ceremonies of the Israelitish religion in the days of Solomon were minute and exacting. Their worship was a rich, imposing pageant, calculated to impress both the worshipper and the spectator; and their history shows with what scrupulosity they observed the forms of their ritual when the spirit which gave those forms life and meaning was altogether quenched. It is the tendency of man to rest in the outward; and the devoutest worshipper has often to complain—
But I of means have made my boast,
Of means an idol made;
The spirit in the letter lost,
The substance in the shade.
3. Religion consists in the sincere worship of an ever-present God. The true glory of Moriah’s Temple was the hallowing presence of Jehovah. “I have hallowed this house which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually” (1 Kings 9:3). When we fail to recognize the true God, when we forget His eye is upon us, when we are no longer conscious of His personal and all-compassionate love, religion ceases to be a power, ceases to be a reality. We may take our place in the temple, we may engage mechanically in its services, but there is no longer any true, acceptable worship (Matthew 15:8-9).
II. That the religion of a nation depends for its permanence on obedience to God (1 Kings 9:4-5).
1. Obedience is regulated by clearly defined injunctions. “To do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments.” Obedience must be intelligent, be governed by a studious appreciation of the Divine commands. We are surrounded by law. We cannot properly fulfil the great purpose of life without some acquaintance with the laws and forces in operation around us. The mariner needs it in order to pilot his vessel aright, the scientist to guide him in research, the physician to ameliorate human suffering. There should not be less study given to the laws of God for the government of our moral actions than is given to the laws of nature.
2. Obedience must be genuine and complete. “In integrity of heart and in uprightness.” We must be sincere. When we remember with what energy and publicity we have sometimes served sin, we should be animated with the more courage and earnestness in serving God. “He doeth not God’s will but his own, who doeth no more than himself will. Everything must be done as well as anything, else we do nothing.”
3. Obedience is illustrated by noble examples. “If thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked.” God expects no impossibility. What one man has done, another may do. David had great imperfections; but he had also great virtues. The seed of the godly cannot expect to enjoy the entail of the blessing unless they tread in the steps of those who have gone before, and keep up the piety of their ancestors. Solomon’s subsequent fall lends to these repeated warnings a special interest.
4. Obedience ensures perpetuity of blessing. “Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever” (1 Kings 9:5). Obedience and blessing run together. If we are faithful to our part of the covenant, God will never fail on His part. All the promises of God are conditional; and failure in fulfilment of the promise is no proof of changeableness in God, but of infidelity in man. While the condition is observed, the promise is inviolably kept.
III. That the decay of the religion of a nation is inevitably followed by national ruin (1 Kings 9:6-9).
1. The ruin of its national greatness. “Then will I cut off Israel out of the land I have given them.” In the very land where the Jews were most highly exalted did they witness the most abject degradation. When the people forsook God, and turned to idols, the Temple of Solomon—the world-wide evidence of national prosperity and blessing—was destroyed, Israel ceased to be an independent kingdom, and the people were banished; and when, after the second temple was built, they rejected David’s greater Son—their promised, true, and eternal king in whom all nations of the earth were to be blessed—this temple was destroyed never to be rebuilt, and the people were scattered through the whole world, ceasing for ever to be an independent kingdom and nation. Irreligion will ruin a nation more completely than an invading army could do. The external evidences of national greatness are the last to go: the first fatal weakness begins within, and may progress for a time silently and unnoticed.
2. The ruin of its religious prestige. “And this house which I have hallowed for my name will I cast out of my sight.” The temple was the symbol and external evidence of the intense religiousness of the people. Never was there before a nation so favoured with religious privileges: it was its solemn mission to preserve and promulgate the idea of the Only True God, which idea had become lost amid the mists of heathenism. When Israel lost its religion it lost everything—temple, character, influence. The same is true of every nation that abandons God.
3. The ruin is held up as a terrible warning to all ages. “And Israel shall be a proverb and a bye-word among all people; and this house which is high (Heb. shall be high), every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss” (1 Kings 9:7-8). Not a scornful hiss, but a hissing of terror (Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 49:17). The temple and the nation shall be as conspicuous in their desolation as in their glory. No people in the world ever became such a proverb—everywhere despised, reviled, and persecuted. By its story it illustrates to all nations the unchanging truth uttered by the prophet Azariah to King Asa, “If ye forsake Him, He will forsake you” (2 Chronicles 15:2).
LESSONS:—
1. Religion is at once the strength and the adornment of a people.
2. The chief concern of the monarch should be for the religious welfare of his people.
3. The nation that abandons God will be abandoned by Him.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 9:3. “To put my name there for ever.” God’s gifts are without repentance. When He puts His name in the temple, He does it, in intention, for ever. He will not arbitrarily withdraw it after so many years or so many centuries. Once placed there, it will remain there for ever, so far as God is concerned. But the people may, by unfaithfulness, drive it away.
—“Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.” Solomon’s prayer had been that God’s eyes might be directed towards the temple continually. The answer given is—Not mine eyes only, but mine eyes and mine heart. To every house where the name of God is truly honoured applies the Divine saying, “Mine eyes and my heart shall dwell there for ever.”
—The Divine solicitude for the Church. 1. He investigates its moral condition.
2. He sympathises with its struggles.
3. He rejoices in its triumphs.
4. His care is unremitting.
1 Kings 9:4. “If Thou wilt walk before me” (compared with 1 Kings 9:6). The power of individualism.
1. The national is vastly influenced by the personal.
2. A monarch may foster or blast the religious interests of his people.
3. The greater the authority placed in the hands of one man, the greater is his responsibility for its use or abuse.
4. How momentous are the opportunities presented within the compass of a single life!
1 Kings 9:6-9. Because men endure uninterrupted prosperity with much greater difficulty than they do crosses and afflictions, therefore, when they are at the summit of their wishes and their hearts’ desire, it is most necessary that the grave importance of God and of eternity should be held up before them, so that they may not fall into security, and forget to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling (Matthew 16:26; 1 Corinthians 10:12). The more abundantly God displays His mercy and love towards an individual or towards a nation, so much the more fearful will be the righteous sentence, if the riches of His mercy are despised. In happy and prosperous days forget not that the Lord tells us, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” How many men, how many families, how many nations, blessed in every respect, have come to a fearful and shameful end! Askest thou—“Wherefore is this? The only reply is—Because they have forsaken the Lord their God; for what a man sows that shall he also reap. Let him who will not recognize a Divine justice, turn to the twice-destroyed temple of Jerusalem, and to the world-scattered people who have become a byeword amongst all nations.—Lange.
1 Kings 9:7. If our growth in grace does not correspond with our privileges, our boast of the temple and the best form of worship will but delude and destroy us.
1 Kings 9:9. Apostasy is hateful even among the heathen. Solyman, the Grand Signior, rejected the revolt of his Christian subjects to Turkism, and doubled their taxations.