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eternal is the Kingdom of God in its widest sense, and God's Presence in grace among
His worshipping people, as fully realized in Jesus Christ.
When the king had spoken these words, he turned from the Sanctuary to the people
who reverently stood to hear his benedictory "address."^128 Briefly recounting the
gracious promises and experiences of the past, he pointed to the present as their
fulfillment, specially applying to it, in the manner already described, what God had
said to David (2 Samuel 7:7, 8).^129
- The Prayer of Consecration. - This brief address concluded, the king ascended the
brazen pulpit-like platform "before the altar" (of burnt offering), and with his face,
probably sideways, towards the people, knelt down with hands outspread in prayer
(comp. 2 Chronicles 6:12, 13).
It seems like presumption and impertinence to refer in laudatory terms to what for
comprehensiveness, sublimeness, humility, faith, and earnestness has no parallel in the
Old Testament, and can only be compared with the prayer which our Lord taught His
disciples.^130
Like the latter, it consists of an introduction (1 Kings 8:23-30), of seven petitions (the
covenant-number, vers. 31-53), and of a eulogetic close (2 Chronicles 6:40-42). The
Introduction sounds like an Old Testament version of the words "Our Father" (vers. 23-
26), "which art in heaven" (vers. 27-30). It would be out of place here to enter into any
detailed analysis. Suffice it to indicate the leading Scriptural references in it, as it were,
the spiritual stepping-stones of the prayer and one or another of its outstanding points.
Marking how a review of the gracious dealings in the past should lead to confidence in
present petitions (comp. Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24; James 1:6), reference should be
made in connection with verses 23-26 to the following passages: Exodus 15:11;
Deuteronomy 4:39; 7:9; Joshua 2:11; 2 Samuel 7:12-22; 22:32; Psalm 86:8. In regard
to the second part of the Introduction (vers. 27-30), we specially note the emphatic
assertion, that He, Whose Presence they saw in the cloud, was really in "heaven," and
yet "our Father," who art upon earth. These two ideas seem carried out in it, (1) not as
heathenism does, do we locate God here; nor yet will we, as carnal Israel did (Jeremiah
7:4; Micah 3:11), imagine that ex opere operato (by any mere deed of ours) God will
necessarily attend even to His own appointed services in His house. Our faith rises
higher - from the Seen to the Unseen - from the God of Israel to our Father; it realizes
the spiritual relationship of children, which alone contains the pledge of His blessing;
and through which, though He be in heaven, yet faith knows and addresses Him as an
ever-present help. Thus Solomon's prayer avoided alike the two extremes of unspiritual
realism and of unreal spiritualism.
(^)