1 Kings 9 Bible study: My eyes and my heart

"The LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon" (9:2). The first time, "In Gibeon, the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night" (3:5). Now the LORD answers the prayer of the dedication: "I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me" (9:3). Solomon had asked "that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day" (8:29). The answer names the LORD's eyes and his heart: "I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually" (9:3) (tap holy and heart). In Hebrew perpetually is kol hayyamim, literally all the days. Chapter 11 counts both appearings: "The LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice" (11:9), "and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods" (11:10). In the second appearing the LORD speaks of other gods: "But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them" (9:6).

1 Kings 9:7→leads toLuke 13:35

The LORD said of the house he had made holy, "I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight" (9:7), if Israel turned away to other gods (9:6), and people would ask, "Why has the LORD done this to this land and to this house?" (9:8). On his way, "traveling on to Jerusalem" (Luke 13:22), Jesus said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!" (Luke 13:34), and "Behold, your house is left to you desolate" (Luke 13:35). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Kings 9, Luke doesn't say whether "your house" means the temple, the city or its people, and the temple of Jesus' day wasn't the one Solomon built: Solomon's was burned (2 Kings 25:9), and of the later one the Jews said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple!" (John 2:20). So setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject, a house for God's name cast out or left when his people turn from him (9:6; "you refused", Luke 13:34), not on a shared word. Some hear in Jesus' words the warning of 9:6-9 spoken again to Jerusalem. Others read Luke 13:35 within its own setting, Jesus' words to the city of his day, which go on, "you will not see me until you say" (Luke 13:35), and read 9:7 as the LORD's word to Solomon, without looking from one to the other.

קָדַשׁqadashsay ka-DASH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "be set apart, consecrated", and in the form used here, "set apart, consecrate". "I have made this house holy, which you have built" (9:3): Solomon built it, and the LORD says he has made it holy. The same verb comes back four verses later: "I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight" (9:7). 1 Kings uses it three times: here twice, and at the dedication, when "the king made the middle of the court holy that was before the LORD’s house" (8:64). 2 Chronicles tells the LORD's words with it too: "For now I have chosen and made this house holy" (2 Chronicles 7:16).