1 Kings 8:66 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Kings 8:66
On the eighth day he sent the people away: and they blessed the king, and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the LORD had done for David his servant, and for Israel his people.
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
sent
שִׁלַּ֣חshi.Lach
H7971
to send away · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
people
הָעָ֔םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
away
שָׁלַחshâlach
H7971
to send away
blessed
וַֽיְבָרֲכ֖וּvay.va.ra.Khu
H1288
to kneel · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
king
הַמֶּ֑לֶךְha.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
went
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
tents
לְאָהֳלֵיהֶ֗םle.'o.ho.lei.Hem
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
joyful
שְׂמֵחִים֙se.me.Chim
H8056
blithe or gleeful · adjective, masculine plural absolute
glad
וְט֣וֹבֵיve.Toei
H2896
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense · conjunction + adjective, masculine plural construct
heart
לֵ֔בLev
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular absolute
goodness
הַטּוֹבָ֗הha.to.Vah
H2896
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָה֙Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
done
עָשָׂ֤ה'a.Sah
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
David
לְדָוִ֣דle.da.Vid
H1732
David · preposition + proper noun, a man's name
servant
עַבְדּ֔וֹav.Do
H5650
a servant · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Israel
וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖לu.le.Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · conjunction + preposition + proper noun, a place name
people
עַמּֽוֹa.Mo
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 12:7 And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the…
Deuteronomy 12:12 And ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the L…
Zechariah 9:17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.
Acts 2:46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singl…
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
Deuteronomy 12:18 But thou must eat them before the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and th…
Deuteronomy 16:11 And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 8:62–end
We read before that Judah and Israel were eating and drinking, and very cheerful under their own vines and fig-trees; here we have them so in God's courts. Now they found Solomon's words true concerning Wisdom's ways, that they are ways of pleasantness.
I. They had abundant joy and satisfaction while they attended at God's house, for there, 1. Solomon offered a great sacrifice, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep, enough to have drained the country of cattle if it had not been a very fruitful land. The heathen thought themselves very generous when they offered sacrifices by hundreds (hecatombs they called them), but Solomon out-did them: he offered them by thousands. When Moses dedicated his altar…
THE PEOPLE JOYFUL. (Kg1 8:65)
from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt--that is, from one extremity of the kingdom to the other. The people flocked from all quarters.
seven days and seven days, even fourteen days--The first seven were occupied with the dedication, and the other seven devoted to the feast of tabernacles (Ch2 7:9). The particular form of expression indicates that the fourteen days were not continuous. Some interval occurred in consequence of the great day of atonement falling on the tenth of the seventh month (Kg1 8:2), and the last day of the feast of tabernacles was on the twenty-third (Ch2 7:10), when the people returned to their homes with feelings of the…
They blessed the king - Wished him all spiritual and temporal happiness. They were contented with their king, at peace among themselves, and happy in their God; so that they returned to their houses magnifying their God for all his bounty to them, their country, and their king. How happy must these people have been, and how prosperous, had their king continued to walk uprightly before God! But alas! the king fell, and the nation followed his example.
John Gill
The Church Fathers
But we should note this too: having explained the dedication and subsequent festival, Scripture concludes, "And Solomon dismissed the people, who blessed the king and set out for their own dwellings joyfully and glad of heart for all the goodness the Lord had done for David his servant and for his people Israel." When he has brought to completion the gift of resurrection, our Lord dismisses his elect joyfully to their eternal dwelling places. Surely he does not move them further away from his presence but lets them pass into the dwelling place of the heavenly fatherland after the division at the final judgment (which, according to the saying of the apostle, we know will take place in the air), so that each may receive his promised seat in the kingdom in proportion to his deserts. What is said here, that the people set out for their own dwellings, refers to the setting-out of which our Lord speaks in the Gospel: "In my Father's house are many mansions." And it is well said that the people set out for their own dwellings while blessing the king, because this is the single supremely tranquil and joyful action of the heavenly citizens, singing hymns of thanksgiving to their Maker. Thus is it written, "Happy are they who dwell in your house; they will praise you forever." Thus the same prophet [David] has filled the final seven psalms with the sweetness of the divine praises; moreover, in the eighth psalm before the end of the psalter, he commemorates by blessing the Lord for his victory in the fight in which he killed the giant [Goliath]. In this he clearly indicates that all who triumph in their contests against the malignant enemy here below will sing the praises of their Maker and Helper there, where they will have true rest. "They blessed the king and set out for their own dwellings joyfully and glad of heart for all the goodness the Lord had done for David his servant and for his people Israel." The just do indeed go into the dwellings of the heavenly mansions joyfully because of the goodness they have received from the Lord. Although the labors of this age are burdensome and prolonged, whatever ends in eternal blessedness seems short-lived and trifling. Hence each one of us, dearly loved, must press on with his devout actions by exerting himself to the extent of his ability by encouraging, entreating and rebuking in the building up of the house of God,…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Prayer — Is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or…
Temple, Solomon’s — Before his death David had “with all his might” provided materials in great abundance for the building of the temple on the summit of Mount Moriah (1 Chr. 22:14; 29:4; 2 Chr. 3:1), on the east of the…
Tent — (1.) Heb. ‘ohel (Gen. 9:21, 27). This word is used also of a dwelling or habitation (1 Kings 8:66; Isa. 16:5; Jer. 4:20), and of the temple (Ezek. 41:1). When used of the tabernacle, as in 1 Kings…
Temple, The First · Solemnly dedicated to God by Solomon — Solemnly dedicated to God by Solomon
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on 1 Kings 8:66
On the eighth day he sent the people away,.... That is, of the feast of tabernacles, the eighth from the first of that, which was a solemn day, and fell on the twenty second of the month; at the close of which the dismission was made, or they had leave to go, but they did not until the twenty third, according to 2 Chronicles 7:10.
and they blessed the king; returned him thanks for his care, and charge, and pains, in building the temple; for prayers for them, and the feast he had now made, and wished all health and happiness to him:
and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart; or to their cities, as the Targum, to their several habitations; being greatly delighted with what they had…
Thus Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly from the neighbourhood of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, i.e., from the whole land in its fullest extent from north to south. "The district of Hamath," i.e., Epiphania on the Orontes, is mentioned as the northern boundary (cf. Num 34:8; Num 13:21; Jos 13:5, etc.); and "the brook of Egypt" (מצרים נחל), Rhinocorura, as the southern boundary (cf. Num 34:8; Jos 15:4). "The feast" (החג), which Solomon held with the people "seven days and seven days, fourteen days," is not the feast of the dedication, but, as in Kg1 8:2, the feast of tabernacles, which fell in the seventh month; and the meaning of the verse is, that…
Lebo-hamath to the north in Aram and the Brook of Egypt (Wadi al Arish) to the south are the geographic boundaries that defined the Promised Land (Josh 13:5; 15:4). • seven days for the dedication of the altar and seven days for the Festival of Shelters: When the seven days for the dedication were completed, the Festival of Shelters was observed for another seven days.
Rashi on 1 Kings 8:66
For Dovid His servant. To make known that He forgave them their sins, as we find in [Maseches] Mo’ed Katan.43 9a. When Shlomo wished to bring the Ark into the Holy of Holies, the gates clung to one another.
And for Yisroel His people. That He forgave them the sin of Yom Kippur,44I.e., for having eaten on Yom Kippur. and a Bas Kol emanated and declared, “All of you are prepared for the life of the World to Come.”45Maseches Mo’ed Katan 9a.
