The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 181

Vers. 41---43.- The Stranger's Interest in the Temple. Kindly human sympathy is one of the most marked characteristics of this prayer of Solomon. This is seen in the way in which he enters into various supposed conditions of need and suffering among his people ; t11kes the burden and the "plague " upon himself as if it were his own; a true intercessor on their behalf. His royalty assumes here the aspect of fatherhood. The model king is one in heart and interest with those over whom he rules, We are reminded, too, that before the "mercy-seat " of God all human distinctions o.re lost. All suppliants stand on one common level, subject to the same dangers o.nd necessities. All true prayer, therefore, is thus broad in its sympathies. But in this passage the king's supplications take a wid~r range than the needs of his own people. He pleads for the "stranger," the foreigner from a" far country." This is strictly in harmony with the Dinne economy of the time, however much it may seem to be otherwise. It is remarkable how much there was in the Mosaic law that was expressly intended to enforce on the people a generous regard for those who were beyond their pale. They were commanded not to "vex a stranger" (Exod. xxii. 21), to relieve his poverty (Lent_ xxv. 35), even to "love" him as '' God loveth him in giving him food and raiment" (Deut. x. 18, 19), and all this in memory of the fact that they themselves were once " strangers in the land of Egypt." Strangers, moreover, were to be permitted to hear the solemn reading of the law in the "year of release" (Deut. xxri. 12), and to offer sacrifices on the same conditions as themselves. "One law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you" (Num. xv. 16). So that Solomon gave expression to the spirit of the dispen- sation to which he belonged when he thus prayed. Certain broad trutlis underlie this prayer- I. JEHOVAH's UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY, He is the "God of the whole eartli," and not merely of any particular portion of it (Isa. liv. 5). " Is he the God of the Jews only and not of Uie Gentiles?" (Rom. iii. 29.) "The God of the spirits of all flesh" (Nnm_ xvi. 22). The whole Mosaic economy was built on the grand truth of the umty and absolute world-wide supremacy of Jehovah. The heathe according to their principle of local deities, might acknowledge the God of the ebrews as having authority over his own, but a Hebrew who should in any way recognize the gods of other nations and think of Jehovah merely as a national deity ould be a. traitor to the co=onwealth. The only living and true God can have no rival. The gods of the nations are idols, and "an idol is nothing in the world"-" a lying vanity," a vile "abomination." "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God" (1 Cor. viii. 4, 5 ; x. 20). To "know God," to have "him whom they ignorantly worship" declared to them, is " eternal life" to men. The absence of this knowledge is death. The curse and misery of the world is that it " knows not its God. '' Solomon here dimly recognizes this trutli ; and the case he contemplates is that of some child of the Universal Father in whom the sense of need has been awakened, " coming from a far country" to "seek the Lord, if haply he may feel after him and find him" (Acts xvii. 27, 28). II. THE REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER OF ISRAEL, They were a representative people in two respects. (1) Inasmuch as they were called to bear witness to the glory of the" great na.me" of Jehovah. His name is the symbol of His personality, the attributes of His being and character-spirituality, purity, righteousness, love, &c. Their mission was to make known to mankind the God who had revealed Himself in wondrous forms to them. How they failed to rise to the height of this mission their national history only too sadly tells. The utterances of the psalmists and prophets are full of the spirit of it, but a.ll this was far above the comprehension of the great mass of the people. They utterly mistook the meaning of the distinc- tion conferred upon them, and God taught them by the discipline of subjection and captivity the lesson that in the day of their national glory they failed to learn, In this mission as a witness Israel was a type of the Christian Church. Christ declared the Father's name to His disciples and He sent them forth on an erran~ like His own (John xvii.18-26). How grand a vocation, to reflect the glory of His" great name" on the world's darkness, to say to the nations, "Behold your God I" (2) They CJB, VIII, 1- 66,l THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 181