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1 Kings 8:51-53
New English Translation
1 Kings 8:51-53
New English Translation
51 After all,[a] they are your people and your special possession[b] whom you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron-smelting furnace.[c]
52 “May you be attentive[d] to your servant’s and your people Israel’s requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you.[e] 53 After all,[f] you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession,[g] just as you, O Sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”
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- 1 Kings 8:51 tn Or “for.”
- 1 Kings 8:51 tn Heb “inheritance.”
- 1 Kings 8:51 tn The Hebrew term כּוּר (kur, “furnace,” cf. Akkadian kūru) is a metaphor for the intense heat of purification. A כּוּר was not a source of heat but a crucible (“iron-smelting furnace”) in which precious metals were melted down and their impurities burned away (see I. Cornelius, NIDOTTE 2:618-19). Thus Egypt served not as a place of punishment for the Israelites, but as a place of refinement to bring Israel to a place of submission to divine sovereignty.sn From the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. The metaphor of a furnace suggests fire and heat and is an apt image to remind the people of the suffering they endured while slaves in Egypt.
- 1 Kings 8:52 tn Heb “May your eyes be open.”
- 1 Kings 8:52 tn Heb “to listen to them in all their calling out to you.”
- 1 Kings 8:53 tn Or “For.”
- 1 Kings 8:53 tn Heb “your inheritance.”
New English Translation (NET)
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