1 Kings 8:61

Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 8:61. Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord your God — Be sincere and serious in your purposes of new obedience. Let it be universal, without dividing; upright, without dissembling; and constant, without declining. Thus having spoken to God for them, he here speaks from God to them; and those only would be the better for his prayers, that were made better by his preaching.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:54-61 Never was a congregation dismissed with what was more likely to affect them, and to abide with them. What Solomon asks for in this prayer, is still granted in the intercession of Christ, of which his supplication was a type. We shall receive grace sufficient, suitable, and seasonable, in every time of need. No human heart is of itself willing to obey the gospel call to repentance, faith, and newness of life, walking in all the commandments of the Lord, yet Solomon exhorts the people to be perfect. This is the scriptural method, it is our duty to obey the command of the law and the call of the gospel, seeing we have broken the law. When our hearts are inclined thereto, feeling our sinfulness and weakness, we pray for Divine assistance; thus are we made able to serve God through Jesus Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

As at this day - i. e. "as ye are now doing, in coming with pious intentions to this festival."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ki 8:22-61. His Prayer.

22. Solomon stood before the altar—This position was in the court of the people, on a brazen scaffold erected for the occasion (2Ch 6:13), fronting the altar of burnt offering, and surrounded by a mighty concourse of people. Assuming the attitude of a suppliant, kneeling (1Ki 8:54; compare 2Ch 6:24) and with uplifted hands, he performed the solemn act of consecration—an act remarkable, among other circumstances, for this, that it was done, not by the high priest or any member of the Aaronic family, but by the king in person, who might minister about, though not in, holy things. This sublime prayer [1Ki 8:22-35], which breathes sentiments of the loftiest piety blended with the deepest humility, naturally bore a reference to the national blessing and curse contained in the law—and the burden of it—after an ascription of praise to the Lord for the bestowment of the former, was an earnest supplication for deliverance from the latter. He specifies seven cases in which the merciful interposition of God would be required; and he earnestly bespeaks it on the condition of people praying towards that holy place. The blessing addressed to the people at the close is substantially a brief recapitulation of the preceding prayer [1Ki 8:56-61].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Perfect, i.e. sincere and serious in your purposes of obedience; for sinless perfection he himself taught them was not to be expected here, Ecclesiastes 7:20.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord your God,.... Sincere in their love to him, united in their worship of him, and constant in their obedience to him:

to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day: as they did that day, neither king nor people having as yet fallen into idolatry, but showing by their then present appearance a zeal for God, his house, and worship.

Geneva Study Bible

Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

61. perfect] i.e. ‘Entirely surrendered’ (shâläm). So in Arabic islam = religion as entire submission; moslem, the religious man as entirely devoted.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 61. - Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God [An instructive commentary on these words is found in 1 Kings 11:4, where it is said of this Solomon, "His heart was not perfect," etc. - same words. Similarly, ib. vers. 3, 9 are a comment on the prayer of ver. 58. Having preached to others, he himself became a castaway], to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, us at this day [That day the nation proved its piety by the dedication of the house. At the close of this prayer (omitted in Chronicles), according to 2 Chronicles 7:1, "fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house," but Bahr rejects these words as an interpolation. He maintains, indeed, that the chronicler contradicts himself, for we can hardly think that the glory which we are told (1 Kings 5:14) had already filled the house, left it and then returned. It is certainly suspicious, and a much stronger argument against the words in question, that no mention of the fire is made by our author, for, brief as this history is, it is difficult to believe that so signal an interposition could have remained unnoticed, if it really occurred. SECTION IV. - The Festal Sacrifices. The ceremonial of dedication was followed, as would naturally be the case, by sacrifices on a scale of unusual grandeur. Apart from their religious use and significance, the sacrifices testified to the devotion of the giver who on this of all days must not appear before the Lord empty, and they also afforded materials for the great and prolonged feast by which this auspicious event in the history of Israel must be commemorated. 1 Kings 8:61

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Let your heart be יי עם שׁלם, wholly, undividedly devoted to the Lord (cf. 1 Kings 11:4; 1 Kings 15:3, 1 Kings 15:14, etc.).