then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),
Solomon has just listed the troubles that could drive Israel to pray — famine, defeat, plague, exile. Now he names the one thing that makes such prayer answerable: God reads the heart. The verse asks Him to hear, to forgive, to act, and to repay each person. Every request rests on a knowledge no one else has.
Knowledge That Belongs to God Alone
Solomon says it twice: "you, you only." That repetition marks off something no creature can share.
Arend RemmersHe is omniscient, all-knowing. He is the only Being able to do so. Solomon says in 1 Kings 8:39, "you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind". This can only be said of God. He knows the inward thoughts and feelings of every man.
This shuts out more than human onlookers. Even the enemy who studies us must judge from the outside.
George CuttingThe enemy cannot read men's hearts. "You only know the hearts of all the children of mankind" (1 Kings 8:39). He has no spiritual discernment. He cannot understand the purposes of God, nor the spiritual exercises of God's people. But he can form his own judgment from what men do, and he watches them closely.
The Known Heart as a Plea for Pardon
Notice where Solomon puts this fact. It sits inside a request for pardon, not a warning.
The Bible TreasuryStill in this desperate condition of the people, he says, "and render to each ... according to all his ways" (2 Chron. 6:30). But here forgiveness is blended with the law. Forgiveness had no place in the law as Moses gave it, though God did reveal His forgiving character to him on the mountain (Ex. 34:6-7). Now it stands out, and God's perfect and absolute knowledge of the heart becomes, as it were, the plea for forgiveness. Under the gospel it is not law alone. Nor is it law and grace mixed, as it was when Moses interceded. It is grace reigning through righteousness by Christ our Lord.
Mercy Mixed With Law
Pardon does not cancel the repaying. God forgives, and He still deals with each person according to his ways. The goal of both is that people would fear Him.
H. L. RossierShould they repent in heart, the prayer of only one man would be enough, if they stretched out their hands towards this house. God might then hear in heaven and forgive, yet still render to each according to his ways, so that people would fear Him. It is ever law, but with that mixture of mercy that it might allow if God would find truth in the heart (vv. 35-40).
The Trouble No One Else Can See
A verse earlier, Solomon spoke of a man knowing the affliction of his own heart. Because God knows that heart, the sufferer can bring his hidden wound into the open before Him.
Hamilton SmithIn his prayer, Solomon speaks of every man knowing "the affliction of his own heart." He points to the only way of relief: spreading it out before God (1 Kings 8:38). An affliction in the heart is something only that person knows, and it comes in to spoil his joy. It is some unsettled question between the soul and God. It may be some secret sin never confessed. Faith sees the grace that is in the heart of Christ. It can spread the affliction out before Him and find deliverance from every evil influence.
The Test Christ Passed
Because this knowledge belongs to God alone, anyone who shows it has made a claim about who He is. Commentators point to the moment Jesus answered thoughts no one had spoken.
The Bible TreasuryHe who saw the faith of the five men read the reasoning of the scribes in His own omniscient spirit (cp. John 2:24; John 6:61). It was not by a power lent to Him for the moment, as it might have been with a prophet. Only God could see into the secret workings of man's spirit, as Solomon confessed in his prayer (1 Kings 8:39; 1 Chron. 28:9; 2 Chron. 6:30; Ezek. 11:5). By answering their thoughts, the Lord gave the Pharisees proof of the nature of His Person. Who else could "hear them thinking"?
Summary
- Known — Only God reads the heart of every person. No man can do it, and neither can the enemy who watches how we act.
- Forgiven — Solomon does not use that knowledge to accuse. He offers it to God as the reason pardon is possible.
- Spread out — Only the sufferer and God know the trouble in a heart. The way of relief is to lay it out before Him.
- Repaid — Pardon does not cancel God's dealing with each according to his ways. Here mercy and law stand together.
- Feared — The whole prayer ends here. A people whom God reads and pardons will fear Him all their days.