Bible Strands
1 Kings 8:47
and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Solomon addresses God during the temple dedication prayer, outlining a future sequence where Israel sins, faces military defeat, and is exiled to a foreign land.
The words — הֵשִׁיבוּ (he.Shi.vu) literally translates to "they will bring back," and שָׁבוּ (Sha.vu) means "they will repent."
The thread — The text's formula of confessing sin and pleading with God recurs in Psalms 106:6, Ezra 9:6, and Nehemiah 1:6.
Why it lands — The passage states that repentance in captivity requires verbal acknowledgment of wrongdoing and directed prayer, requiring a reader to note the specific conditions under which exiled Israel is instructed to seek God’s attention.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness;
Cross-references
- Psalms 106:6 We have sinned like our fathers; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
- Ezra 9:6 and said: “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens.
- Nehemiah 1:6 let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to hear the prayer that I, Your servant, now pray before You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins that we Israelites have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned.
- Nehemiah 9:26 But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.
- Leviticus 26:40 But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—
- Deuteronomy 4:29 But if from there you will seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Deuteronomy 30:1 “When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you,
- 2 Chronicles 33:12 And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.
- 2 Chronicles 6:37 and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’
- Job 33:27 Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.