Verse Lens · Concise explanation
1 Kings 8:33 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 33. 33When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse opens the thought unit and establishes its first action or speech: “When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “Prayer after military defeat.”
Defeat is imagined as a consequence of sin, then as a path back
This verse is one part of that explanation in 1 Kings 8:33–34. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- 1 Kings 8:33–34
Read 1 Kings 8:33 with 8:33–34. The selected wording supplies one opening in the thought unit and establishes its first action or speech; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: Imagines Israel's military defeat, confession, and return after sin; asks for forgiveness and restoration to the ancestral land after defeat.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Within “Prayer after military defeat,” 1 Kings 8:33 opens the thought unit and establishes its first action or speech through the wording “When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: 1 Kings 8:31–32 establishes this prior movement: Introduces a case in which an accused neighbor takes an oath at the altar; asks God to judge the guilty and vindicate the righteous in that dispute. 1 Kings 8:33–34 responds to the pressure, request, or claim already established; that demonstrated relationship, rather than database adjacency alone, explains its placement.
Read 1 Kings 8:33–34 together
Why these verses belong together: Prayer after military defeat is the complete reviewed scene, prayer, oracle, list, or regnal notice bounded at 8:33–8:34.
Verse 33. 33 When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:
Verse 34. 34 Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers.
What Remains True
Public power and worship remain accountable to truth, covenant faithfulness, affected people, and consequences rather than title, success, wealth, or majority support. This unit tests that truth through imagines Israel's military defeat, confession, and return after sin; asks for forgiveness and restoration to the ancestral land after defeat. In 1 Kings 8:33, the concrete line “When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall…” keeps that truth accountable to the narrated evidence.
Continue in Context
Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.
Read 1 Kings 8:33–34 — Prayer after military defeatSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: 1 Kings 8:33–34, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Kings
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording and morphology used for lexical, grammatical, name, clause, and older-English checks; this is not a critical apparatus or historical proof.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 8:33–34
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 1 Kings with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Only printed unit-level translation, lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, and verse-numbering notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible 1 Kings PDF, printed pp. 599–602, translation and translator notes for 8:33–34
Open source ↗