Verse Lens · Concise explanation
1 Kings 8:40 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 40. 40That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse closes the thought unit with its stated result or transition: “That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “Prayer amid famine, disease, siege, and personal grief.”
Famine, plague, blight, locusts, siege, and sickness are listed without polish
This verse is one part of that explanation in 1 Kings 8:37–40. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- 1 Kings 8:37–40
Read 1 Kings 8:40 with 8:37–40. The selected wording supplies one closing in the thought unit with its stated result or transition; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: Names famine, epidemic, crop disease, insects, siege, illness, and other afflictions without minimizing them; states that the hoped-for outcome is enduring reverence in the land.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Within “Prayer amid famine, disease, siege, and personal grief,” 1 Kings 8:40 closes the thought unit with its stated result or transition through the wording “That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: 1 Kings 8:35–36 establishes this prior movement: Imagines drought as covenant discipline followed by prayer, confession, and turning; asks God to forgive, teach the good way, and restore rain to the inherited land. 1 Kings 8:37–40 interprets, evaluates, or organizes what the preceding movement has established; that demonstrated relationship, rather than database adjacency alone, explains its placement.
Read 1 Kings 8:37–40 together
Why these verses belong together: Prayer amid famine, disease, siege, and personal grief is the complete reviewed scene, prayer, oracle, list, or regnal notice bounded at 8:37–8:40.
Verse 37. 37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
Verse 38. 38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
Verse 39. 39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)
Verse 40. 40 That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
What Remains True
Faithful care keeps bodily need, grief, danger, agency, and honest uncertainty visible rather than converting suffering into blame or a promised formula. This unit tests that truth through names famine, epidemic, crop disease, insects, siege, illness, and other afflictions without minimizing them; states that the hoped-for outcome is enduring reverence in the land. In 1 Kings 8:40, the concrete line “That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto…” 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 8:37–40 — Prayer amid famine, disease, siege, and personal griefSources 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 8:37–40, 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 8:37–40
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 8:37–40
Open source ↗