1 Kings 8:44 (DBY)

Passage

If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray to Jehovah toward the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name;

Nearby Context

1 Kings 8:42 (for they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy mighty hand, and of thy stretched-out arm); when he shall come and pray toward this house,

1 Kings 8:43 hear thou in the heavens thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; in order that all peoples of the earth may know thy name, [and] that they may fear thee as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name.

1 Kings 8:44 If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray to Jehovah toward the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name;

1 Kings 8:45 then hear thou in the heavens their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their right.

1 Kings 8:46 If they have sinned against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and give them up to the enemy, and they have carried them away captives unto the enemy's land, far or near;

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "people", "battle", "against", "enemy", "thou", "shalt", "send", and "pray". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "people" and "battle", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 43's "hear thou in the heavens thy dwelling-place..." into verse 45's "then hear thou in the heavens their...", so "people" and "battle" belong inside that flow. In 1 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "people" and "battle" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.