1 Kings 8:45 (WEB)

Passage

then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

Nearby Context

1 Kings 8:43 hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.

1 Kings 8:44 “If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name;

1 Kings 8:45 then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

1 Kings 8:46 If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;

1 Kings 8:47 yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;’

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "hear", "heaven", "prayer", "supplication", "maintain", and "cause". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "hear" and "heaven", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 44's "If your people go out to battle..." into verse 46's "If they sin against you for there...", so "hear" and "heaven" 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 "hear" and "heaven" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.