What Does 1 Kings 8:45 Mean in the King James?
Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The words rendered “maintain their cause” say “do their mishpat” (מִשְׁפָּט, mishpat: judgment or case), the petition asks heaven to turn hearing into enacted judgment.
THE MEANING
Your prayer and plea stand before God as a real case that can be heard and acted upon. The verse joins listening to the doing of justice, so the request is for more than attention: for the case to be taken up.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being heard is merely being noticed: the verse asks hearing to culminate in the enactment of the petitioners’ case.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁפָּטָם
mishpatam
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge or decide a case; to administer judgment.
The Hebrew says “do their mishpat”, their judgment or case. “Maintain their cause” carries the sense of advocacy, while the root also makes the requested action audible: God is asked to enact judgment for them.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or decide a case.
שָׁפַט
This verb is the seed of the judicial action asked for in the verse.
shofet: A judge, one who decides cases.
שֹׁפֵט
The branch shows the authority implicit in asking God to take up their cause.
תְּפִלָּתָם
tefillatam
GROWS FROM
פלל
To intervene, intercede, or arbitrate, to bring a matter before judgment.
The Hebrew word for prayer belongs to a family that includes interceding and bringing a matter before judgment. Prayer here carries the shape of an appeal placed before someone able to act on it.
ALSO GROWS
palal: To intervene, intercede, or arbitrate.
פָּלַל
This related verb gives the prayer the shape of a plea brought forward for judgment.
hitpallel: To pray or make supplication.
הִתְפַּלֵּל
This verbal form connects the act of praying with the root’s language of intercession.
תְּחִנָּתָם
techinnatam
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor or be gracious.
Supplication grows from the language of favor: it is a plea for gracious regard. Beside prayer as an appeal before judgment, it names the plea’s vulnerability and its hoped-for reception.
ALSO GROWS
chanan: To show favor or be gracious.
חָנַן
The root names the gracious response the supplication seeks.
chen: Favor or graciousness.
חֵן
This related noun shows the kind of reception carried within the word for supplication.
THE PATTERN
A plea is heard as a matter God can take up and turn into action.
LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.THE THREAD
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.“Execute the judgment” translates the same root as “maintain their cause”: mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט, mishpat: judgment or case). Both verses join action to judgment, and Deuteronomy names the fatherless, widow, and stranger among those who receive it.
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