21:22; Mark 11:24; James 1:6), reference should be made in connection with verses 23-26 to the following

passages: Exodus 15:11; Deuteronomy 4:39; 7:9; Joshua 2:11; 2 Samuel 7:12-22; 22:32; Psalm 86:8. In regard

to the second part of the Introduction (vers. 27-30), we specially note the emphatic assertion, that He,

Whose Presence they saw in the cloud, was really in "heaven," and yet "our Father," who art upon earth.

These two ideas seem carried out in it, (1) not as heathenism does, do we locate God here; nor yet will we, as

carnal Israel did (Jeremiah 7:4; Micah 3:11), imagine that ex opere operato (by any mere deed of ours) God

will necessarily attend even to His own appointed services in His house. Our faith rises higher - from the

Seen to the Unseen - from the God of Israel to our Father; it realizes the spiritual relationship of children,

which alone contains the pledge of His b lessing; and through which, though He be in heaven, yet faith

knows and addresses Him as an ever-present help. Thus Solomon's prayer avoided alike the two extremes of

unspiritual realism and of unreal spiritualism.

The first petition (vers. 31, 32) in the stricter sense opens the prayer, which in ver. 28 had been outlined,

according to its prevailing characteristics, as "petition," "prayer for mercy" (forgiveness and grace), and

"thanksgiving" (praise).131

It is essentially an Old Testament "Hallowed be Thy Name," in its application to the sanctity of an oath as

its highest expression, inasmuch as thereby the reality of God's holiness is challenged. The analogy

between the second petition (vers. 33, 34) and that in the Lord's Prayer is not so evident at first sight. But it

is none the less real, since its ideal fulfillment would mark the coming of the kingdom of God, which neither

sin from within nor enemy from without could endanger. The references in this petition seem to be to

Leviticus 26:3, 7, 14, 17; Deuteronomy 28:1-7, 15-25; and again to Leviticus 26:33, and 40- 42, and

Deuteronomy 4:26-28; 28:64-68, and 4:29-31; 30:1-5. The organic connection, so to speak, between heaven

and earth, which lies at the basis of the third petition in the Lord's Prayer, is also expressed in that of

Solomon (vers. 35, 36). Only in the one case we have the New Testament realization of that grand idea, or

rather ideal, while in the other we have its Old Testament aspect. The references here are to Leviticus 26:19;

Deuteronomy 11:17; 28:23, 24. At the same time the rendering of our Authorized Version (1 Kings 8:35):

"When Thou afflictest them," should be altered to, "Because Thou humblest them," which indicates the

moral effect of God's discipline, and the last link in the chain of true repentance.

The correspondence between the fourth petition in the Solomonic (vers. 37- 40) and in our Lord's Prayer will

be evident - always keeping in view the difference between the Old and the New Testament standpoint. But

perhaps verses 38-40 may mark the transition from, and connection between the first and second parts of the

prayer. The fifth petition (vers. 41-43), which concerns the acceptance of the prayers of strangers (not

proselytes), is based on the idea of the great mutual forgiveness by those who are forgiven of God, fully

realized in the abolition of the great enmity and separation, which was to give place to a common

brotherhood of love and service - "that all the people of the earth may know Thy Name, to fear Thee, as Thy

people Israel." Here also we note the difference between the Old and the New Testament form of the petition

- a remark which must equally be kept in view in regard to the other two petitions. These, indeed, seem to

bear only a very distant analogy to the concluding portion of the Lord's Prayer. Yet that there was real

"temptation" to Israel, and real "deliverance from evil" sought in these petitions, appears from the language

of confession put into the mouth of the captives (ver. 47), which, as we know, was literally adopted by those

in Babylon132 (Daniel 9:5; Psalm 106:6).

Here sin is presented in its threefold aspect as failure, so far as regards the goal, or stumbling and falling (in

the Authorized Version "we have sinned"); then as perversion (literally, making crooked); and, lastly, as

tumultuous rebellion (in the Authorized Version "committed wickedness"). Lastly, the three concluding

verses (vers. 51-53)may be regarded either as the argument for the last petitions, or else as an Old Testament

version of " Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." But the whole prayer is the opening of the

door into heaven - a door moving, if the expression be lawful, on the two hinges of sin and of grace, of need

and of provision.