“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;
Parallel Translations
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“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;
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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;
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If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to 1 Kings 8:37 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 28:21-22 Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.
- Leviticus 26:16 I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
- Deuteronomy 28:38-42 You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it. You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground.
- 2 Chronicles 20:9 ‘If evil comes on us—the sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this house, and before you (for your name is in this house), and cry to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’
- Leviticus 26:25-46 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied. “ ‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it. “ ‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them. “ ‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that because they walked contrary to me, I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God. But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’ ” These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
- Deuteronomy 28:25 Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Deuteronomy 28:52-61 They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which Yahweh your God has given you. You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH your God, then Yahweh will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, Yahweh will bring them on you until you are destroyed.
- 2 Kings 6:25-29 There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” He said, “If Yahweh doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”
- 1 Chronicles 21:12 either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and Yahweh’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’ ”
- 2 Chronicles 6:28-31 “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who will each know his own plague and his own sorrow, and shall spread out his hands toward this house; then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of the children of men) that they may fear you, to walk in your ways, so long as they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
- Psalms 105:34-35 He spoke, and the locusts came with the grasshoppers, without number, ate up every plant in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground.
- Jeremiah 32:2 Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.
- Jeremiah 39:1-3 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.
- Ezekiel 14:21 For the Lord Yahweh says: “How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, the famine, the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal!
- Joel 1:4-7 What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.
- Joel 2:25-26 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of Yahweh, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Hebrew, in the land of their gates.
Hebrew, in the land of their gates.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 1Ki 8:37 If there be in the land famine,…
1Ki 8:37 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];
Ver. 37. If blasting mildew, &c.] These, the very heathens acknowledged to be God’s judgments upon a land, and therefore had their feasts called Rubigalia and Floralia, to prevent them. {a}
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Whatsoever sickness there be.] Physicians reckon up two thousand, and more.
{a} Plin., lib. xviii,
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Caterpillar, i.e. the plague of locusts, or caterpillars, infesting…
Caterpillar, i.e. the plague of locusts, or caterpillars, infesting a land by their great numbers, and venomous or noxious qualities; of which see Exo 10:4,5; Deu 28:42; Psa 105:34,35.
Whatsoever plague; that chiefly signifies an extraordinary judgment sent from God.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Through want of rain, or any other cause, as…
Through want of rain, or any other cause, as there had been a three years' famine in the time of David, and it is supposed it might be again, though Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey:
if there be pestilence; as there had been, for David's numbering the people:
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blasting; or blights, occasioned by the east wind:
mildew; a kind of clammy dew, which falling on plants, corn, &c. corrupts and destroys them, see Amo 4:9,
locust, or
if there be caterpillar; creatures very pernicious to the fruits of the earth, and cause a scarcity of them, see Joe 1:4,
if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; so that they cannot go out to gather the increase of the earth, or till their land:
whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be; whatever stroke from the hand of God, or what judgment or calamity soever befalls.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 37. If there be in the land famine…
Verse 37. If there be in the land famine - pestilence] The FOURTH case includes several kinds of evils:
1. Famine; a scarcity or total want of bread, necessarily springing from the preceding cause, drought.
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2. Pestilence; any general and contagious disease.
3. Blasting; any thing by which the crops are injured, so that the ear is never matured; but instead of wholesome grain, there is a black offensive dust.
4. Mildew; any thing that vitiates or corrodes the texture of the stalk, destroys the flowers and blossoms, or causes the young shaped fruits to fall off their stems.
5. Locust, a well known curse in the East, a species of grasshopper that multiplies by millions, and covers the face of the earth for many miles square, destroying every green thing; leaving neither herb nor grass upon the earth, nor leaf nor bark upon the trees.
6. Caterpillar; the locust in its young or nympha state. The former refers to locusts brought by winds from other countries and settling on the land; the latter, to the young locusts bred in the land.
7. An enemy, having attacked their defenced cities, the keys and barriers of the land.
8. Any other kind of plague; that which affects the surface of the body; blotch, blain, leprosy, ophthalmia, c.
9. Sickness whatever impaired the strength, or affected the intestines, disturbing or destroying their natural functions.
All such cases were to be brought before the Lord, the persons having a deep sense of the wickedness which induced God thus to afflict, or permit them to be afflicted: for only those who knew the plague of their own hearts, (1Kg 8:38), the deep-rooted moral corruption of their nature, and the destructive nature and sinfulness of sin, were likely to pray in such a manner as to induce God to hear and forgive.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Ki 8:37. If there be in the land famine…
1Ki 8:37. If there be in the land famine — Which arose sometimes from other causes besides want of rain. If their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities — In their gates, whereby they should be so straitened, that none could go in or out. Whatsoever plague — The word נגע, negang, here rendered plague, properly signifies some extraordinary stroke by the hand of God. Whatsoever sickness there be — For Solomon believed whatever calamity befel other people, might light on Israel.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In the land of their cities - literally, “in…
In the land of their cities - literally, “in the land of their gates.” Hence, the marginal translation “jurisdiction,” because judgments were pronounced in the town gates Deu 16:18. Another reading gives “in one of their cities.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Mildew. Hebrew also, "a bruchus," or a young locust.…
Mildew. Hebrew also, "a bruchus," or a young locust. Protestants, "caterpillar."
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 37. Blasting — Destruction of grain by a pernicious…
37. Blasting — Destruction of grain by a pernicious east wind. Com.
Gen_41:6. Deu_28:22; Amo_4:9.
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Mildew — ירקון, yellowness. A disease of grain, produced in the East by a hot, poisonous wind which turns the ears yellow.
Locust — A destructive insect, swarms of which frequently devastate Palestine and neighbouring lands. See on Exo_10:4. Says an Eastern traveller: “With the burning south winds there come from the interior of Arabia and from the most southern parts of Persia clouds of locusts, whose ravages to these countries are as grievous, and nearly as sudden, as those of the heaviest hail in Europe. We witnessed them twice. It is difficult to express the effect produced on us by the sight of the whole atmosphere filled on all sides and to a great height by an innumerable quantity of these insects, whose flight was slow and uniform, and whose noise resembled that of rain; the sky was darkened, and the light of the sun was considerably weakened. In a moment the terraces of the houses, the streets, and all the fields were covered by these insects, and in two days they had nearly devoured all the leaves of the plants.” — Olivier.
Caterpillar — The word חסיל, chasil, from חסל, to strip off, or devour, can hardly designate the caterpillar, though, besides here and the parallel passage in 2Ch_6:28, it is so rendered in Psa_78:46; Isa_34:4; Joe_1:4; Joe_2:25. In Deu_28:38 the ravages of the locusts are represented by the verb חסל, and it is therefore better to understand by the word chasil a kind of locust, specially noted for stripping off and devouring the very last vestige of vegetation, even after other destructive insects had gone before it. Compare Joe_1:4.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 37. If there be in the land famine] In…
37. If there be in the land famine] In this verse the king gathers together various judgements which God had threatened on His people if they sinned. For famine cf. Lev_26:20; Deu_11:17 : for blasting and mildew, Deu_28:22; for locust, Deu_28:38. The particular insect rendered ‘caterpillar’ in this verse is not mentioned in the Pentateuch, but we know from Joe_2:25, that some other kind, or stage of development, of locust is meant by it. In Deu_28:42 we have mention of an insect, also rendered ‘locust,’ which has a different name in the original from that spoken of in 1Ki_8:38 of the same chapter. The siege by an enemy is threatened in Deu_28:52.
in the land of their cities] The Hebrew word translated ‘cities’ usually signifies ‘gates,’ and it is so rendered Deu_28:52 ‘He shall besiege thee in all thy gates.’ But in ‘gates’ the ‘cities,’ which alone possessed them, are implied. The LXX. and other versions have ‘in one of their cities.’ The Vulg. has ‘gates.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (37-40) If there be pestilence.—He then passes on to…
(37-40) If there be pestilence.—He then passes on to the various plagues threatened in the Law—famine, pestilence, blasting of the corn, mildew on the fruit, locust and caterpillar (see Lev_26:25-26; Deu_28:22-24; Deu_28:38-42), the distress of siege, so terribly depicted (Deu_28:52-57), and so often terribly fulfilled (not least in the last great siege of Jerusalem), and adds, to sum up all, “whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be.” Through any, or all of these, he pictures each man as brought to “know the plague of his own heart”—that is, as startled into a consciousness of sin, and recognition of it as the true “plague,” the cause of all outward plagues, and so drawn to prayer of penitence and of godly fear.
Thou only, knowest the hearts . . . of men. The emphasis laid on this knowledge of the heart (as in Psa_11:4; Psa_139:2-4; Jer_17:9-10) as the special attribute of Deity, though, of course, belonging to all vital religion, yet marks especially the leading thought of the Psalms and the Proverbs, which always realise the presence of God, not so much in the outer spheres of Nature and history, as in the soul of man itself. It carries with it, as here, the conviction that, under the general dealings of God’s righteousness with man, there lies an individuality of judgment, making them to each exactly what his spiritual condition needs. The plague, for example, which cuts off one man unrepentant in his sins, may be to another a merciful “deliverance out of the miseries of this sinful world.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain If there be in the land famine Heb. Famine…
If there be in the land famine Heb. Famine should there be, etc. The word is emphatic by position. Famine is denounced, Lev_26:20, 26 Deu_28:33, if there be pestilence Leviticus Jer_14:12 Jer_24:10 Amo_4:10 Eze_6:12, etc., blasting same word (Gen_41:6 Amo_4:9 Deu_28:22) , mildew lit. paleness, clwrothv, locust, or if there be caterpillar It is uncertain whether lysij; lit., devourer, here rendered "caterpillar," is not an adjective and an appellation of the locust = devouring locust. Deu_28:38 (hBraj Wnlsa "the locust shall consume it") certainly favours this view. But the Chronicles and the Verss. distinguish it here (by the introduction of "and" between the two words) as a separate plague. It is also similarly distinguished, Joe_1:4 Psa_78:46. Gesen. considers it to be a species of locust); if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities Heb. his gates, but "the land of his gates" hardly yields sense. It is noteworthy that the LXX (with most of the Verss.) reads ejn mia twn polewn aujtou. Thenius, consequently, to bring the Hebrew text into harmony, would substitute wyry tjab for wyr rab. Another suggested emendation is wyr rab, "in the land, even in their gates." But it is doubtful whether any alteration is really required. "The land of their gates" (cf. "land of their captivity," 2Ch_6:37 Jer_30:10, etc.) may perhaps be interpreted the land where their gates (i.e., fortified cities) are. The marg. "Jurisdiction the gate being the place of judgment (Pro_22:22 2Sa_15:2) is altogether out of the question); whatsoever plague, whatsoever Heb. every plague, etc. wickness there be.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 blight or mildew
blight or mildew
These are agricultural terms that refer to the death of crops from either too little or too much rain, respectively.
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locusts or caterpillars
A "locust" is a type of grasshopper that causes destruction by eating crops. The word "caterpillar" refers to an early growth stage of the locust.
prayers and requests are made by a person or by all your people Israel
This can be stated in active form. AT: "a person, or all your people Israel, prays and makes a request" (See: Active or Passive)
prayers and requests
The words "prayer" and "request" mean basically the same thing and emphasize that the person is sincere as he makes his request. See how you translated similar words in 1 Kings 8:28. AT: "requests" (See: Doublet)
knowing the plague in his own heart
Possible meanings are 1) The person's sin is spoken of as if it were a plague. AT: "knowing the sin in his own heart" or 2) The "plague" is a metonym for the sins that the disasters are a punishment for. AT: "knowing in his heart that the plague is the result of his own sin" (See: Metaphor and Metonymy)
translationWords
famine
adversary
gate
plague
pray
heart
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 8:37-40 Solomon prayed concerning various disasters caused by individual…
8:37-40 Solomon prayed concerning various disasters caused by individual or corporate sin (Lev 26:16, 19-26; Deut 28:21-22, 38-40, 42, 58-61). Solomon again asked that if God’s people confessed and truly repented, God would deal justly so that all might live in reverence before him (Deut 8:6; 2 Chr 7:14; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.