And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted!
Parallel translations
- WEB Your servant is among your people which you have chosen, a great people, that can’t be numbered or counted for multitude.
- KJV And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
- BSB Your servant is here among the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to count or number.
- NKJV And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted.
- NASB And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Solomon recognizes he rules God's own chosen people, too numerous to count. The greatness of the task deepens his sense of dependence.
Overview
Solomon sees the people not as his possession but as God's chosen nation, recalling the promises to Abraham of innumerable descendants. The vast responsibility of judging such a people drives him to seek what no man can supply on his own. His awareness that the kingdom belongs to God reframes leadership as stewardship before the true King.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Gen 15:5Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So will your offspring be.”
- Gen 22:17that I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your offspring greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the gate of his enemies.
- Gen 13:16I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring may also be counted.
- 1 Chr 21:2David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know how many there are.”
- 1 Chr 27:23–24But David didn’t take the number of them from twenty years old and under, because Yahweh had said he would increase Israel like the stars of the sky.
- 1 Sam 12:22For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people for himself.
- Ps 78:71from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
- Deut 7:6–8For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.
- 1 Chr 21:5–6Joab gave up the sum of the census of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew a sword; and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew a sword.
- Exod 19:5–6Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Solomon's glory, wisdom, and temple where God's presence dwells are a shadow of the greater Son of David — 'one greater than Solomon is here' — and of the true Temple, Christ himself.
How 1 Kings 3:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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