1 Kings 8:37

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: 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.

Now he supposes, ( a. ) That the cause of the judgment would be sin, and nothing else. "If they be smitten before the enemy, if there be no rain, it is because they have sinned against thee. " It is sin that makes all the mischief. ( b. ) That the consequence of the judgment would be that they would cry to God, and make supplication to him in or towards that house.

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.”

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. 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, etc. 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, (1Ki 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.