Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 9:8

"And though this house is so high, yet shall every one that passeth by it be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath Jehovah done thus unto this land, and to this house?" — 1 Kings 9:8 (ASV)

At this house, which is high. —The word “which” is not in the original Hebrew here (although found in the present Hebrew text of 2 Chronicles 7:21). The true meaning is certainly “This house shall be high;” which is the reading of the Septuagint, while the Vulgate has a good explanatory gloss, “This house shall be for an example.” Various corrections have been proposed, but there seems no necessity for them.

There is evidently an allusion to the lofty position of the Temple. Generally the exaltation of “the mountain of the Lord” is made a type of its glory (Psalms 68:15–16, etc.); here of its destruction. Its magnificence and its ruin are equally conspicuous: for “a city set on a hill cannot be hid.”