Challies has a great article (as usual)
on King Solomon with some very good reflections touching in the implications of straying from the Lord. Many consider Solomon as one who started well and ended poorly and in that sense creates an almost mythological and less a historical person. Can it be that simple? I wonder if Solomon was really the man we think he was.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please.Solomon remains in so many minds a great superhero of the Bible: the son of David, rich and full of wisdom who went bad in his old age. I see the folly of Solomon beginning at, well, the beginning of his career. He did not have any control over his birth and all that event entailed, but was his rise to the monarchy full of the glamour and glory that he built upon to usher the kingdom into its golden age? Before we can conclude whether or not Solomon ended well, we should first discover if he started well.
Consider Deuteronomy 17:14-20: “
When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.”
First, did God choose Solomon to be king? As sovereignty, yes God did choose Solomon; however, Moses was inspired to write this in anticipation for the day when Israel would ask for a king, to be like the nations. To begin with, Samuel was more like a king to Israel until Israel rejected Samuel and the Lord (1 Samuel 8). When they began to cry out for a king, they were first warned about what kind of rule they would experience. God showed Samuel that Saul was His choice for a king (1 Samuel 9:15ff). Later, David was chosen as king (1 Samuel 16, 2 Samuel 5).
When did God make his choice of Solomon be made known? He didn’t. 1 Kings begins with David in his old age and a soap-opera that even Shakespeare could not concoct. Adonijah declares himself to be king and David never questioned or corrected that declaration (1 Kings 1:5-6). Nathan had nothing to do with Adonijah, so he goes to Bathsheba and they plot and scheme a way to get Solomon onto the throne by appealing to something they remember David promising . . . that he never promised. Solomon gained the throne another means other than God’s choice.
Was Solomon a foreigner? Is it possible that he was half-Israelite? We know that Uriah (the first husband of Bathsheba) was Hittite. Could she have been a Hittite also, or perhaps Ammonite? Some scholars comment her name implies "the daughter of the goddess 'Sheva.'" An Israelite would not be named such.
Second, we read that God saying of the king, “
he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’” How did Solomon do? We see one of his first acts (after killing off any threats to the throne) was to make an alliance with Egypt by marrying an Egyptian princess (1 Kings 3). We read that he had 40,000 stalls for horses (1 Kings 4:26) and would later import horses from Egypt (1 Kings 10:28).
How’s Solomon holding up so far? Yet somehow, God was pleased to answer Solomon’s prayer for wisdom (1 Kings 3).
Third, we read that the king should not multiply wives for himself. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). And they turned his heart away to goddess worship. “For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done.” (1 Sam 11:5-6)
He failed the gold-acquisition standard in no small way (1 Kings 10:14ff).
Fourth, did he keep a copy of these things before his eyes and ears? No record that he read it all the days of his life, that he kept all the words and statutes, that his heart was not lifted up against his people. We know he turned aside from the commandment, that he loved other things and feared other things not-God.
Can we say that he finished poorly? Certainly.
But then, he never started well, either.
The pattern of his life reveals his heart: “
Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.” (1 Kings 3:3).
How do we weigh his conclusion, “
when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiates 12:13-14).
Was this repentance at the end of his life, or a statement God's glory in righteousness through judgment?
