Month: November 2019

He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Did he ignore them? No, because he held fast to them in love (1 Kings 11:2). He loved them! Was he infertile? No! He had a son and two daughters. There was another, much greater, problem.

Perhaps he had unrecorded children? In those days many sons was a sign of strength and status. Israel had no king wealthier or wiser than Solomon. If he’d had more, we would know!

The Bible records King David’s nineteen sons, besides his sons by his concubines (1 Chronicles 3:9). Rehoboam, Solomon’s only son, had twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters (2 Chronicles 11:21)! We’re told about those.

Solomon’s first wife, Naamah, an Ammonite, gave birth to Rehoboam a year before Solomon became king (see 1 Kings 14:21). He had two daughters, Taphath and Basemath, probably also by Naamah.

A Deadly Invasion

His next wife was Pharaoh’s daughter who came to live in the palace. She was a worshiper of the Egyptian god, Amun, and goddess, Mut. Strife entered Solomon’s household.

Many years later, Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy” (2 Chronicles 8:11).

It was too late. Idolatry entered Solomon’s home, and he had no more children.

Why didn’t he forbid her idols? The short answer is politics. Solomon had made a vital political alliance with Pharaoh, and he daren’t rock the boat. It was important to be seen to be doing the right thing.

How often do we make decisions based on what people think of us?

King Solomon of Israel was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. It was to prove deadly. Worse still its long shadow still cripples us today.

His father, King David, promoted him to the monarchy above his brothers. Barely eighteen, he asked the Lord for wisdom. In a dream, the Lord promised he would establish his throne forever, if he kept the covenant.

It all began so well. The magnificent temple, his even more magnificent palace, peace with his neighbors . . .

His countless projects required extensive funds, raised through taxes, arms dealing (he bought and sold chariots and horses,) and expeditions for gold.

God-given wisdom attracted sycophants. Envoys from distant lands brought gifts, gold, and wives. It would have been political suicide to refuse. Besides, he loved them.

And like Jacob’s Rachel, they brought their gods. I am sure, at first, Solomon’s heart was vexed. What would his father have said? But as their idols adorned the corners of the palace, and their temples spread like cancer up the Mount of Olives, no thunderbolts fell from heaven; no one fell dead like Uzzah when he touched the Ark.

A prosperous deception

Rather, the prosperity of the nation continued to increase―surely the measure of the Lord’s great blessing? It came at a price.

Ecclesiastes is the outpouring of a confused and depressed old man. Solomon died in his bed, but his son, Rehoboam, split the nation apart. Within four years, Egypt had invaded, beginning the slippery slope to exile.

Solomon could have refused the idols. So could we. For aren’t we at risk of the same outcomes? His father committed adultery and murder. The Lord graciously forgave him. Solomon fell into idolatry and left us a legacy of division and invasion. It’s already happening. Are we destined for exile too?

Seven hundred, of royal birth? And three hundred concubines? Do the math: he must have had a wedding a week, unless he married them a dozen at a time. It seems so unlikely many commentators have dismissed the figures as political spin. Fake news. But the Bible isn’t fake.

Solomon reigned for forty years. According to 1 Kings 14:21, his son Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king… His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.

 Therefore Solomon married his first wife, Naamah, at least two years before he was crowned. Why?

Cheaper than war

The Ammonites had dishonored Solomon’s father, King David. Rather than sue for peace, they waged a war that they lost―badly. Did David arrange the marriage of his son to an Ammonite as a political expedient to patch up relations? If so, it set a precedent.

Next, Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter. This was rare. Pharaohs didn’t marry off daughters to their neighbors. There must have been a huge carrot. There was. Sinai.

David had conquered territory as far as the “Shur of Egypt” (1 Samuel 27:8), the wall beside the Nile. However, Solomon only reigned to the Wadi of Egypt, near modern-day Gaza (1 Kings 4:24–5). The Sinai lay between the two.

Solomon must have traded it away for Pharaoh’s daughter, another political alliance, and for the city of Gezer that Pharaoh gave him as a dowry.

Strategic Sinai has been subject to negotiation for thousands of years!

Once Solomon fell for the ruse of matrimonial alliances, the rest became obvious. After all, keeping wives would have been cheaper than war.

They might have bought peace, but at what cost? Their gods came with them, and the slippery slope of compromise began.