Solomon

Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, was the third king of the united monarchy and the builder of the first temple in Jerusalem. He is remembered for an unmatched gift of judicial wisdom, a forty-year reign of peace and trade, an extensive corpus of proverbs and songs, and an old age in which his foreign wives drew his heart away to other gods. The biblical record traces his life from his birth to David through his anointing, his temple project, his international standing, and the apostasy that set the stage for the kingdom's division.

Succession to David

Solomon is listed among the sons born to David in Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:14), and his birth to Bathsheba is reported with the note, "she bore a son, and he named him Solomon. And Yahweh loved him" (2 Sam 12:24). Through Nathan the prophet he was given a second name, Jedidiah, "for Yahweh's sake" (2 Sam 12:25). The Davidic promise that "your seed after you ... will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever" (2 Sam 7:12-13) named no son explicitly, but it set the trajectory the books of Kings and Chronicles say Solomon fulfilled.

When Adonijah the son of Haggith tried to seize the throne, Nathan alerted Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:11), and David swore, "Assuredly Solomon your son will reign after me, and he will sit on my throne in my stead" (1 Kings 1:30). Zadok the priest "took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, [Long] live King Solomon" (1 Kings 1:39). David then charged Solomon with his deathbed instructions (1 Kings 2:1) and pressed on him, "Be strong and of good courage, and do it: don't be afraid, nor be dismayed; for Yahweh God, even my God, is with you; he will not fail you, nor forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of Yahweh is finished" (1 Chr 28:20). The transfer of power was confirmed in a public second anointing: "And they made Solomon the son of David king the second time, and anointed him to Yahweh to be leader, and Zadok to be priest" (1 Chr 29:22). "Then Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him" (1 Chr 29:23).

The Gift of Wisdom

At Gibeon, "Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, Ask what I will give you" (1 Kings 3:5). Solomon answered out of an acknowledged inadequacy: "I am but a small lad; I don't know how to go out or come in. And your slave is in the midst of your people which you have chosen, a great people, who are too many to be numbered or counted. Give your slave therefore an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge this your great people?" (1 Kings 3:7-9).

The gift was given immediately and in measure: "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceedingly much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the sons of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all of man" (1 Kings 4:29-31). His scope ranged from technical taxonomy of nature — "he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fish" (1 Kings 4:33) — to literary output: "And he spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five" (1 Kings 4:32).

The narrative immediately tests the gift. Two prostitutes claimed the same surviving infant, each insisting the dead child was the other's (1 Kings 3:17-23). Solomon's order — "Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other" (1 Kings 3:25) — drew out the true mother, "for her heart yearned over her son" (1 Kings 3:26), and "all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do justice" (1 Kings 3:28). Sirach summarizes the early years similarly: "How wise were you in your youth, And overflowed, like the Nile, with instruction; You covered the earth with your soul, And gathered parables like the sea" (Sir 47:14-15).

The Temple

Building the house of Yahweh was the defining work of the reign. Solomon explained the project to Hiram of Tyre by appeal to the new political situation: "David my father could not build a house for the name of Yahweh his God for the wars which were about him on every side ... But now Yahweh my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary, nor evil occurrence. And, look, I purpose to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God" (1 Kings 5:3-5). Hiram supplied cedar and fir of Lebanon, and Solomon supplied wheat and oil year by year (1 Kings 5:10-11), as "Yahweh gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon" (1 Kings 5:12). The labor force was vast — thirty thousand conscripted Israelites in rotation (1 Kings 5:13-14), with seventy thousand burden-bearers and eighty thousand quarry workers in the mountains (1 Kings 5:15-16) — and "the king commanded, and they hewed out great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with wrought stone" (1 Kings 5:17).

Construction began "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv" (1 Kings 6:1), on Mount Moriah at the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite (2 Chr 3:1). The house measured "threescore cubits ... and its width twenty [cubits], and its height thirty cubits" (1 Kings 6:2), with a porch (1 Kings 6:3) and side-chambers in three stories (1 Kings 6:5-6). Stones were dressed at the quarry so that "there was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was being built" (1 Kings 6:7). The interior was wholly faced in cedar — "all was cedar; there was no stone seen" (1 Kings 6:18) — and Solomon "overlaid the house inside with pure gold" (1 Kings 6:21), including the inner sanctuary, where two olive-wood cherubim each ten cubits high were set with their wings stretching from wall to wall (1 Kings 6:23-27). All the carvings — "cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers" (1 Kings 6:29) — and the doors of olive-wood and fir were overlaid with gold.

Mid-construction, "the word of Yahweh came to Solomon, saying, Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will stay among the sons of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel" (1 Kings 6:11-13). "In the fourth year the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid, in the month Ziv. And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul ... the house was finished throughout all its parts ... So he was seven years in building it" (1 Kings 6:37-38). His own house took longer: "And Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house" (1 Kings 7:1).

When the temple was complete, Solomon assembled Israel and brought up the ark: "Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' [houses] of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh ... Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven; and he said, O Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you" (1 Kings 8:1-53). The Chronicler summarizes the same scene from a different angle: "Then Solomon spoke, Yahweh has said that he would stay in the thick darkness" (2 Chr 6:1), and "when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of Yahweh filled the house" (2 Chr 7:1). Sirach echoes the achievement: "Solomon reigned in days of peace, And God gave him rest round about. He prepared a house for his name, And established a sanctuary forever" (Sir 47:13).

After the dedication, "Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon" (1 Kings 9:2), confirming, "I have hallowed this house, which you have built, to put my name there forever" (1 Kings 9:3) — but with a conditional warning that if "you⁺ will turn away from following me ... and will go and serve other gods, and worship them; then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them" (1 Kings 9:6-7).

International Standing

Solomon's reign was one of empire and trade. "Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt: they brought tribute, and served Solomon all the days of his life" (1 Kings 4:21). The daily provision of the court reached "thirty cors of fine flour, and threescore cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep, besides harts, and gazelles, and roebucks, and fatted fowl" (1 Kings 4:22-23). His drinking vessels were "all of gold ... None were of silver: it was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon" (1 Kings 10:21).

His fame drew foreign rulers. "There came of all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom" (1 Kings 4:34), and "all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart" (2 Chr 9:23). The most famous visit is the queen of Sheba's: "When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of Yahweh, she came to prove him with hard questions ... And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not anything hid from the king which he did not tell her" (1 Kings 10:1-3). The Chronicler's parallel adds that "she came to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart" (2 Chr 9:1). Sirach's praise reaches the same horizon: "Your name reached to the isles afar off; And for your peace you were beloved. By your songs, proverbs, parables, And answers to questions, you astonished the peoples" (Sir 47:16-17).

The opening alliance with Egypt introduced a quieter shadow: "Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of Yahweh, and the wall of Jerusalem round about" (1 Kings 3:1).

His Writings

Solomon's literary fame fastened on four bodies of material. The first is Proverbs: "The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel" (Prov 1:1). The second is Ecclesiastes, whose opening voice is "the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem" (Ecc 1:1), self-identifying as "I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem" (Ecc 1:12). The third is the Song of Songs: "The Song of songs, which is Solomon's" (Song 1:1). The fourth is the two psalms attached to him in the Psalter: Psalm 72 — "[A Psalm] of Solomon. Give the king your judgments, O God, And your righteousness to the king's son" (Ps 72:1) — and Psalm 127 — "A Song of Ascents; of Solomon. If [the Speech of] Yahweh does not build the house, They labor in vain who build it" (Ps 127:1). The output as a whole was prodigious: "He spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five" (1 Kings 4:32).

Apostasy and Decline

The same wives and political marriages that signaled the empire's reach became the channel of its religious corruption. "King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which Yahweh said to the sons of Israel, You⁺ will not go among them, neither will they come among you⁺; for surely they will turn away your⁺ heart after their gods. Solomon stuck to these [women] in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart" (1 Kings 11:1-3). "When Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart wasn't perfect with Yahweh his God, as was the heart of David his father" (1 Kings 11:4). He went after Ashtoreth and Milcom (1 Kings 11:5), "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and did not go fully after Yahweh" (1 Kings 11:6), and "built a high place for Chemosh the detestable thing of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable thing of the sons of Ammon" (1 Kings 11:7).

Yahweh's response to the king who had heard the conditional warning at the second appearance was firm: "Yahweh was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice ... I will surely rend the kingdom from you, and will give it to your slave. Notwithstanding in your days I will not do it, for David your father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of your son. Nevertheless I will not rend away all the kingdom; but I will give one tribe to your son, for David my slave's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen" (1 Kings 11:9-13). Sirach's verdict is similarly two-edged: "But you gave your loins to women, And caused them to rule over your body; Yes, you brought a blemish upon your honor, And defiled your bed" (Sir 47:19-20). Nehemiah, generations later, used Solomon as a cautionary precedent: "Didn't Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin" (Neh 13:26). The cost continued long past his death: it was Solomon's high places that Josiah eventually defiled, "which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the detestable thing of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the detestable thing of Moab, and for Milcom the disgusting thing of the sons of Ammon" (2 Kings 23:13).

The kingdom's discontent surfaced in his son's first audience: "Your father made our yoke grievous: now therefore you make the grievous service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you" (1 Kings 12:4). "And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead" (2 Chr 9:31). Sirach closes the obituary: "And Solomon slept in Jerusalem, And left after him one who was overbearing; Great in folly, and lacking in understanding [Was] Rehoboam, he who by his counsel made the people revolt" (Sir 47:23).

New Testament References

Within UPDV scope, Solomon surfaces in Luke twice. On wisdom: "The queen of the south will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and will condemn them: for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and look, a greater than Solomon is here" (Luke 11:31). On royal splendor: "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they do not toil, neither do they spin; yet I say to you⁺, Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these" (Luke 12:27). In both sayings the Solomon of the Old Testament — wisest, most splendid — sets the maximum that Jesus is then declared to exceed.