SOLOMON -The Man Who Was Full Yet Failed

SOLOMON

The Wisest Man on Earth 

 

I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. 

1 KINGS 3:12 

 

 

Most notable quality: Wisest man on earth 

Most notable accomplishment: Built the first permanent temple 

Date lived: Reigned 40 years, from 971 B.C. to 931 B.C. 

Name: Solomon, meaning “peaceful”—also called Jedidiah, “beloved of the Lord,” by Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 12:25) 

Major texts: 1 Kings 1–11; 2 Chronicles 1–9

Bare Bones Background 

After the death of King David, the mantle of leadership passed on to Solomon. Solomon is the second king of the Davidic dynasty in Israel. God promises that this dynasty will have no end (2 Samuel 7:13). Solomon inherits a kingdom that is stable and well managed. None of the surrounding nations are strong enough to break away or cause problems. 

Solomon extends his control from Egypt to the Euphrates River. During his reign of 40 years, the region is at peace, with only a few minor uprisings. 

 

Quick Sketch 

Solomon is the third king of Israel and the son of David and Bathsheba. His reign of 40 years sustains the nation as a major influence in the region. His wisdom is known far and wide. He is the wisest man of his day, and a writer of thousands of proverbs. He is an aggressive builder not only of the temple, but of palaces for himself and his many wives. He maintains a large standing army of chariots, but through diplomacy, remains at peace with the surrounding nations. 

He is the only Hebrew king ever to maintain a fleet of trading vessels. Though wealthy beyond imagination, the kingdom is always in need of money for Solomon’s lavish lifestyle and building projects. To raise money, he heavily taxes his subjects. 

 

The Big Picture 

 

Solomon’s Rise to Power

1 Kings 1–2:12 

Solomon’s rise to the throne is not without incident. David has failed to acknowledge Solomon as his heir, so the next son in line for the throne, Adonijah, starts making preparations for his own coronation as David lies dying. 

Nathan, the prophet, and Bethsheba, Solomon’s mother, remind David of his unexercised promise that Solomon would be the next king. King David gives instructions for Solomon’s accession, and seals it with an oath. Still desiring the throne, Adonijah makes a proposal to Bathsheba for Abishag, David’s handmaiden, that she be given to him as a wife. This act is seen as a threat to Solomon, who has Adonijah killed along with Joab, David’s military general who had supported Adonijah’s bid for the throne. With these apparent threats out of the way, Solomon rules without a rival. 

 

Solomon’s wisdom

1 Kings 3:5–28 

Realizing the enormity of his task as king, Solomon chooses an “understanding heart” (verse 9) when asked by God in a dream to choose anything he desires. The later incident with the two women claiming the same baby as their own typifies the wisdom that makes Solomon respected and feared for his justice. Solomon’s verdict: Cut the baby in two pieces and give half to each woman. The woman who said no was identified as the mother and given the baby. 

Solomon’s wisdom inspired him to collect and compose thousands of proverbs and songs (1 Kings 4:32). Many of his wise sayings are preserved in the book of Proverbs. He also wrote the Song of Solomon, a poetic book in praise of love in marriage. 

 

Solomon’s temple

1 Kings 6 

King David had spent the latter years of his life amassing the materials for a great temple to be built for the worship of God. He charges Solomon to carry out and complete the task. The foundation is laid 480 years after the nation’s exodus from Egypt, in the year 965 B.C., and the temple is completed seven years and six months later. The temple stood as a place of worship until it was destroyed by Babylonian forces under King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C. 

 

Solomon’s wealth

1 Kings 10 

Trading for goods is one of King Solomon’s strengths. With Israel’s strategic position as a land bridge between Egypt and Asia, Solomon sets out to control the caravan routes. He also builds ships that monopolize the sea lanes. Solomon’s annual income is 25 tons of gold. Because of his wealth, silver is considered as nothing during his reign (verse 21). 

 

Solomon’s statesmanship

1 Kings 3:1; 5:1 

During the temporary power vacuum between the two superpowers Egypt and Assyria, Solomon is able to maintain and even expand the large empire inherited from his father. Solomon accomplishes this by making friendly alliances with his neighbor nations, sometimes sealed by marriages and 

maintained by a large army that was always ready, but fought no major military campaigns. 

Because of his wisdom and power, kings and queens—such as the Queen of Sheba—came to pay their respects and bring gifts (1 Kings 10:1–13). 

 

Solomon’s flaw

1 Kings 11:1–8 

Marrying foreign wives may have been right for Solomon politically, but it was spiritual suicide. These foreign marriages brought foreign religions, and in time, Solomon compromises the convictions he had expressed in his prayer at the dedication of the temple (8:23). To appease his wives, Solomon engages in the worship of their foreign deities. With this terrible breach in Solomon’s covenant with the Lord, judgment will come after Solomon’s death. The seeds of destruction have been planted, and the fruit of Solomon’s disobedience will bear fruit in the division of the kingdom during the reign of his son and successor, Rehoboam (11:43–12:17). 

 

The Portrait 

Solomon was born with privilege: His father was the king, and he was the heir to the throne. He was granted several encounters with God through dreams. He made a good start to his reign by asking God for wisdom to rule rather than wealth and long life. God was pleased with his request and gave him wisdom, and also gave Solomon the wealth. Solomon followed through on his father’s request and built the temple. 

His prayer at the dedication of the temple revealed a heart for God. In that dedication, he also challenged the people of Israel to walk in God’s laws (1 Kings 8:61). But unlike his father David, Solomon did not remain committed to the Lord throughout his life. In his later years, Solomon’s foreign wives turned his heart toward other gods. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon reveals the high personal price he paid for his defection from God. The book describes the misery and hopelessness that comes from a life apart from God. 

Solomon’s life began with great promise, but had a tragic ending. 

 

Life Lessons from Solomon 

Wisdom is to be desired above knowledge. When given the opportunity by God to ask for anything he wanted, Solomon asked for wisdom—not wealth, knowledge, or a long life. Wisdom is the ability to apply the knowledge you possess and the sense to make your life count whatever its length. Ask God for His wisdom as you make your daily decisions. 

 

Ultimate happiness is found only in knowing God. King Solomon searched for purpose and meaning in his later life. He tried it all and had it all, and finally concluded that true meaning comes only in a relationship with God. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). If you have not done so, invite Jesus into your life as Savior and Lord, and experience the true meaning and purpose of your existence. Your true happiness comes from only one source—the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

Bad company corrupts good morals. Solomon married foreign wives for his own gratification and to forge alliances with surrounding countries. Before long, Solomon was making concessions and compromising his own faith. Ask God to give you wisdom to seek only those relationships that will keep you close to your Lord.

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SOLOMON [Sŏl′ o mon]—PEACE or PEACEABLE. 

The tenth son of David, and second by Bath-sheba, and the third king of Israel who reigned for forty years (II Sam. 5:14; 12:24). Solomon was also known as Jedidiah meaning, “beloved of the Lord.” 

The Man Who Was Full Yet Failed 

We know little of the early life of Solomon. The name given him by Nathan, but not repeated because of its sacredness, implies David’s restoration to divine favor (II Sam. 12:25). Loved of the Lord suggests the bestowal of unusual gifts (II Sam. 12:24, 25). It is also evident that young Solomon was greatly influenced both by his mother and Nathan (I Kings 1:11, 12). 

With reference to the character and reign of Solomon, we cannot but agree with Alexander Whyte that, “The shipwreck of Solomon is surely the most terrible tragedy in all the world. For if ever there was a shining type of Christ in the Old Testament church, it was Solomon . . . but everyday sensuality made him in the end a castaway.” Taking him all in all, Solomon stands out as a disappointing figure of Hebrew history. Think of the advantages he began with! There were the almost undisputed possession of David’s throne, immense stores of wealth laid up by his father, exceptional divinely imparted mental abilities, the love and high hopes of the people. Solomon’s start like the cloudless dawn of a summer’s morning, might have been beautiful all his life through, but it ended in gloom because he wandered into God-forbidden paths. Thus a life beginning magnificently ended miserably. The man who penned and preached a thousand wise things failed to practice the wisdom he taught. 

The work of Solomon was the development of his father’s ideas of a consolidated kingdom, and what marvelous success crowned his efforts. Exercising the power of an oriental despot, he gave Israel a glory, prestige and splendor unsurpassed in the world’s history. On the whole, however, Solomon seemed to rule for his own aggrandizement and not for the welfare of the people. Doubtless Solomon’s artistic and literary gifts provided the masses with beneficial instruction, but the glory of Solomon brought the common people tears and groans. The great wealth provided by David for the building of a Temple speedily disappeared under Solomon’s lavish spending, and the people had to pay heavily by taxation and poverty for his magnificent whims. Yet Jesus said that the lilies of the field had greater glory than all the gaudy pomp and pride of Solomon. 

Solomon’s ambition in the morning of his life was most commendable. His dream was a natural expression of this ambition, and his God-imparted wisdom an evidence of it (I Kings 3). Then his sacrifice at Gibeon indicates that Solomon desired religion to be associated with all external magnificence. 

Solomon’s remarkable prayer also breathes the atmosphere of true piety and of his delight in the full recognition of God. Alas, however, Solomon came to the end of his days minus popularity and piety! 

This first great naturalist the world ever saw, who wrote one thousand and five songs, three thousand proverbs and who had sagacity beyond compare, took his first step downward when he went to Egypt for his queen. A daughter of Pharaoh, sitting on the throne of David, must have shocked and saddened the godly elect of Israel. With this strange wife came her strange gods. 

Then came the harem of outlandish women who caused Solomon to sin (Neh. 13:26). His wives—seven hundred of them and three hundred concubines—whom Solomon clave unto in love, turned him into an idolater (I Kings 11:1–8). 

Polygamy on such a vast scale and concession for his wives to worship their own heathen gods was bad enough, but to share in such sacrilegious worship in sight of the Temple Solomon himself had built, was nauseating to God. 

Thus sensuality and pride of wealth brought about Solomon’s deterioration. In the Book of Ecclesiastes which the king wrote, he surely depicted his own dissatisfaction with even life itself. All rivers ran into Solomon’s sea: wisdom and knowledge, wine and women, wealth and fame, music and songs; he tried them all, but all was vanity and vexation of spirit simply because God had been left out. Of Solomon’s actual end little is known. He is described as an “old man” at sixty years of age.

 Whether Solomon repented and returned to God was a question warmly debated by the Early Fathers. There is no record of his repentance. He never wrote a penitential psalm like his father before him (Psalm 51). We have his remorse, discontent, disgust, self-contempt, “bitterer to drink than blood,” but no sobs for his sin, no plea for pardon. Thus, with such a tragic failure before us, let us take to heart the fact that Solomon’s wisdom did not teach himself-control, and that the only legacy of his violated home life was a son “ample in foolishness and lacking in understanding,” as C. W. Emmet expresses it.