A verse by verse commentary on 1 Kings 11 dealing with Solomon’s Wives, Solomon’s Adversaries and Jeroboam Rebels Against Solomon

1. 1 KI GS 11 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Solomon’s Wives
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign
women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
BAR ES, "In noticing successively Solomon’s excessive accumulation of silver and
gold 1Ki_10:14-25, his multiplication of horses 1Ki_10:26-29, and his multiplication of
wives, the writer has in mind the warning of Moses against these three forms of princely
ostentation, all alike forbidden to an Israelite monarch (marginal reference).
Zidonians - i. e., Phoenician women. A tradition states that Solomon married a
daughter of Hiram, king of Tyre.
CLARKE, "Many strange women - That is, idolaters; together with the daughter
of Pharaoh: she was also one of those strange women and an idolater. But many think
she became a proselyte to the Jewish religion; of this there is no evidence.
GILL, "But King Solomon loved many strange women,.... His love was a lustful
and not a lawful one, and of women who were not only of foreign countries, but not his
lawful wives, and these many:
together with the daughter of Pharaoh; besides her, or as he loved her, and
perhaps more; his sin was not that he loved her who was his lawful wife, but others with
her; it is very probable she was a proselytess, and had no hand in turning him to
idolatry, since we read not of any high place built for an Egyptian idol:
women of the Moabites, Anmonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; all of
the neighbouring nations. Some think he did this with political views, to get intelligence
of the state of those countries, or to abate and extinguish their enmity; but it rather
seems to be the fruit of lust or pride.

2. HE RY 1-2, "This is a sad story, and very surprising, of Solomon's defection and
degeneracy.
I. Let us enquire into the occasions and particulars of it. Shall Solomon fall, that was
the beauty of Israel, and so great a blessing of his generation? Yes, it is too true, and the
scripture is faithful in relating it, and repeating it, and referring to it long after, Neh_
13:26. There was no king like Solomon who was beloved of his God, yet even him did
outlandish women cause to sin. There is the summary of his apostasy; it was the woman
that deceived him, and was first in the transgression.
1. He doted on strange women, many strange women. Here his revolt began. (1.) He
gave himself to women, which his mother had particularly cautioned him against. Pro_
31:3, Give not thy strength unto women (perhaps alluding to Samson, who lost his
strength by giving information of it to a woman), for it is that which, as much as any
thing, destroys kings. His father David's fall began with the lusts of the flesh, which he
should have taken warning by. The love of women has cast down many wounded (Pro_
7:26) and many (says bishop Hall) have had their head broken by their own rib. (2.) He
took many women, so many that, at last, they amounted to 700 wives and 300
concubines, 1000 in all, and not one good one among them, as he himself owns in his
penitential sermon (Ecc_7:28), for no woman of established virtue would be one of such
a set. God had, by his law, particularly forbidden the kings to multiply either horses or
wives, Deu_17:16, Deu_17:17. How he broke the former law, in multiplying horses, and
having them out of Egypt too (which was expressly prohibited in that law) we read 1Ki_
10:29, and here we are told how he broke the latter (which proved of more fatal
consequence) in multiplying wives. Note, Less sins, made gold with, open the door to
greater. David had multiplied wives too much, and perhaps that made Solomon presume
it lawful. Note, If those that are in reputation for religion in any thing set a bad example,
they know not what a deal of mischief they may do by it, particularly to their own
children. One bad act of a good man may be of more pernicious consequence to others
than twenty of a wicked man. Probably Solomon, when he began to multiply wives,
intended not to exceed his father's number. But the way of sin is down-hill; those that
have got into it cannot easily stop themselves. Divine wisdom has appointed one woman
for one man, did so at first; and those who do not think one enough will not think two or
three enough. Unbridled lust will be unbounded, and the loosened hind will wander
endlessly. But this was not all: (3.) They were strange women, Moabites, Ammonites,
etc., of the nations which God had particularly forbidden them to intermarry with, 1Ki_
11:2. Some think it was in policy that he married these foreigners, by them to get
intelligence of the state of those countries. I rather fear it was because the daughters of
Israel were too grave and modest for him, and those foreigners pleased him with the
looseness and wantonness of their dress, and air, and conversation. Or, perhaps, it was
looked upon as a piece of state to have his seraglio, as his other treasures, replenished
with that which was far-fetched; as if that were too great an honour for the best of his
subjects which would really have been a disgrace to the meanest of them - to be his
mistresses. And, (4.) To complete the mischief, Solomon clave unto these in love, 1Ki_
11:2. He not only kept them, but was extravagantly fond of them, set his heart upon
them, spent his time among them, thought every thing well they said and did, and
despised Pharaoh's daughter, his rightful wife, who had been dear to him, and all the
ladies of Israel, in comparison of them. Solomon was master of a great deal of
knowledge, but to what purpose, when he had no better a government of his appetites?
JAMISO , "1Ki_11:1-8. Solomon’s wives and concubines in his old age.
But King Solomon loved many strange women — Solomon’s extraordinary gift

3. of wisdom was not sufficient to preserve him from falling into grievous and fatal errors.
A fairer promise of true greatness, a more beautiful picture of juvenile piety, never was
seen than that which he exhibited at the commencement of his reign. No sadder, more
humiliating, or awful spectacle can be imagined than the besotted apostasy of his old
age; and to him may be applied the words of Paul (Gal_3:3), of John (Rev_3:17), and of
Isaiah (Isa_14:21). A love of the world, a ceaseless round of pleasure, had insensibly
corrupted his heart, and produced, for a while at least, a state of mental darkness. The
grace of God deserted him; and the son of the pious David - the religiously trained child
of Bath-sheba (Pro_31:1-3), and pupil of Nathan, instead of showing the stability of
sound principle and mature experience became at last an old and foolish king (Ecc_
4:13). His fall is traced to his “love of many strange women.” Polygamy was tolerated
among the ancient Hebrews; and, although in most countries of the East, the generality
of men, from convenience and economy, confine themselves to one woman, yet a
number of wives is reckoned as an indication of wealth and importance, just as a
numerous stud of horses and a grand equipage are among us. The sovereign, of course,
wishes to have a more numerous harem than any of his subjects; and the female
establishments of many Oriental princes have, both in ancient and modern times,
equaled or exceeded that of Solomon’s. It is probable, therefore, that, in conformity with
Oriental notions, he resorted to it as a piece of state magnificence. But in him it was
unpardonable, as it was a direct and outrageous violation of the divine law (Deu_17:17),
and the very result which that statute was ordained to prevent was realized in him. His
marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh is not censured either here or elsewhere (see on
1Ki_3:1). It was only his love for many strange women; for women, though in the East
considered inferiors, exert often a silent but powerful seductive influence over their
husbands in the harem, as elsewhere, and so it was exemplified in Solomon.
K&D 1-2, "The idolatry into which Solomon fell in his old age appears so strange in a
king so wise and God-fearing as Solomon showed himself to be at the dedication of the
temple, that many have been quite unable to reconcile the two, and have endeavoured to
show either that Solomon's worship of idols was psychologically impossible, or that the
knowledge of God and the piety attributed to him are unhistorical. But great wisdom and
a refined knowledge of God are not a defence against the folly of idolatry, since this has
its roots in the heart, and springs from sensual desires and the lust of the flesh. The
cause assigned in the biblical account for Solomon's falling away from the Lord, is that
he loved many strange, i.e., foreign or heathen, wives, who turned his heart from
Jehovah to their own gods in his old age. Consequently the falling away did not take
place suddenly, but gradually, as Solomon got old, and was not a complete renunciation
of the worship of Jehovah, to whom he offered solemn sacrifices three times a year, and
that certainly to the day of his death (1Ki_9:25), but consisted simply in the fact that his
heart was no longer thoroughly devoted to the Lord (1Ki_11:4), and that he inclined
towards the idols of his foreign wives and built them altars (1Ki_11:5-8); that is to say, it
consisted merely in a syncretic mixture of Jehovah-worship and idolatry, by which the
worship which should be paid solely and exclusively to the true God was not only
injured, but was even turned into idolatry itself, Jehovah the only true God being placed
on a level with the worthless gods of the heathen. - Love to foreign wives no doubt
presupposed an inclination to foreign customs; it was not, however, idolatry in itself, but
was still reconcilable with that sincere worship of Jehovah which is attributed to
Solomon in the earlier years of his reign. At the same time it was a rock on which living
faith and true adherence to the Lord might at last suffer shipwreck. And we may even

4. infer from the repeated warnings of God (1Ki_3:14; 1Ki_6:12; 1Ki_9:4), that from the
earliest years of his reign Solomon was in danger of falling into idolatry. This danger did,
indeed, spring in his case from his inclination to foreign customs; but this inclination
was again influenced by many of the circumstances of his reign, which we must regard as
contributing more remotely to his eventual fall. And among the first of these we must
place the splendour and glory of his reign. Through long and severe conflicts David had
succeeded in conquering all the enemies of Israel, and had not only helped his people to
peace and prosperity, but had also raised the kingdom to great power and glory. And
Solomon inherited these fruits of his father's reign. Under the blessings of peace he was
not only able to carry out the work of building a splendid temple, which his father had
urged upon him, but was also able, by a wise use of the sources already existing and by
opening new ones, still further to increase the treasures which he had collected, and
thereby to exalt the splendour of his kingdom. The treaty with Hiram of Tyre, which
enabled him to execute the intended state buildings in Jerusalem, was followed by
alliances for the establishment of a widespread commerce both by sea and land, through
which ever increasing treasures of gold and silver, and other costly goods, were brought
to the king. As this accumulation of riches helped to nourish his inclination to a love of
show, and created a kind of luxury which was hardly reconcilable with the simplicity of
manners and the piety of a servant of God, so the foreign trade led to a toleration of
heathen customs and religious views which could not fail to detract from the reverence
paid to Jehovah, however little the trade with foreigners might be in itself at variance
with the nature of the Old Testament kingdom of God. And again, even the great wisdom
of king Solomon might also become a rock endangering his life of faith, not so much in
the manner suggested by J. J. Hess (Gesch. Dav. u. Sal. ii. p. 413), namely, that an
excessive thirst for inquiry might easily seduce him from the open and clearer regions of
the kingdom of truth into the darker ones of the kingdom of lies, i.e., of magic, and so
lead him to the paths of superstition; as because the widespread fame of his wisdom
brought distinguished and wise men from distant lands to Jerusalem and into alliance
with the king, and their homage flattered the vanity of the human heart, and led to a
greater and greater toleration of heathen ways. But these things are none of them
blamed in the Scriptures, because they did not of necessity lead to idolatry, but might
simply give an indirect impulse to it, by lessening the wall of partition between the
worship of the true God and that of heathen deities, and making apostasy a possible
thing. The Lord Himself had promised and had given Solomon wisdom, riches, and glory
above all other kings for the glorification of his kingdom; and these gifts of God merely
contributed to estrange his heart from the true God for the simple reason, that Solomon
forgot the commandments of the Lord and suffered himself to be besotted by the lusts of
the flesh, not only so as to love many foreign wives, but so as also to take to himself
wives from the nations with which Israel was not to enter into any close relationship
whatever.
1Ki_11:1-2
Solomon's Love of Many Wives and Idolatry. - 1Ki_11:1, 1Ki_11:2.
“Solomon loved many foreign wives, and that along with the daughter of Pharaoh.”
‫ת‬ ַ ‫ת־‬ ֶ‫א‬ְ‫ו‬ ‫,פ‬ standing as it does between ‫ּות‬ ִ‫ר‬ ְ‫כ‬ָ‫נ‬ ‫ר‬ ‫ים‬ ִ‫שׁ‬ָ‫נ‬ and ‫ּות‬ ִ‫ב‬ ֲ‫ּוא‬‫מ‬, cannot mean “and
especially the daughter of P.,” as Thenius follows the earlier commentators in supposing,
but must mean, as in 1Ki_11:25, “and that with, or along with,” i.e., actually beside the
daughter of Pharaoh. She is thereby distinguished from the foreign wives who turned
away Solomon's heart from the Lord, so that the blame pronounced upon those
marriages does not apply to his marriage to the Egyptian princess (see at 1Ki_3:1). All

5. that is blamed is that, in opposition to the command in Deu_17:17, Solomon loved (1)
many foreign wives, and (2) Moabitish, Ammonitish, and other wives, of the nations
with whom the Israelites were not to intermarry. All that the law expressly prohibited
was marriage with Canaanitish women (Deu_7:1-3; Exo_34:16); consequently the words
“of the nations,” etc., are not to be taken as referring merely to the Sidonian and Hittite
women (J. D. Mich.); but this prohibition is extended here to all the tribes enumerated
in 1Ki_11:2, just as in Ezr_9:2., 1Ki_10:3; Neh_13:23; not from a rigour surpassing the
law, but in accordance with the spirit of the law, namely, because the reason appended to
the law, ne in idololatriam a superstitiosis mulieribus pellicerentur (Clericus), applied
to all these nations. The Moabites and Ammonites, moreover, were not to be received
into the congregation at all, not even to the tenth generation, and of the Edomites only
the children in the third generation were to be received (Deu_23:4, Deu_23:8-9). There
was all the less reason, therefore, for permitting marriages with them, that is to say, so
long as they retained their nationality or their heathen ways. The words ‫ם‬ ֶ‫כ‬ ָ ...‫ּאוּ‬‫ב‬ ָ‫ּא־ת‬‫ל‬ are
connected in form with Jos_23:12, but, like the latter, they really rest upon Exo_34:16
and Deu_7:1-3. In the last clause ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ה‬ ָ is used with peculiar emphasis: Solomon clave to
these nations, of which God had said such things, to love, i.e., to enter into the relation
of love or into the marriage relation, with them. ‫ק‬ ַ‫ב‬ ָ is used of the attachment of a man to
his wife (Gen_2:4) and also to Jehovah (Deu_4:4; Deu_10:20, etc.).
BE SO , ". King Solomon loved many strange women — It was not a fault in him
that he married Pharaoh’s daughter; she being a proselyte, as is generally supposed,
to the Jewish religion. But in marrying so many other women besides, he committed
two sins against the law; one in multiplying wives, and another in marrying those of
strange nations, who still retained their idolatrous religion; which was expressly
against the law, as the next verse declares.
COFFMA , "The wholesale wickedness of Solomon is presented in this paragraph
with all the tenderness and reluctance that filled the heart of the narrator. It should
be noted that Solomon's age, "when he was old," is mentioned here, apparently as
somewhat of an amelioration of his guilt. And the statement that "he went not fully
after Jehovah," while true as it stands, obscures the fact of his total apostasy.
Scholars are reluctant to face what is written here.
Keil wrote that "Solomon continued to offer the sacrifices to Jehovah three times in
the year (as in 1 Kings 9:25), and that certainly to the day of his death";[1] and
Hammond spoke of some who stress the fact that the text does not say that Solomon
"served the false gods."[2] These efforts to soften the fact of Solomon's apostasy are
futile. The passage in 1 Kings 9:25 refers to a habit in Solomon's early reign, not to
the day of his death, and building temples to the name and glory of heathen gods is
emphatically the same thing as "serving them." Furthermore, the statement that
"when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart," although true enough,
cannot obscure the multitude of his sinful violations of God's law throughout his
whole career.
The most impressive symbol of Christ in the Tabernacle was the veil, and Solomon

6. left it out of his Temple, into which he also brought the pagan pillars of Jachin and
Boaz. His polygamy, his multiplication of horses and chariots, his heaping unto
himself vast riches of silver and gold, his probable usurpation of priestly functions
(1 Kings 9:25), and his making images contrary to the Second Commandment are
only a few of his departures from God's Word. These were not sins of "old age."
"Daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians,
and Hittites" (1 Kings 11:1). "The crime of these marriages was due to Solomon's
union with nationals, with whom intermarriage was forbidden (Exodus 34:16 and
Deuteronomy 7:3-4)."[3] The simple truth is that Solomon had no respect whatever
for God's law in matters where the Divine command contradicted his personal
desire.
"Seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines" (1 Kings 11:3).
"There is no need to doubt the accuracy of these numbers."[4] "The .Y. Times,
Sept. 11,1939, carried the story of Ibn Saud, king of Arabia, who had 250 wives and
51 children."[5] "Chosroes II had between 3,000,12,000 concubines; and the Sultan
Mulay Ismail is reported to have had 2,000 wives, and 800 concubines"![6]
"Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians" (1 Kings 11:5). "This goddess, the same as
Astarte, was called Ishtar in Mesopotamia; in Syria she was the female consort of
Baal, and a model for the Greek Aphrodite. She was the goddess of fertility and of
erotic love."[7] The Canaanites worshipped her with unbelievable licentiousness. It
is not difficult to see why a man like Solomon "went after" that kind of a goddess.
"Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites" (1 Kings 11:5). o one knows any
difference between this abomination and Molech, the terrible fire-god to whom
infant children were sacrificed. There is no record of Solomon's ever offering such a
sacrifice, but even if he had done such a thing, no Jewish writer would ever have
mentioned it. He certainly built a temple to Molech, and the fact of Rehoboam being
the only son of Solomon mentioned in the Bible raises some question regarding the
reason why. "The worship of Molech was terribly common in Jerusalem, with its
accompanying sacrifices of children."[8]
"Chemosh the abomination of Moab in the mount that is before Jerusalem" (1
Kings 11:5). "This was a sun-god, worshipped by the Moabites as their king and as
a god of war. He is also called a god of the Ammonites in Judges 11:24)."[9] The
mount "in front of" Jerusalem is the mount of Olives "east of" the city.
("Practically all commentators agree that in front of is the equivalent of east of.")
[10] Due to those high places which Solomon built there, it was called, "The Mount
of Offense, The Mount of Corruption, and the Mount of Scandal."[11] "Chemosh
was the twin brother of Molech of the Ammonites, equally cruel, licentious, and
vulgar in his demands."[12]
COKE, ". Together with the daughter of Pharaoh— Pharaoh's daughter, as we
have before remarked, is generally supposed to have been a proselyte to the Jewish

7. religion, and therefore Solomon incurred no fault in marrying her. But in marrying
so many women besides, and these of a different religion, he committed two sins
against the law; one in multiplying wives, and another in marrying those of strange
nations, who still retained their idolatry. And therefore the wise son of Sirach,
amidst all the encomiums which he heaps upon Solomon, could not forget this great
flaw in his character. See the note on 1 Kings 11:42.
ELLICOTT, "The historical order in this chapter is curiously broken. (a) In 1
Kings 11:1-13 we have a notice of the polygamy and idolatry of Solomon, and the
prediction of the transference of the kingdom to his servant; (b) This reference to
Jeroboam suggests a brief record of the rising up of “adversaries” to Solomon,
Hadad and Rezon, as well as Jeroboam himself, which belongs to the earlier times of
Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 11:14-40). (c) After this digression there is the formal
notice of Solomon’s death and burial (1 Kings 11:41-43).
Verse 1
(1) Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, Hittites.—The first three of these
races were kindred to Israel and of the stock of Abraham, and were now among the
subjects of Solomon; the last two were of the old Canaanitish stock, and were now
inferior allies. To the last alone properly attached the prohibition of the Law
(Exodus 34:12-16; Deuteronomy 7:3-4); but the reason on which that prohibition
was grounded was now equally applicable to the others; for they also had fallen into
the worship of false gods. Hence the extension of it to them, recognised by the Jews
after the captivity (Ezra 9:2; Ezra 9:11-12; ehemiah 13:23-29).
It is to be noted that the marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh is apparently
distinguished from these connections, which are so greatly censured, and that there
is no mention of the introduction of any Egyptian idolatry.
ELLICOTT, "(1-8) The defection of Solomon is distinctly traced to his polygamy,
contracting numerous marriages with “strange women.” Polygamy is also attributed
to David (see 2 Samuel 3:2-5; 2 Samuel 15:16), marking perhaps the characteristic
temperament of voluptuousness, which seduced him into his great sin; but it was
carried out by Solomon on a scale corresponding to the magnificence of his
kingdom, and probably had in his case the political object of alliance with
neighbouring or tributary kings. We find it inherited by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles
11:18-21), and it probably became in different degrees the practice of succeeding
kings. Hitherto, while polygamy, as everywhere in the East, had to some degree
existed in Israel from patriarchal times, yet it must have been checked by the
marriage regulations of the Law. or had there yet been the royal magnificence and
wealth, under which alone it attains to full development. We have some traces of it
in the households of some of the Judges: Gideon (Judges 8:30), Jair (Judges 10:4),
Ibzan and Abdon (Judges 12:9; Judges 12:14). ow, however, it became, in spite of
the prohibition of the Law (Deuteronomy 17:17), a recognised element of royal self-
indulgence—such as is described in Ecclesiastes 2:7-8, and is perhaps traceable even

8. through the beauty of the Song of Solomon. In itself, even without any incidental
consequences, it must necessarily be a demoralising power, as sinning against the
primeval ordinance of God, and robbing natural relations of their true purity and
sacredness. But in actual fact it sinned still more by involving forbidden marriages
with idolatrous races, with the often-predicted effect of declension into idolatry.
EBC, "THE OLD AGE OF SOLOMO
1 Kings 11:1-13
"That uxorious king, whose heart, though large, Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul."
- MILTO , Paradise Lost.
"Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things?"
- ehemiah 13:26
"That they might know, that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he
be punished."
- #/RAPC Wisdom of Solomon 11:15.
SOLOMO had endeavored to give a one-sided development to Israelitish
nationality, and a development little in accord with the highest and purest traditions
of the people. What he did with one hand by building the Temple he undid with the
other by endowing and patronizing the worship of heathen deities. In point of fact,
Solomon was hardly a genuine off-shoot of the stem of Jesse. It is at least doubtful
whether Bathsheba was of Hebrew race, and from her he may have derived an alien
strain. It is at all events a striking fact that, so far from being regarded as an ideal
Hebrew king, he was rather the reverse. The chronicler, indeed, exalts him as the
supporter and redintegrator of the Priestly-Levitic system, which it is the main
object of that writer to glorify; but this picture of theocratic purity, even if it be not
altogether an anachronism, is only obtained by the total suppression of every
incident in the story of Solomon which militates against it. In the Book of Kings we
are faithfully told of the disgust of Hiram at the reward offered to him; of the
alienation of a fertile district of the promised land; of the apostasy, the idolatries,
and the reverses which disgraced and darkened his later years. The Book of
Chronicles ignores every one of these disturbing particulars. It does not tell us of the
depths to which Solomon fell, though it tells us of the extreme scrupulosity which
regarded as a profanation the residence of his Egyptian queen on the hill once
hallowed as the resting-place of Jehovah s Ark. Yet, if we understand in their simple
sense the statements of the editor of the Book of Kings, and the documents on which
he based his narrative, Solomon, even at the Dedication Festival, ignored all
distinction between the priesthood and the laity. ay, more than this, he seems to

9. have offered, with his own hands, both burnt offerings and peace offerings three
times a year {1 Kings 9:25} and, unchecked by priestly opposition or remonstrance,
to have "burnt incense before the altar that was before the Lord," though,
according to the chronicler, it was for daring to attempt this that Uzziah was smitten
with the horrible scourge of leprosy.
The ideal of a good and great king is set before us in the Book of Proverbs, and in
many respects Solomon fell very far short of it. Further than this, there are in
Scripture two warning sketches of everything which a good king should not be and
should not do, and these sketches exactly describe the very things which Solomon
was and did. Those who take the view that the books of Scripture have undergone
large later revision, see in each of these passages an unfavorable allusion to the king
who raised Israel highest amongst the nations, only to precipitate her disintegration
and ruin, and who combined the highest service to the centralization of her religion
with the deadliest insult to its supreme claim upon the reverence of the world.
1. The first of these pictures of selfish autocrats is found in 1 Samuel 8:10-18 :-
"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of Him a
king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He
will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his
horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint his captains
over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to
reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his
chariots. And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to
be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards,
even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of
your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his courtiers, and to his servants., And
he will take your menservants and your maidservants, and your goodliest oxen, and
your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep, and you
shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye
shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day."
2. The other, which is still more detailed and significant, was perhaps written with
the express intention of warning Solomon’s descendants from the example which
Solomon had set. It is found in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Thus, speaking of a king, the
writer says:-
"Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to
Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said
unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. either shall he multiply
wives to himself; that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to
himself silver and gold. And it shall be that when he sitteth upon the throne of his
kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book . . . that he may learn
to fear the Lord his God, . . . that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, . . .
and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the end that he may prolong
his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel."

10. If Deuteronomy be of no older date than the days of Josiah, it is difficult not to see
in this passage a distinct polemic against Solomon; for he did not do what he is here
commanded, and he most conspicuously did every one of the things which is here
forbidden.
It is quite clear that in his foreign alliances, in his commerce, in his cavalry, in his
standing army, in his extravagant polygamy, in his exaggerated and exhausting
magnificence, in his despotic autocracy, in his palatial architecture, and in his
patronage of alien art, in his system of enforced labor, in his perilous religious
syncretism, Solomon was by no means a king after the hearts of the old faithful and
simple Israelites. They did not look with entire favor even on the centralization of
worship in a single Temple which interfered with local religious rites sanctioned by
the example of their greatest prophets. His ideal differed entirely from that of the
older patriarchs. He gave to the life of his people an alien development; he
obliterated some of their best national characteristics; and the example which he set
was at least as powerful for evil as for good.
When we read the lofty sentiments expressed by Solomon in his dedication prayer,
we may well be amazed to hear that one who had aspirations so sublime could sink
into idolatry so deplorable. If it was the object of the chronicler to present Solomon
in unsullied splendor, he might well omit the deadly circumstance that when he was
old, and prematurely old, "he loved many strange women, and went after Ashtoreth
the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord as did
David his father. Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the
abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the
abomination of the children of Ammon. likewise did he for all his strange wives,
which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods."
The sacred historian not only records the shameful fact, but records its cause and
origin. The heart of Solomon was perverted, his will was weakened, his ideal was
dragged into the mire by the "strange wives" who crowded his seraglio. He went the
way that destroys kings. {Proverbs 31:3} The polygamy of Solomon sprang
naturally from the false position which he had created for himself. A king who puts
a space of awful distance between himself and the mass of his subjects-a king whose
will is so absolute that life is in his smile and death in his frown-is inevitably
punished by the loneliest isolation. He may have favorites, he may have flatterers,
but he can have no friends. A thronged harem becomes to him not only a matter of
ostentation and luxury, but a necessary resource from the vacuity and ennui of a
desolate heart. Tiberius was driven to the orgies of Capreae by the intolerableness of
his isolation. The weariness of the king who used to take his courtiers by the button-
hole and say, "Ennuyons-nous ensemble," drove him to fill up his degraded leisure
in the Parc aux Cerfs. Yet even Louis XV had more possibilities of rational
intercourse with human beings than a Solomon or a Xerxes. It was in the nature of
things that Solomon, when he had imitated all the other surroundings of an Oriental
despot, should sink, like other Oriental despots, from sensuousness into sensualism,

11. from sensualism into religious degeneracy and dishonorable enervation.
Two facts, both full of warning, are indicated as the sources of his ruin:
(1) the number of his wives; and
(2) their heathen extraction.
1. "He had," we are told, "seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred
concubines."
The numbers make up a thousand, and are almost incredible. We are told indeed
that in the monstrosities of Indian absolutism the Great Mogul had a thousand
wives; but even Darius, "the king" par excellence, the awful autocrat of Persia, had
only one wife and thirty-two concubines. It is inconceivable that the monarch of a
country so insignificant as Palestine could have maintained so exorbitant a
household in a small city like Jerusalem. Moreover, there is, on every ground,
reason to correct the statement. Saul, so far as we know, had only one wife, and one
concubine; David, though he put so little restraint on himself, had only sixteen; no
subsequent king of Israel or Judah appears to have had even a small fraction of the
number which is here assigned to Solomon, either by the disease of exaggeration or
by some corruption of the text. More probably we should read seventy wives, which
at least partially assimilates the number to the "threescore queens" of whom we
read in the Canticles. {Song of Solomon 6:8} Even then we have a household which
must have led to miserable complications. The seraglio at Jerusalem must have been
a burning fiery furnace of feuds, intrigues, jealousies, and discontent. It is this fact
which gives additional meaning to the Song of Songs. That unique book of Scripture
is a sweet idyll in honor of pure and holy love. It sets before us in glowing imagery
and tender rhythms how the lovely maiden of Shunem, undazzled by all the
splendors and luxuries of the great king’s court, unseduced by his gifts and his
persistence, remained absolutely faithful to her humble shepherd lover, and, amid
the gold and purple of the palace at Jerusalem, sighed for her simple home amid the
groves of Lebanon. Surely she was as wise as fair, and her chances of happiness
would be a thousandfold greater, her immunities from intolerable conditions a
thousandfold more certain, as she wandered hand in hand with her shepherd youth
amid pure scenes and in the vernal air, than amid the heavy exotic perfumes of a
sensual and pampered court.
Perhaps in the word "princesses" we see some sort of excuse for that effeminating
self-indulgence which would make the exhortations to simplicity and chastity in the
Book of Proverbs sound very hollow on the lips of Solomon. It may have been
worldly policy which originally led him to multiply his wives. The alliance with
Pharaoh was secured by a marriage with his daughter, and possibly that with
Hiram by the espousal of a Tyrian princess. The friendliness of Edom on the south,
of Moab and Ammon on the east, of Sidon and the Hittites and Syria on the north,
might be enhanced by matrimonial connections from which the greater potentates
might profit and of which the smaller sheykhs were proud. Yet if this were so, the

12. policy, like all other worldly policy unsanctioned by the law of God, was very
unsuccessful. Egypt as usual proved herself to be a broken reed. The Hittites only
preserved a dream and legend of their olden power. Edom and Moab neither forgot
nor abandoned their implacable and immemorial hatred. Syria became a dangerous
rival awaiting the day of future triumphs. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to
put any confidence in man; it is better to trust in the Lord than to put any
confidence in princes."
2. But the heathen religion of these strange women from so many nations "turned
away the heart of Solomon after other gods." It may be doubted whether Solomon
had ever read the stern prohibitions against intermarriage with the Canaanite
nations which now stand on the page of the Pentateuch. If so he broke them, for the
Hittites and the Phoenicians were Canaanites. Marriages with Egyptians, Moabites,
and Edomites had not been, in so many words, forbidden, but the feeling of later
ages applied the rule analogously to them. The result proved how necessary the law
was. When Solomon was old his heart was no longer proof against feminine wiles.
He was not old in years, for this was some time before his death, and when he died
he was little more than sixty. But a polygamous despot gets old before his time.
The attempt made by Ewald and others to gloss over Solomon’s apostasy as a sign of
a large-hearted tolerance is an astonishing misreading of history. Tolerance for
harmless divergences of opinion there should always be, though it is only a growth
of modern days; but tolerance for iniquity is a wrong to holiness.
The worship of these devils adored for deities was stained with the worst passions
which degrade human nature. They were themselves the personification of
perverted instincts. The main facts respecting them are collected in Selden’s famous
De Dis Syris Syntagma, and Milton has enshrined them in his stateliest verse:-
"First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears
ext Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab’s sons,
Peor his other name, when he enticed Israel in Sittim, on their march from ile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the Grove Of Moloch homicide; lust, hard by hate:
Till good Josiah drove them thence to hell."
"With these in troop

13. Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians call Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent
horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and
songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell To idols foul."
What tolerance should there be for idols whose service was horrible infanticide and
shameless lust? "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and
what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with an
infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" How vile the
worship of Chemosh was, Israel had already experienced in the wilderness where he
was called Peor. { umbers 25:3} What Moloch was they were to learn thereafter by
many a horrible experience. Had Solomon never heard that the Lord God was a
jealous God, and would not tolerate the rivalries of gods of fire and of lust? At least
he was not afraid to desecrate one, if not two, of the summits of the Mount of Olives
with shrines to these monstrous images, which seem to have been left "on that
opprobrious mount" for many an age, so that they "durst abide."
"Jehovah, thundering out of Sion throned
Between the cherubim yea, often placed
Within His sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations, and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront His light"
And, to crown all, Solomon not only showed this guilty complaisance to all his
strange wives, but even, sinking into the lowest abyss of apostasy "burnt incense
and sacrificed unto their gods"
"He that built a temple for himself and for Israel in Zion," says Bishop Hall, "built
a temple for Chemosh in the Mount of Scandal for his mistresses in the very face of
God’s house. Because Solomon feeds them in their superstition, he draws the sin
home to himself, and is branded for what he should have forbidden."

14. EBC, "HOLLOW PROSPERITY
1 Kings 11:1-43
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
- Ecclesiastes 1:2
"At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank
unwieldy woe, Till, sapp’d their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they
sink, and spread a ruin round."
- GOLDSMITH.
THERE was a ver rongeur at the root of all Solomon’s prosperity. His home was
afflicted with the curse of his polygamy, his kingdom with the Curse of his
despotism. Failure is stamped upon the issues of his life.
1. His Temple was a wonder of the world; yet his own reign was scarcely over before
it was plundered by the Egyptian king who had overthrown the feeble dynasty on
alliance with which he had trusted. Under later kings its secret chambers were
sometimes desecrated, sometimes deserted. It failed to exercise the unique influence
in support of the worship of Jehovah for which it had been designed. Some of
Solomon’s successors confronted it with a rival temple, and a rival high priest, of
Baal, and suffered atrocious emblems of heathen nature-worship to profane its
courts. He himself became an apostate from the high theocratic ideal which had
inspired its origin.
2. His long alliance and friendship with Hiram ended, to all appearance, in coolness
and disgust, even if it be true that a daughter of Hiram was one of the princesses of
his harem. For his immense buildings had so greatly embarrassed his resources that,
when the day for payment came, the only way in which he could discharge his
obligations was by alienating a part of his dominions. He gave Hiram "twenty cities
in the land of Galilee." The kings of Judah, down to the days of Hezekiah, and even
of Josiah, show few traces of any consciousness that there was such a book as the
Pentateuch and such a code as the Levitic law. Solomon may have been unaware
that Phoenicia itself was part of the land which God had promised to His people. If
that gift had lapsed through their inertness. {Leviticus 25:23-24} See 1:31-32, the
law still remained, which said, The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is
Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. It was a strong measure to
resign any part of the soil of Judaea, even to discharge building debts, much more to
pay for mercenaries and courtly ostentation. The transaction, dubious in every
particular, was the evident cause of deep-seated dissatisfaction. Hiram thought
himself ill-paid and unworthily treated. He found, by a personal visit, that these
inland Galilaean towns, which were probably inhabited in a great measure by a
wretched and dwindling remnant of Canaanites, were useless to him, whereas he

15. had probably hoped to receive part, at least, of the Bay of Aeco (Ptolemais). They
added so little to his resources, that he complained to Solomon. He called the cities
by the obscure, but evidently contemptuous name "Cabul," and gave them back to
Solomon in disgust as not worth having. What significance lies in the strange and
laconic addition, "And Hiram sent to the king six-score talents of gold," it is
impossible for us to understand if the Tyrian king gave as a present to Solomon a
sum which was so vast as at least to equal £720, 000-"apparently," as Canon
Rawlinson thinks, "to show that, although disappointed, he was not offended!"-he
must have been an angel in human form.
3. Solomon’s palatial buildings, while they flattered his pride and ministered to his
luxury, tended directly, as we shall see, to undermine his power. They represented
the ill-requited toil of hopeless bondmen, and oppressed freedmen, whose sighs rose,
not in vain, into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
4. His commerce, showy, as it was, turned out to be transitory and useless. If for a
time it enriched the king, it did not enrich his people. At Solomon’s death, if not
earlier, it not only languished but expired. Horses and chariots might give a
pompous aspect to stately pageants, but they were practically useless in the endless
hills of which Palestine is mainly composed. Apes, peacocks, and sandal wood were
curious and interesting, but they certainly did not repay the expense incurred in
their importation. o subsequent sovereign took the trouble to acquire these
wonders, nor are they once mentioned in the later Scriptures. Precious stones might
gleam on the necks of the concubine, or adorn the housings of the steed, but nothing
was gained from their barren splendor. At one time the king’s annual revenue is
stated to have been six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold; but the story of Hiram,
and the impoverishment to which Rehoboam succeeded, show that even this
exchequer had been exhausted by the sumptuous prodigalities of a too luxurious
court. And, indeed, the commerce of Solomon gave a new and untheocratic bias to
Hebrew development. The ideal of the old Semitic life was the pastoral and
agricultural ideal. o other is contemplated in Exodus 21:1-36; Exodus 22:1-31;
Exodus 23:1-33; Exodus 24:1-18; Exodus 25:1-40; Exodus 26:1-37; Exodus 27:1-21;
Exodus 28:1-43; Exodus 29:1-46. Commerce was left to the Phoenicians and other
races, so that the word for "merchant" was "Canaanite." But after the days of
Solomon in Judah, and Ahab in Israel, the Hebrews followed eagerly in the steps of
Canaan, and trade and commerce acting on minds materialized into worldliness
brought their natural consequences. "He is a merchant," says Hosea; {Hosea 12:7}
"the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to defraud." Here the words "he is
a merchant" may equally well be rendered "as for Canaan"; and by Canaan is here
meant Canaanised or commercial Ephraim. And the prophet continues, "And
Ephraim said, Surely I am become rich, I have found me wealth: in all my labor
they shall find in me none iniquity that were sin." In other words, these influences
of foreign trade had destroyed the moral sense of Israel altogether: "Howl, ye
inhabitants of Maktesh"-i.e., "The Mortar," a bazaar of that name in
Jerusalem-"for all the people of Canaan" (i.e., the merchants) "are brought to
silence." But the hypnotizing influence of wealth became more and more a potent
factor in the development of the people. By an absolute reversal of their ancient

16. characteristics they learnt, in the days of the Rabbis, utterly to despise agriculture
and extravagantly to laud the gains of commerce. Of too many of them it became
true, that they
"With dumb despair their country’s wrongs behold, And dead to glory, only burn
for gold."
It was the mighty hand of Solomon which first gave them an impulse in this
direction, though he seems to have managed all his commerce with exclusive
reference to his own revenues.
In the wake of commerce, and the inevitable intercourse with foreign nations which
it involves, came as a matter of course the fondness for luxuries; the taste for
magnificence; the fraternization with neighboring kings; the use of cavalry; the
development of a military caste; the attempts at distant navigation; the total
disappearance of the antique simplicity. In the train of these innovations followed
the disastrous alterations of the old conditions of society of which the prophets so
grievously complain-extortions of the corn market; the formation of large estates;
the frequency or mortgages; the misery of peasant proprietorship, unable to hold its
own against the accumulations of wealth the increase of the wage-receiving class;
and the fluctuations of the labor market. These changes caused, by way of
consequence, so much distress and starvation that even freeborn Hebrews were
sometimes compelled to sell themselves into slavery as the only way to keep
themselves alive.
So that the age of Solomon can in no respect be regarded as an age of gold. Rather,
it resembled that grim Colossus of Dante’s vision, which not only rested on a right
foot of brittle clay, but was cracked and fissured through and through, while the
wretchedness and torment which lay behind the outward splendor ever dripped and
trickled downward till its bitter streams swelled the rivers of hell:-
"Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate,
Sad Acheron of sorrow black and deep,
Corytus named of lamentation loud Heard on its rueful stream, fierce Phlegethon,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage."
But there was something worse even than this. The Book of Proverbs shows us that,
as in Rome, so in Jerusalem, foreign immoralities became fatal to the growing youth.
The picta lupa barbara mitre, with her fatal fascinations, and her banquets of which
the guests were in the depths of Hades, became so common in Jerusalem that no
admonitions of the wise were more needful than those which warned the "simple
ones" that to yield to her seductive snares was to go as an ox to the slaughter, as a
fool to the correction of the stocks.

17. 5. Even were there no disastrous sequel to Solomon’s story-if we saw him only in the
flush of his early promise, and the noon of his highest prosperity-we could still
readily believe that he passed through some of the experiences of the bitter and
sated voluptuary who borrows his name in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The human
pathos, the fresh and varied interest, which meet us at every page of the annals of
David, are entirely lacking in the magnificent monotony of the annals of Solomon.
The splendors of materialism, which are mainly dwelt upon, could never satisfy the
poorest of human souls. There are but two broad gleams of religious interest in his
entire story-the narrative of his prayer for wisdom, and the prayer, in its present
form of later origin, attributed to him at the Dedication Festival. All the rest is a
story of gorgeous despotism, which gradually paled into
"The dim grey life and apathetic end."
"There was no king like Solomon: he exceeded all the kings of the earth," we are
told, "for riches and for wisdom." But all that we know of such kings furnishes
fresh proof of the universal experience that "the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them" are absolutely valueless for all the contributions they can lend to
human happiness. The autocrats who have been most conspicuous for unchecked
power and limitless resources have also been the most conspicuous in misery. We
have but to recall Tiberius "tristissimus ut constat hominum," who, from the
enchanted isle which he had degraded into the stye of his infamies, wrote to his
servile senate that all the gods and goddesses were daily destroying him; or
Septimius Severus, who rising step by step from a Dalmatian peasant and common
soldier to be emperor of the world, remarked with pathetic conviction, "Omnia fui e
nihil expedit"; or Abderrahman the Magnificent who, in all his day of success and
prosperity, could only count fourteen happy days; or Charles V, over-eating himself
in his monastic retreat at San Yuste in Estremadura; or Alexander, dying "as a fool
dieth"; or Louis XIV, surrounded by a darkening horizon, and disillusioned into
infinite ennui and chagrin; or apoleon I, saying, "I regard life with horror," and
contrasting his "abject misery" with the adored and beloved dominion of Christ,
who was meek and lowly of heart. apoleon confessed that, even in the zenith of his
empire, and the fullest flush of his endless victories, his days were consumed in
vanity and his years in trouble. The cry of one and all, finding that the soul, which is
infinite, cannot be satisfied with the transient and hollow boons of earth, is, and ever
must be, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
And this is one main lesson of the life of Solomon. othing is more certain than that,
if earthly happiness is to be found at all, it can only be found in righteousness and
truth; and if even these do not bring earthly happiness they securely give us a
blessedness which is deeper and more eternal.
If the Book of Ecclesiastes, even traditionally, is the reflection and echo of
Solomon’s disenchantment, we see that in later years his soul had been sullied, his
faith had grown dim, his fervor cold. All was emptiness. He stood horribly alone.
His one son was not a wise man, but a fool. Gewgaws could no longer satisfy him.
His wealth exhausted, his fame tarnished, his dominions reduced to insignificance,
himself insulted by contemptible adversaries whom he could neither control nor

18. punish, he entered on the long course of years "plus pales et moins couronnees."
The peaceful is harried by petty raids; the magnificent is laden with debts; the
builder of the Temple has sanctioned polytheism; the favorite of the nation has
become a tyrant, scourging with whips an impatient people; the "darling of the
Lord" has built shrines for Moloch and Astarte. The glamour of youth, of empire, of
gorgeous tyranny was dispelled, and the splendid boy-king is the weary and lonely
old man. Hiram of Tyre has turned in disgust from an ungenerous recompense. A
new Pharaoh has dispossessed his Egyptian father-in-law and shelters his rebel
servant. His shameful harem has given him neither a real home nor a true love; his
commerce has proved to be an expensive failure; his politic alliances a hollow sham.
In another and direr sense than after his youthful vision, "Solomon awoke, and
behold it was a dream." (1 Kings 3:15. See Sirach 47:12-21)
The Talmudists show some insight amid their fantasies when they write: "At first,
before he married strange wives, Solomon reigned over the angels"; {1 Chronicles
29:23} then only over all kingdoms; {1 Kings 4:21} then only over Israel;
{Ecclesiastes 1:12} then only over Jerusalem. {Ecclesiastes 1:1} At last he reigned
only over his staff-as it is said, ‘And this was the portion of my, labor’; for by the
word ‘this,’ says Ray, he meant that the only possession left to him was the staff
which he held in his hand. The staff was not "the rod and staff" of the Good
Shepherd, but the earthly staff of pride and pomp, and (as in the Arabian legend)
the worm of selfishness and sensuality was gnawing at its base.
PARKER, "Solomon"s Backsliding
I looking at the fact that "king Solomon loved many strange women," the
emphasis must be laid to a considerable extent upon the word "strange." It was not
the polygamy that was condemned in the Old Testament, but in this instance there
was more than polygamy, there was an outgoing after foreign political alliances,
which might be turned destructively against the theocratic idea which God had
never allowed to fall into abeyance in Israel. The Zidonians and the Hittites, who
are particularly mentioned as amongst the women whom Solomon loved, belonged
to the old Canaanitish race, and in following after them Solomon was distinctly
violating one of the solemn compacts under which the kingdom was held. The
notices which are repeatedly given of Solomon"s accumulation of silver and gold,
his multiplication of horses and his multiplication of wives, remind us of the law
which was distinctly laid down in Deuteronomy 17:16-17 :—"But he shall not
multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that
he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall
henceforth return no more that way. either shall he multiply wives to himself, that
his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and
gold."
It is not impossible that Solomon gave licence to what may be called his religious
imagination when he brought together within his view all the various gods

19. represented by the nationalities which are named. He seems to have entered into
that state of mind which can complacently contemplate all forms of faith and
worship, and regard each with an amount of toleration which really signifies the
abandonment of his own original faith, or such a modification of it as to deplete it of
all active value. We know that there is a subtle temptation operating in this
direction in all our minds. Sitting at our ease in some palace of our own building, we
look around and muse contemplatively, wondering at the variety of gods which the
world presents, and gradually coming to think that perhaps the multiplication of
gods, is after all a kind of necessity of the human heart; we think that one faith
ought to be tolerated as well as another; we consider that temperament, and climate,
and antecedents of all kinds, such as methods of bringing-up and general culture, all
tell in the formation of the religious instinct, and that the gratification of that
instinct by a multiplicity of gods is after all not so harmful as it might under some
circumstances appear to be. Thus we muse ourselves out of our original faith, which
was so strong and valiant, and which at one time could show no toleration towards
unbelief, or misbelief, or perverted belief of any kind. After all there is a kind of
melancholy sequence in what we find in the history of Solomon. He had much gold
and silver: he was the greatest of the kings of the earth; he had a thousand and four
hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; he made silver to be in Jerusalem
as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the vale, for
abundance; he had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn; a chariot came up
and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an
hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria,
aid they bring them out by their means; with kings for vassals, with armies at his
disposal, with many strange women in his harem, with all things flourishing round
about him, who can wonder that Solomon began to look upon all forms of worship
as probably having something in them more or less worthy of complacency, and
came in some way to add even these to the riches of his boundless kingdom?
We may be quite certain that all processes of this kind come to one of two ends:
either outward pomp conquers religious conviction, or religious conviction sanctifies
worldly pomp, taking out of it all harmfulness, and turning it to necessary
conveniences and uses. In the case of Song of Solomon , worldly pomp seems, for a
time at least, to have dominated his mind. The idea seems to have occurred to him,
why not be magnificent in "gods" as well as in horses and in chariots? A man who
had everything that heart could wish, might surely, so he reasoned, permit himself
to add any number of gods to his pantheon, and, in indulging this imagination, he
might even suppose that so strong was he in his own faith that he could control all
these gods, and make them merely decorative of great central verities. Again we see
how easy it is having broken one of the commandments to break the whole. Turning
to the law as written in Deuteronomy , we find it very distinctly stated: " either
shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his
Song of Solomon , nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn
away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of
the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly" (vii3 , 4); and again in
the same book we read, "neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart
turn not away." Having broken these laws, Solomon proceeded to displace other

20. ordinances in Israel. Beware the beginning of error; he that offends in one point is
guilty of all; not necessarily in the matter of detailed infraction, as if he had
voluntarily destroyed the commandments one by one, but in the spirit of destruction
he is guilty of all. We break all the commandments when we break the spirit of the
law. If we suppose that the universe is a mere affair of commandments, or literal
ordinances, and that they are to be counted one by one and dealt with in their
singularity, it will be no wonder if we come to reckon ourselves virtuous "upon the
whole," or as "in the main" not worthy of condemnation: we shall establish the
principle of majorities in estimating our moral standing, saying, that having kept
nine out of ten of the commandments we ought to be regarded as nine-tenths good.
That is not the conception of the universe which is formed in the Bible, or the
conception on which Jesus Christ proceeded in revealing the kingdom of heaven.
The law is either kept or broken by the spirit. It is not a law that is kept, or a law
that is broken, but the law that is offended and dishonoured. The law is essentially a
whole, though it may come to us in enumerated details for the sake of meeting our
capacity and our moral decrepitude.
We read that when Solomon was "old" all this terrible collapse took place. By the
word "old" we are not to understand merely age in years; the word rather points to
the advance of life, and indicates something that was done at the end rather than at
the beginning of the man"s existence. We have already raised the inquiry whether
all the buds which made Solomon"s young character so beautiful would ever come
to maturity and fruition. We wondered whether the bad element or the good in him
would at last predominate. ow we come to a very melancholy reply to this inquiry.
Experience, which ought to be so much security against temptation, actually became
a kind of open door through which all manner of strange views and imaginations
entered and took possession of Solomon"s mind. Or did the man grow weak as he
grew old? Or is the word "old" put in partly to excuse the spiritual decay? Is there a
subtle intention to imply that if Solomon had not become infirm with years he never
would have yielded to the temptation of his idolatrous wives? Does the word "old"
so change the tenor of the text that it may be read thus: Solomon having lost his
early mental vigour, or having become weary with the vain experiences of life, or
having seen an end to all things under the sun, little cared what happened to him;
this decay, therefore, must not be traced to any voluntary action on his own part,
but must be rather regarded as an excuse for what would seem to be a shameful
apostasy? We cannot consent to have the text read thus; otherwise it might appear
at least to give us licence to follow in the same lines. o. We must insist upon it that
as a man grows old he should grow wise; that as he advances in years he should
consolidate in faith; and at the end should have become master of himself and of his
circumstances, and worthily represent the spiritual education under which God has
caused him to pass.
otice various suggestive expressions in the course of this narrative. For example, in
Deuteronomy 17:4 we read, "His wives turned away his heart"; and again, "his
heart was not perfect with the Lord his God "; in Deuteronomy 17:6 we read, he
"went not fully after the Lord"; and in Deuteronomy 17:9 we find the expression,
"his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel." Observe that the action always

21. takes place in the heart. His heart was "turned away," "not perfect," and again his
"heart was turned." Read these words over and over again, because they are
melancholy words and have a distinct application to all ages. Who can follow the
heart in all its deceitful turnings, and understand all that it has given up in its own
secret recesses of the faith which once found there a sanctuary? Outwardly there
may be no sign of surrender or decay. The same church may be attended, the same
books read, the same characters reverenced, and to all appearances the same life
may be lived. But "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." What has taken place in
that chamber of imagery? How are its walls painted with idols? What festivals to
unholy deities are kept up in that banqueting-chamber? "The heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked." "My, Song of Solomon , keep thine heart;
for out of it are the issues of life." A decay of love generally precedes a decay of
faith. Once let love be banished from the heart, and it will be easy to displace
conviction from the mind. Hence the call which is continually addressed to
Christians to be vigilant, and to be sober; to be on the outlook for their adversary
who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; to gird up the
loins of their minds; to put on the whole armour of God, and to watch wakefully,
because they know not at what hour the strong man may come to spoil the home of
the soul.
O thou who hast made the heart so complex, and hast opened a thousand ways into
its innermost places, and hast set us in a great sphere of trial and discipline and
temptation, do thou enable us so to watch that we may see the enemy whilst yet he is
a great way off, and give us that keen sensitiveness to all sin which instantly realises
its remotest approach, and resents the proposed incoming of the enemy. Take not
thy Holy Spirit from us! Give us the tender delicacy which knows all that the enemy
means to do with us; and above all give us that firm reliance upon thyself which will
enable us to answer the enemy with indignation, and with all the passion of
consecrated and eternal love.
otice the divine action as it is outlined in this matter. "And the Lord was angry" (
1 Kings 11:9). "I will surely rend the kingdom from thee" ( 1 Kings 11:11). God
could not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. God is angry with the
wicked every day. God is not an uninterested spectator of the action of kings,
churches, and families; his eye is constantly not only upon the universe as a whole,
but upon everything in it which bears his name and which ought to represent his
purity. He burns like a furnace against all iniquity; but is he not like a furnace seven
times heated when the iniquity is found in high places, when it is clothed with the
purple of the throne, and when it wields the resources of a kingdom? God is angry
with every man who departs from the faith; but is not his anger kindled to
intolerable fury when the departure is found in one who has ministered at his altar,
or who has publicly avowed the name and honour of Jesus Christ? Where much has
been given much has been required. The city set on a hill cannot avail itself of the
excuses which might at least momentarily be tolerated in the case of a city buried in
the valley. Here the lesson comes to all priests, kings, statesmen, ministers, teachers,
journalists, heads of houses, and leaders of public sentiment. or is God"s anger to
be regarded as a mere expression of sentiment; it leads to the tearing-down of

22. authority, and to the replacing of the kingdom in other hands. A man will feel his
influence departing from him; churches will be impoverished; institutions that were
once vigorous, and that answered the hunger of the age with abundant hospitality,
will feel that their resources are being contracted, their vigour is being dried up; nor
may it at once appear why these things are so; for a time even mystery may gather
around them, but at length it will be made manifest that all this decay of influence,
and all this contraction of activity and usefulness, must be traced to what has
happened in the hearts of men who once made themselves felt for good in wide
social circles. When public influence wanes, inquire whether it be not because the
heart is not perfect with God. When the right hand forgets its cunning, and the
tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth, and there is no more skill in the faculties of
the mind, fall down in penitential submission, and see whether it be not because the
heart does not go fully after God, but has given up part of its love to deities whose
very names are hateful to heaven.
Yet the action of the Almighty is compassionate as well as angry, for in
Deuteronomy 17:12 we read, " otwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David
thy father"s sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son." Even here the past
plays a restraining part in the present, and even here the future is shown to be a
controlling agency when rightly apprehended. Men should be careful what they do,
even on account of their sons who may yet not be born unto them. What is done
today may affect the remotest ages of time. How difficult it is for God to give up any
whom he has loved; "My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer
my faithfulness to fail;" "I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there;
and have chosen David to be over my people Israel." Even whilst in possession of
many mercies we may be living under a cloud of judgment. He is a selfish Prayer of
Manasseh , and utterly beyond the pale of reasoning, who disregards that cloud
simply because it has not to burst upon his own head, but will dissolve in destructive
storms upon the heads of those who have to succeed him. Great is the mystery of
providence, because great is the mystery of the unity of the human race. The son
might well wonder why judgment should be reserved for him, when he himself was
not an active agent in the sin which was judged and punished. But to reason so
would be to reason imperfectly and unwisely. If that reasoning is to be adopted it
must be carried out to all its consequences, and then we shall certainly be deprived
of blessing as much as of judgment: of all the hospitality and beauty of summer as
certainly as of all the barrenness and dreariness of winter. The way of the Lord is
equal in this matter We are members one of another. owhere in the Christian law
is it said that men are unrelated, and that the law of sequence is suspended. Our
whole life is part of a process which cannot be reckoned either as to its beginning or
its ending.
"Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh." Even the Solomon we have
known in connection with the building of the temple! Chemosh was the supreme
deity of the Moabites, followed by great numbers in western Asia. The high place
that Solomon built was in the hill that is before Jerusalem, which has been identified
with Olivet. Even the holiest ground is no longer sacred when once the heart has
gone astray. Solomon could have turned the temple itself into a sanctuary of

23. Ashtoreth, or the dwelling-place of Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. This
indeed would appear to be wonderful, but it is smaller than many of the wonders
that happen within our own experience. Many men are shocked by what they term
the profanation of the visible sanctuary who are not shocked by the profanation of
the sanctuary of their own hearts. We must break in strongly upon all such
superstition. Whilst not excusing what is known as the profanation of times and
places, we must put things in their right relations, and not mistake the vital for the
temporary, or the temporary for the vital. It is a sad thing to hear unholy words
spoken in consecrated places, but it is an infinitely sadder thing for the heart to be
going astray silently and secretly after forbidden pleasures. It is the heart that
wanders. When once that wandering takes place, no locality is sacred, no name is
sanctified, no time is redeemed from common uses: the whole life has gone down in
quantity, in purity, and in value.
GUZIK, "A. Solomon’s apostasy.
1. (1 Kings 11:1-3) Solomon’s unlawful marriages.
But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh:
women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites; from the
nations of whom the LORD had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not
intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts
after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives,
princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.
a. Solomon loved many foreign women: There are two obvious problems here. First,
that he loved foreign women who worshipped other gods and brought pagan
influences to Israel. Second, that he loved many women, rejecting God’s plan from
the beginning for one man and one woman to become one flesh in marriage
(Matthew 19:4-6, Genesis 2:23-24).
b. ations of whom the LORD had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not
intermarry with them”: God gave a general warning to all Israel to not intermarry
with these nations, because surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.
For all Solomon’s great wisdom, he did not have the wisdom to apply this simple
command to his own life.
i. Solomon probably did what many of us do. He somehow thought that he would be
the exception, that he would “get away” with this sin, despite seeing how it affected
others. Solomon learned - or should have learned - that he was not the exception to
this rule.
c. Solomon clung to these in love: At this point, Solomon wanted romance and
sensual fulfillment more than he wanted the LORD. For all his wisdom, he was
snared by the power of romantic and sensual love. He did not seriously consider that
it is possible to be romantically and sensually attracted to people we have no

24. business be attracted to. Once under the power of this attraction, he clung to these
in love instead of giving them up to the LORD.
d. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: This is
an almost unbelievable number of marriage partners. His wives were considered
princesses, but his concubines were legal partners without the same standing as
wives. All said, Solomon had far more marriage partners than any man could
possibly give attention to - sexual attention or other attention.
i. In this sense a concubine was a legal mistress. Many prominent men in the Old
Testament had concubines. Examples include Abraham (Genesis 25:6), Jacob
(Genesis 35:22), Caleb (1 Chronicles 2:46), Saul (2 Samuel 3:7), David (2 Samuel
5:13), and Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:21). Significantly, we never see this kind of
family life blessed by God.
ii. We can say that Solomon had so many marriage partners because he followed the
bad example of his father David, who had many wives and concubines himself (2
Samuel 5:13-16).
iii. We can say that Solomon had so many marriage partners because of his own
sexual lust. This is a profound and sobering example of the principle that if one wife
is not enough to satisfy a man, then 1,000 wives will not be enough. When a man is
unsatisfied with the woman God gave to him, the problem is with him, not with his
wife. 1,000 women cannot satisfy the lust of man. Solomon should have listened to
Proverbs 27:20 : Hell and Destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never
satisfied.
iv. We can say that Solomon had so many marriage partners because of his lust for
power and prestige. In those days a large harem was a status symbol. It said to the
world, “Look how many wives and children I can support. Look how many women I
have authority over.” Solomon’s desire for worldly prestige led him to these ungodly
marriages.
v. “Partly for his lust, which being indulged, becomes infinite and unsatiable; and
partly from his pride, accounting this a point of honour and magnificence.” (Poole)
e. And his wives turned away his heart: Of course they did. Based upon the Song of
Solomon, we can say that at the first Solomon seemed to know what true love was
with one woman. Yet his subsequent history shows us that it is possible to be in that
place and depart from it. It is not true to say that “love will keep us together.”
Solomon shows us that we can know true love and depart from it. It is better said
that the blessing and power of God upon our obedience will keep us together.
i. We don’t know when Solomon added his second wife. When he did, it was easy for
him to rationalize it - after all, the greatest King of Israel, his father David, had
several wives and concubines. Yet once he followed his father David into this
departure from God’s plan from the beginning (Matthew 19:4-6 and Genesis 2:23-

25. 24), it was easy to keep adding wives.
ii. As he added wives he broke the specific commandment God gave to the future
kings of Israel in Deuteronomy 17:17 : either shall he multiply wives for himself,
lest his heart turn away. Solomon did multiply wives for himself (by any account,
1,000 marriage partners is multiplication), and it did turn away his heart.
iii. “It would have been useless to argue with Solomon for the claims of idols. He
could at once, by his wisdom, have annihilated all infidel arguments, and have
established the existence and unity of God. But, step by step, he was led by silken
cords, a captive, to the worship of other gods.” (Meyer)
iv. “The whole story of King Solomon is full of the most solemn value. His was a life
full of promise, but it ended in failure and gloom, because his heart turned from
loyalty to God, in response to the seductions of his sensual nature.” (Morgan)
PETT, "Verses 1-8
Solomon Throws Himself Wholeheartedly Into Idolatry Because Of His Wives (1
Kings 11:1-8).
Solomon’s obsession with his own glory inevitably resulted in his beginning to feel
that he was so great that he could do what he liked, for it is one of the sad traits of
mankind that the more they prosper because of God’s goodness, the less concern
they have for God. That was recognised by the writer of Proverbs in Proverbs 30:8-
9, when he wrote, ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches, --- lest I be full and deny you,
and say, Who is YHWH? or lest I be poor and steal and use profanely the name of
my God’. And that was what happened to Solomon.
He had already portrayed the traits of the false king with his chariots and
horsemen, and servants and bond-slaves (see 1 Samuel 8:11-18). ow he would do
the same with his multiplicity of wives (Deuteronomy 17:16-17). It will be noted that
in Deuteronomy 17:16-17 the multiplication of wives is linked with fetching horses
from Egypt, which is again linked with a warning of in any way returning to Egypt,
and Solomon had done all three. He had married Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kings 3:1;
1 Kings 9:24; 1 Kings 11:1), he had multiplied horses from Egypt (1 Kings 10:28-
29), and now we are to see that he multiplied wives for himself. In other words he
had specifically and deliberately ignored YHWH’s commandment, and was a
judgment waiting to happen. This indeed is what the author has been building up
to.
Analysis.
a ow 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 YHWH said to the children of Israel, “You shall not
go among them, neither shall they come among you, for surely they will turn away

26. your heart after their gods.” Solomon clave to these in love. (1 Kings 11:1-2).
b And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines;
and his wives turned away his heart, for it came about that, when Solomon was old,
his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with
YHWH his God, as was the heart of David his father (1 Kings 11:3-4).
c For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after
Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:5).
b And Solomon did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, and went not fully
after YHWH, as did David his father (1 Kings 11:6).
a Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, in
the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children
of Ammon, and so did he for all his foreign wives, who burnt incense and sacrificed
to their gods (1 Kings 11:7-8).
ote that in ‘a’ Solomon loved the women against whom Israel had been warned
because they would turn away their hearts after false gods, and in the parallel
Solomon was turned away after false gods because of those very wives. In ‘b’
Solomon’s heart was turned away by his wives so that he was not perfect in his
heart like David his father, and in the parallel he did what was evil in YHWH’s
sight and went not fully after YHWH like David his father. Centrally in ‘c’ he ‘went
after’ Ashtoreth and Molech, the very gods against which Israel had been constantly
warned.
1 Kings 11:1-2
‘ ow 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 YHWH said to the children of Israel, “You shall not
go among them, neither shall they come among you, for surely they will turn away
your heart after their gods.” Solomon clave to these in love.’
The first ‘foreign woman’ to be mentioned is the daughter of Pharaoh. The author
has demonstrated his unease about this relationship from the beginning by never
mentioning her name (1 Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 7:8; 1 Kings 9:16; 1 Kings 9:24; 1 Kings
11:1). She was not to be seen as welcome within the fold. While she would
undoubtedly have brought her family gods with her, there is no suggestion that she
actually had any part in leading Solomon astray, and in fact Solomon appears to
have kept her waiting in her own private house in ‘the city of David’ until the palace
no longer held the Ark (1 Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 7:8; 1 Kings 9:24), probably in order
not to defile the Ark. Furthermore no specific gods of Egypt are mentioned
(although it is always possible that she favoured Semite gods like many Egyptians
did).
Along with her are mentioned the princesses of the three local Transjordanian
states, the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites; the Phoenician Sidonians, and the
Syrian Hittites (see 1 Kings 10:29 above). These would be treaty wives, royal
princesses married in order to seal treaty arrangements. They were worshippers of,
among others, Chemosh, Molech (Melech), Baal and Asherah (Ashtoreth/Astarte).
The Moabite women had led Israel astray after Baal-peor at Shittim on the final

27. part of the journey towards Canaan ( umbers 25:1-4), but the main Moabite god
was Chemosh. Molech was a god of the Ammonites, whose influence extended over
much of Canaan. It required child sacrifices, and was regularly condemned in the
Law of Moses (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2-5), and by later prophets. Baal and
Asherah were ‘Canaanite’ deities (Judges 2:11; Judges 2:13; Judges 3:7; Judges
8:33; Judges 10:6; etc.), with an influence that spread widely, both into Egypt
(Exodus 14:2), among the Moabites ( umbers 22:41; umbers 25:1-4) and among
the Phoenicians (who were ‘Canaanites’). We know a good deal about Baal through
the discoveries at Ugarit.
“YHWH said to the children of Israel, “You shall not go among them, neither shall
they come among you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.”
This to some extent follows the ideas in Deuteronomy 7:2-4, but it is clearly not a
direct citation, and differs quite considerably in detail, which would duggest that it
comes from another tradition known to Solomon.
We know in fact that Solomon’s first wife was an Ammonite princess, and she bore
him Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:21).
It is quite possible that the original state record from which this information was
extracted merely explained Solomon’s propensity for women as a compliment, and
that ‘foreign’ has been introduced by the author in order to bring out his point,
because as a prophet he recognised how the king had disobeyed God’s
commandment and had suffered the consequences. There can, however, be no doubt
that a good number of his wives would be foreign princesses.
PULPIT, "SOLOMO 'S DEFECTIO .—The observant reader will have already
remarked in this history some intimations of Solomon's approaching fall. Among
these are, first, the repeated warnings which are addressed to him, especially in 1
Kings 9:6-9, and, second, his repeated transgressions of the law by which he ruled.
We have already heard of the multiplication of silver and gold (1 Kings 10:14-25), in
defiance of Deuteronomy 17:17, and of the multiplication of horses (1 Kings 10:27-
29), in disregard of Deuteronomy 17:16 of the same chapter. We now read how the
rain of this great prince was completed by the multiplication of wives. The historian
obviously had the words of Deuteronomy 17:1-20. in his mind as he wrote. It is
remarkable that the chronicler is altogether silent as to Solomon's fall, as he is also
as to David's sin.
1 Kings 11:1
But [Heb. And. This chapter is a direct continuation of the preceding. LXX. κὰι ὁ
βασιλεὺς κ. τ. λ. The polygamy was but a part of his worldliness, like the chariots,
gold, etc.] king Solomon loved [The LXX. ἦν φιλογόνης. is misleading. It is perfectly
clear that it cannot have been mere sensuality led to this enormous harem. This is
evident from

28. BI 1-13, "But King Solomon loved many strange women.
Solomon’s sin
A few years ago two paintings were exhibited in this country, which attracted wide
attention. One of them represented Rome in the height of her splendour, and the other
in the depths of her decay. The contrast was melancholy and instructive. One could not
repress the question as he turned from one scene to the other, What led to this mighty
change? It was the old story, which every great nation thus far in history has illustrated
sooner or later, that of a secret, slow-moving moral decay, preceding and occasioning
social upheaval and ruin. We might fancy that a similar picture might be drawn between
two periods in the history of Israel—one, that of the latter part of Solomon’s reign, when
there was an unsurpassed wealth and glory and power in the holy city; and the other,
only a few years later, when the kingdom was rent and the sceptre had departed.
I. Solomon’s sin. This was no ordinary transgression of an ordinary evil-doer. It was not
the general unworthiness of his life—an unworthiness that pertains to every child of
Adam. It was a distinct thing. It had an historical character—Solomon’s sin. We now ask
briefly in what did it consist?
1. It was not, primarily, sensuality. That was only the outworking of an inner and far
deeper evil. The simple and honest historian tells us that he loved many strange
women, thus breaking an explicit command to the chosen people. Now the ultimate
evil against which Moses was led to legislate in this particular was not polygamy nor
licentiousness, but the idolatry which the foreigner would inevitably introduce.
Among these women he found an intellectual stimulus and gratification. They were
more brilliant than Jewish maidens, and their culture was a distinct and attractive
element in the royal pursuit of “wisdom.” For in that great experiment of life
Solomon commanded the most costly and varied forms of pleasure and of learning.
All the world—all there was in man—was made tributary to the object held up in
view.
2. Nor was it pure and simple idolatry. That also was a symptom of inner disorder
and weakness. It was like polygamy, a form only of heart-wandering from God. He
built high places for his wives, which burned incense and offered sacrifices to their
gods. There is not the slightest evidence that he ever abandoned the worship of
Jehovah, or set up images of him as Jeroboam did, or that he ever lost faith in
Jehovah as the one and only true God. But his heart was not perfect; and this was the
sin beneath his sensuality and idolatry. He began to waver by tolerating the false
religions of his wives. He was liberalised in religion. If people were only sincere, he
may have said, no matter what they worship. If they live up to their light, it is well
enough without letting in more light. Who knows absolute truth? Who can say,
“Thus saith the Lord”? Who, thought this king, sets himself up to say that there is
only one narrow way of life? The religious world of to-day finds its most subtle and
powerful temptation in the general revolt against restraint and constraint. It takes
now one form and now another. It comes as a protest against what is called
narrowness, even in construing the terms of the gospel upon which men enter into
life. The world has always seen the insolence of greatness against the law of God. It
sees now the same insolence under cover of the grace of God. But whatever we may
discover in science or art, whatever gains we may make in the domain of reason,
there can be nothing essentially new in the way of life by Jesus Christ. The data of
theology are all furnished, and have been for ages. The path of life is just as narrow

29. and just as broad as ever. God demands the whole heart, because anything less is
nothing at all to Him. Half even of Solomon’s great soul is worthless in the kingdom
of heaven.
II. Solomon’s punishment. We observe at once that it was of a character to be peculiarly
felt by one of his great endowments and brilliant opportunities. It came very slowly In
the first place, although we do not find it here recorded, he lived long enough to see that
his splendid experiment in life had been a miserable failure. Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity, was his sad verdict. His “world” passed away and the lust of it. He ceased to
desire. Punishment came in another form. He was unable to transmit the kingdom to his
posterity; and such men have an eye to the future, in which their greatness will come to
be fully seen and honoured. They are above the narrowest lines of an ignorant
selfishness. They would make coming ages tributary to themselves. To Solomon, who
had been made acquainted with the mind of God towards Israel, there must have been a
profound sorrow in the certainty that his failure carried the nation down with himself.
Those in authority hold a peculiar place in the divine economy, because their defections
entail such widespread disasters. Hence God rightly exacts extraordinary punishments
of them. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Solomon’s sin
Solomon had come to the throne of the most important kingdom then on the earth at the
youthful age of twenty. Proud of his sublime eminence and flattered by the obsequious
attentions of foreign nations, he formed matrimonial alliances with the royal families of
them all until a harem of seven hundred wives disgraced the Holy City. These heathen
wives required their heathen chapels and chaplains, and the complaisant king
surrounded Jerusalem with temples for the enactment of pagan idolatries. To the king,
prematurely old, at length comes the prophetic voice declaring the wrath of Jehovah
upon the apostate kingdom, the doom, however, softened in two particulars for the sake
of David, who, though long dead, still benefited the land by the effects of his piety. The
rending of the kingdom from the Solomonian line should not take place till Solomon
himself had passed away, and then a remnant (Judah) should remain with the regular
succession.
I. A life of luxury is perilous to the soul. God intended man to labour even when he was
in Paradise. The idler is practically opposing a fundamental law of the Most High. An
abundance of wealth tempts a man to a life of pleasure, which is selfish idleness, and
when official power is added to the wealth the flood-gates of sin are opened in the soul in
almost all cases. He who, if busy in an honest trade or profession, would readily throw
off the approaches of gross sin by his preoccupation. Solomon was a luxurious idler. He
was not a statesman busying himself for the good of his country. The young man who
has independent resources is in a very hazardous position. He is tempted to play the
Solomon on his own small scale. The sin, however, is just as great, and the ruin as
profound. He seeks associates who will amuse him, and, instead of growing in spiritual
wisdom and strength, he descends rapidly to the plane of stupid carnality.
II. The way of wickedness is a steep descent. Solomon found the step from Pharaoh’s
daughter to Pharaoh’s god a very easy one. Youth flatters itself with an idea of its own
strength, and plans a descent into sin only a short distance, when it will return and walk
in the path of righteousness. It is the silly bird caught in the fowler’s net. Association
with evil blunts the perception of the evil, and the young man is soon found apologising

30. for the wickedness he formerly condemned.
III. The wrath of God is a dread reality. Men of loose life love to harp on the truth that
God is love, and then interpret love as amiable weakness. It was the Divine anger with
Solomon and his corrupted people which rent Israel asunder and raised up formidable
foes to destroy the prosperity of the land. Our text is perfectly plain on that head
IV. The source of the false life is in the false heart. Solomon’s heart was not perfect with
the Lord God. The word “perfect” here is not to be understood as referring to the
character, but to the motive and intent. A perfect character never existed on earth since
man fell, except the Lord Jesus. Solomon s religion was a political and fashionable affair.
A heart devoted to God had nothing to do with it. He would pay outward respect to the
religion of the land, but with the grand liberality of a worldly heart he would be so broad
in his views and so free in his charity as to welcome all religious into his realm and
capital. It is simply the heart that is not perfect with God pursuing its course of nature. It
is the heart that can indulge in sin to any extent, and yet speak eloquently on universal
love and the excellent glory of humanity in general. The so-called philosophy of the day
is brimful of it, destroying the idea of the personality of God in order that it may make
room for a universal righteousness, sin being eliminated as an old wife’s fable. It is the
religion that is lauded on the stage by depraved men and women, because it finds no
fault with their defilement. This is the Solomonian religion, which is set over against the
Davidic religion in our text. (H. Crosby, D. D.)
Solomon’s fall
I. The nature of Solomon’s fall.
1. It was gradual. No man becomes wholly abandoned or altogether depraved at
once; formation of character is, both in its construction and destruction, a gradual
process.
(1) Because of the power of conscience.
(2) Because the Spirit strives.
(3) Because the Mediator pleads, “Let it alone this year also.”
(4) Because a warning is oftentimes given.
2. It was sure. From bad to worse, like a stone rolling down a hill.
II. The causes of Solomon’s fall.
1. The mixing of self-interest with God’s service. He chose wives from nations with
whom God had forbidden His people to intermarry; hence contagion from such a
bad example.
2. The union of piety and superstition.
III. The consequences of Solomon’s fall.
1. It brought down God s displeasure.
2. It brought ruin on his kingdom. Even the sins of obscure men pass in their effects
beyond the power of their perpetrators (as no man liveth, no man dieth, so no man
sinneth to himself) but how much more the sins of the great ones of the earth!

31. IV. The lessons of Solomon’s fall.
1. Great opportunities bring great responsibilities, and such cannot be neglected
with impunity.
2. Riches hinder access into the kingdom of God. Wealth applied to selfish ends
carries no blessing, but hardens the heart and causes it to lose its hold upon God. (C.
E. E. Appleyard, B. A.)
2 They were from nations about which the Lord
had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry
with them, because they will surely turn your
hearts after their gods.” evertheless, Solomon
held fast to them in love.
BAR ES, "Ye shall not go in unto them ... - These words are not a quotation
from the Pentateuch. They merely give the general meaning of the two passages
prohibiting intermarriage with neighboring idolators (marginal references). Strictly
speaking, the prohibition in the Law of intermarriage was confined to the Canaanite
nations. But the principle of the prohibition applied equally to the Moabites,
Ammonites, and Edomites who all bordered on the holy land; and was so applied by
Ezra Ezr_9:1 and Nehemiah Neh_13:23.
GILL, "Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of
Israel, ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you,.... That
is, they should not intermarry with one another; this is to be understood of the last
mentioned, the Hittites, who were one of the seven nations this law respected, Deu_7:1.
for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods; which is the reason
given for the making the above law, and was sadly verified in Solomon:
Solomon clave unto these in love; he not only took them, but kept them, and
expressed a strong affection for them.
BE SO , "1 Kings 11:2. Concerning which the Lord said — Ye shall not go in unto

32. them — This relates especially to the Hittites and the Zidonians, and consequently
the rest of the seven nations of Canaan, with whom they were forbidden to make
any marriage, (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3,) for the weighty reason here
mentioned. For though they might marry women of other nations, if these women
embraced the true religion, yet of the seven nations of Canaan they might not,
although they were converted to their religion; lest the venom should lurk and lie
hid, and at last break out and infect them. Great was the foresight wherewith God
endowed Moses in giving this precept, as Grotius remarks; and the not observing it
was of fatal consequence to the Israelites, and laid the foundation of their utter ruin.
Solomon clave unto these in love — Was extravagantly fond of them. He had much
knowledge; but to what purpose, when he knew not how to govern his appetites?
PULPIT, "Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel
[Of the nations just enumerated, the law expressly forbade marriage with the
Hittites alone (Exodus 34:11-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-4), though the Zidonians are
probably to be included, as being Canaanites (Genesis 10:15). But the principle
which applied in the ease of the seven nations of Canaan applied equally to all other
idolaters. "They will turn away thy son from following me," etc. (Deuteronomy 7:4).
The spirit of the law, consequently, was as much violated by an Edomite or
Ammonite as by a Hittite alliance], Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they
come in unto you [much the same expression Joshua 23:12. The historian does not
cite any special Scripture, however, but gives the substance of several warnings], for
surely they will turn away your heart after their gods [cf. Exodus 34:16]: Solomon
clave [same word Genesis 2:4] unto these [emphatic in Heb. "even to these," instead
of cleaving to God (Deuteronomy 4:4; Deuteronomy 10:20; Deuteronomy 30:20,
each of which has the same word as here), and despite the prohibitions of the law,
etc.] in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and
three hundred concubines, and his wives led him
astray.
BAR ES, "These numbers seem excessive to many critics, and it must be admitted
that history furnishes no parallel to them. In Son_6:8 the number of Solomon’s
legitimate wives is said to be sixty, and that of his concubines eighty. It is, perhaps
probable, that the text has in this place suffered corruption. For “700” we should