Solomon: Full of wisdom, but lacked discernment?
The very first thing we are told about Solomon is that he married the daughter of Egypt's pharaoh, and by that act secured a military treaty, an alliance, with Egypt. Probably it was the daughter of Pharaoh Siamon, one of the last rulers of Egypt's 21st dynasty. Since we know from Egyptian history that it was highly unusual for an Egyptian princess to be married to anyone who was not Egyptian, there is evidence in this of how important Israel had become under David and continued to be under Solomon. Such an alliance with one of the most powerful nations in the world would have insured peace along the southern boundaries of Israel and allowed Solomon to focus his attention elsewhere.
What looked great from the human side, however, carried with it a terrible liability -- with Egypt's princess came Egypt's religion, and in order to accommodate his new wife, Solomon apparently left the door open for her to worship her own gods. In any case, he allowed the practice of using pagan altars on the high places, which were meant for the worship of the God of Israel. The Canaanites, who the Israelites drove out, had worshipped Baal by placing altars on high hills. After the conquest, but before the temple was built, the Israelites took over at least some of those sites for the worship of Jehovah. This practice is not condoned, in fact, it is condemned by Scripture. Solomon both tolerated and even encouraged "syncretism" in the religion of Israel. "Syncretism," by the way, is what happens when you "mix" pure theology and practice with ideas and practices that come from other religions -- in this case, the religions of his many foreign wives.
In the fourth chapter there was another little statement that some of you may missed. It tells us that Solomon kept 12,000 horses. It caught my eye because of a verse in the Book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 17, in a fascinating passage which predicts that the Israelites will want to have a king like other nations, it says when you do have a king, "the king must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself -- he must not take many wives. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold." Remember that passage because Solomon in time will violate all three of those criteria and it will bring him great trouble. The reason for the divine prohibition -- Psalm 20.
Remember the verse back in Psalm 20? "Some trust in horses and some trust in chariots but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God." I think that verse may have the key to why God prohibited the kings of Israel from multiplying horses. Horses meant chariots and indeed the account here very explicitly tells us that the reason Solomon kept 12,000 horses was he kept 4,000 chariots. God didn't want Solomon to depend upon an army, to think that is what would keep him in power or make him strong in the eyes of the nations. God wanted Solomon to depend on God. "Some trust in horses and some trust in chariots but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God." The Psalm goes on to say, "They will fall down but we will rise up and stand firm."
At the beginning of his reign, however, Solomon does follow the Lord. He starts well and God is pleased with what He sees. If God gave you one wish and said, ‘Take anything you want,’ I wonder what you would ask for. He asked for wisdom. The "wisdom of Solomon" has become legendary.
But just exactly what is wisdom? One author says that wisdom is the ability "to distinguish right and wrong and to decide and govern. It is based upon a heart and mind that listens to and obeys God." The Book of Proverbs will have a great deal to say about the subject of wisdom, but for now it will suffice for us to remember that Solomon says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The example that is given here of Solomon's wisdom in action is a well known one. When two prostitutes appear before him, each claiming that the one surviving child is her own, Solomon feigns an inability to decide and proposes cutting the child in two, eliciting a plea from the real mother to award the baby to her rival. Thus Solomon identifies the real mother by her love. There is an important principle in evidence here. Because Solomon asks for that which is righteous and honors God, God is pleased not only to give him what he asks for, but other things as well -- honor and riches. This is the same principle in action that we find in Jesus' words, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you..." It happened to Solomon and it will happen to you as well. When our priorities are right, when we ask God for what He wants to give us, we often will find ourselves blessed beyond all measure in other areas of our life as well.
David was a warrior; he was a conqueror. It was under his hand that the Kingdom of Israel extended to great and vast lengths. Solomon, his son, was a builder - two of his greatest building projects. The first of those building projects was the Temple of God, although we know it as the Temple of Solomon, and therein lies a tale. The second building was Solomon's own palace. Now the Temple was originally David's idea. You will remember that he wanted to build that Temple, a place for the worship of God. All the nations around Israel had elaborate and ornate temples. If you go to Egypt today, you can still look at some of the magnificent structures that were erected as temples to the gods of Egypt. David thought that since his God, the God of Israel, was greater, and in fact the only God, far greater than imaginary gods of other countries, He should have a magnificent house of worship as well. There is a difference between the dwelling places of all those other gods and the Temple of God, in that in the other nations these idols and false gods were thought to actually dwell in those temples -- they were their dwelling places, -- whereas the Temple that Solomon built, that David conceived of, was not a dwelling place at all. David recognized that all of the universe couldn’t contain the greatness of God. It was His footstool, not His dwelling place. Nevertheless it was a place set apart for the worship of God. Well, it was David's idea, but David was prevented from building the Temple because he was a man of war, and that was left for Solomon.
Solomon's prayer is the centerpiece of the account that is given us in I Kings chapter 8. It deserves our careful attention. I'm sure you took some note of the content of that prayer, in which Solomon talked about the greatness of God and worshipped Him. He described God's uniqueness and His faithfulness. He talked about God's infinity. Verse 27 is an important verse of Scripture. "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this Temple I have built!" Not only did Solomon clearly understand the infinity of God -- the fact that God is not bound by any place but is bigger than all places -- but he also understood that the Temple, while it focused the attention of the nation of Israel upon their God, was not intended to house their God. He describes God's compassion and concern, and then turns in his prayer from worship to intercession.
That same pattern is there in many of the prayers of Scripture, and we might learn much from it about prayer.
First worship, then intercession, then petitions. Solomon asks God for many things. There are three different expressions for prayer in verse 28. The word translated "prayer" denotes prayer in general; the word "plea," sometimes translated “supplication,” is a specific kind of prayer -- a call for help. Then comes the third word, "cry," literally a “ringing cry.” It is clear from a consideration of Solomon's prayer, that in his mind at least, and therefore in the minds of all of Israel, prayer is the central part of the worship of God. That is important to us, because in all of our readings through the books of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, through all of our understanding thus far of the sacrificial system, we could be distracted from that. All of the sacrifices that were made (and the number of sacrifices made on this particular day in Israel's history was absolutely enormous) -- but all the sacrifices made were simply ways of underscoring and highlighting the understanding that prayer is the centerpiece of the worship of God. The subject of this prayer of Solomon IS prayer. There is this understanding that prayer is going to be the vital ingredient of the relationship that is going to exist between God and Israel. It is the active ingredient, and it is prayer that somehow activates the promises of God. The first thing that Solomon asks for in his prayer is that God would remember and fulfill the promises made to his father David and to the people of Israel. But there is in that request the understanding that it is prayer that somehow functions as the trigger. That is a very biblical concept. We find it not only in the Old Testament, but also all through the New Testament. Prayer is the way by which the promises of God become activated in the lives of His people.
‘Why is prayer necessary if God already knows what He is going to do. If He has already ordained its plan and set it out, why do we need to pray?’ The only answer is this - because God has told us to pray, and that it is through the instrumentality of our prayers that He does His mighty work in our lives.
The second thing that we can see from this prayer of Solomon's is that the whole reason for the existence of the Temple is so that people can pray, and even if they are not physically present in Jerusalem, they are always able to focus their attention and their thoughts upon that Temple, and in so doing bring themselves to prayer and communication with God. When an enemy has defeated the people, the solution is to come to the Temple and pray, and God will hear from heaven and forgive their sin. There is even a reference here to people being defeated and carried into captivity, and Solomon says still they must look toward the temple and pray. That explains the actions of Daniel much later on in the history of Israel.
I Kings chapter 11 leads to the sad conclusion of the life of King Solomon. Solomon did not finish well. (It could not be said of Moses or Joshua that they did not finish well.) It could be said of Saul, Solomon, to a lesser extent it could even be said of David, Samuel and Eli. They all finished with less strength than they should have. In the case of the latter three, it was because they failed to do a good job in rearing their children. What went wrong? He was the wisest man in the world, and by the end of his life he is horribly off track!! What happened? You may remember the verses I pointed out to you some time ago from the Book of Deuteronomy in which the future kings of Israel were warned not to multiply wealth, horses or wives. Well Solomon didn't pay much attention to that -- in this he greatly sinned. His wisdom was a marvelous gift from God, but he relied on it too much. He relied so much on the gift, that he forgot the Giver. His wealth created the very same problem. Instead of remembering that God was the source of his wealth, he came too much to believe that his wealth could purchase anything he needed. Though he put a great deal of wealth into the Temple, he clearly believed that he had the right to keep most of it for himself. That too was a very big mistake, a mistake for which his son paid in full. He should have shared his wealth with his people. Rehoboam, following his father's example, felt no compulsion to do that either. His wives were the biggest mistake of all, for they led King Solomon into idolatry. I have to believe it didn't start that way. I believe that probably, at the beginning, it was just a cultural accommodation to a Sidonian princess who really wanted to have just a little place where she could, then the Ammonite wife wanted a place to worship Molech. We know that human sacrifices were involved in the worship of Molech, though I doubt they were ever allowed in Jerusalem. Then came the princess from Moab and she wanted a place to worship Chemosh, the detestable god of the Moabites.
Then one temple came to be built for nearly everyone of Solomon's foreign wives and the whole thing was out of control. Jerusalem, which should have been the center of worship to the One True God, became a virtual supermarket of gods and goddesses, with temples scattered all over the hills. What a travesty! At the beginning of chapter 9, Solomon's kingdom was given to him and to his descendants permanently, but conditionally. "If you walk before me with integrity of heart and uprightness as David your Father did and observe my decrees and laws, then I will establish your throne over Israel forever. But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees that I have given, then I will cut Israel off from the land I have given it. I will reject this Temple I have consecrated for my Name and Israel then will become a byword and an object of ridicule among the nations." Chilling words, because they all came true. All through Scripture God makes promises. Some of them, like the one he made to Noah after the flood, are unconditional. God said to Noah, "I will never again destroy the earth with a flood." There are no ‘ifs’ or ‘thens’ in that promise -- it is totally unconditional. Many of the promises of God in Scripture, however, come with conditions attached. We had better learn to pay careful attention to those conditions.
There is no room in the Christian life for presumption. For you see, at bottom, that was the great sin of the wise King Solomon. God gave him so many, many precious gifts. They were his to use, his to keep, but always there was to be the understanding that they were on loan from the One who is the giver of all gifts. Honor and worship was to be given to that One. Each of the gifts was to be used with the understanding that ultimately, though they were Solomon's on loan, they were to be used for the glory of the One who had given them. That is what Solomon forgot. At some point along the way, he began to think that the gifts were his and his alone. The gifts had been given to him, and he had no obligation to use them for the glory of the Giver. When Solomon began to think that way, he sealed his fate. Solomon fell victim to the sin of presumption. Let's hope and pray that you and I will be wiser than the wisest man who ever lived. That is the challenge.
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