1 and 2 Kings - Lesson 6

Dr. John Oswalt
1 & 2 Kings
th630-06
Solomon's Achievements, Glory and Reckoning
Lesson Transcript

As we begin, I want to make a comment about the Israelite concept of history. In God's remarks to Solomon, a couple of times, He said that He would establish Solomon's throne forever, and we see other places in the prophets where God promises that something will be true forever. But it's very important that we understand how the Bible understands history in contrast to the pagan understanding. The pagan understanding is that everything that has happened had to happen and everything that will happen had to happen. Everything is connected. Time is an endless cycle coming from nowhere, going nowhere, and everything in the cosmos is interconnected with everything else.

This is how the horoscope is understood. On the day you were born, the stars were in a certain configuration, and that configuration then dictates what the rest of your life will look like. You think you have choices, but you really do not. History is determined. Therefore, the task of the prophet, in the pagan world, is to try to understand where these connections are working, and therefore, what has to happen to you in the future. That's called omenology. There are signs, there are omens, that give clues to what has to happen in the coming days.

The Hebrew Bible does not understand history in that way at all. Omenology is forbidden strictly in the Bible. You must not pursue omens. You must not try to figure out what's going to happen on the basis of what has happened or on the basis of the stars or on the basis of a flight of birds or the entrails of a sheep. No, you must not, because history is shaped by human choice. Amazing. Amazing.

And so the prophet says, "Here's what's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's certain," if you fulfill the conditions, that you and I shape the future. Now, let me hasten to say, we don't determine the final outcome. That's in God's hands. He has the final outcome securely in His hand, but how we reach that outcome. And we saw it there in Solomon's prayer. If the worst should happen, then, God, we depend upon your grace and your forgiveness to somehow redeem us from that tragedy. You're going to be on the throne forever, if you and your descendants fulfill the conditions. Israel, you will never be troubled by the nations again, if you meet the conditions.

History is not determined in advance. History is shaped along the way by human choices. In a real sense, this goes all the way back to Genesis 3. Why is the world in such a mess? Well, Satan fell from heaven, he brought a third of the angels with him, and the world has been in a mess ever since. No, the world is in a mess because the first two humans made a tragically sinful choice. That having been said, let's look now at chapters 10 and 11 of the book of I Kings. Again, I don't want to prejudge where we're going or how we're going to come out here, but I wonder if the choice of this material in this place, following Yahweh's conditional response to the temple, is significant. We're going to look at Solomon's great accomplishments, and then we're going to look at Solomon's glory as seen through the eyes of the Queen of Sheba. Then we're going to see a summary, and then the tragedy.

We begin with Solomon's achievements in chapter nine, verses 10 through 28. And this is something of a miscellaneous list. There's no very clear order or development in it. We begin in verses 10 through 14 with tensions with Hiram, his partner from Tyre, then an account of his overall building work and who he got to do it in verses 15 through 24, then a word about his temple piety, verse 25, and finally, a message about his fleet in verses 26 through 28. The tensions with Hiram, in verses 10 to 14, reflect Solomon's giving to Hiram some of the promised land.

Now that's interesting in itself, and again, our narrator doesn't say a word of judgment about this, but if you think about it, wait a minute, what is Solomon doing giving away land that God has given to his people, land that belongs to God, to Hiram? But Hiram doesn't like it. Hiram doesn't think these towns are worth the amount of gold and silver and cedar that he gave to Solomon. And we might say that someone is saying, "Well, Solomon was pretty shrewd. He got a lot for a little." We don't know for sure, but the very idea that he's just giving away God's land raises a red flag for us.

When we turn to verses 15 to 25, we see a gifted planner. The three cities that are named in verse 16, Gezer and Megiddo and Hazor, are all key spots on this great international highway. He establishes troops there, clearly, to protect that travel and to make sure that it all is regularized and that the tolls are collected as they should be, careful planning, careful organization. Beth-Horon that is referred to is on the road up from the coast highway to the ridge road that runs through Judah and Israel and is primary access to Jerusalem, again, carefully planning control points, points where trouble might arise. The reference to Tadmor and Palmyra may well be to the oasis out to the east of Damascus, again, a very important point. The caravans would leave the Euphrates River and head west, and their first important stop is Tadmor or Palmyra, and again, having control of that means you've got control of the trade for the day. We see a picture of a man who is a careful organizer and planner.

How did he do it? He did it with a workforce composed of Canaanite slaves. Notice what is said there in verse 20, "There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. These people were not Israelites. Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land whom the Israelites could not exterminate to serve as slave labor, as it is this day." Number one, he accomplished this building work through slaves, Canaanite slaves, and I want you to look at that phrase as it is this day. What day? When are we talking about? Now look back at chapter eight, and we're told that, when the ark was taken into the temple, verse eight, these poles, the poles on the ark, were so long that their ends could be seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, not from outside the holy place, and they're still there until today.

There are 13 times in the Book of Kings, the Books of Kings, where this phrase, as it is to today, appear. And what that says, it talks about the progressive development of the text. Eight could not refer to the very end of 2 Kings because the temple wasn't there. The poles on the arks could not be seen because the ark's not there and the temple's not there. It refers to some intermediate time. Okay. This section of the book is finished, and those polls can be seen as they are today. In chapter nine, again, as it is this day. These phrases occurring as they do are a testimony to the development of the book across the years, as it is today, as it is today, as it is today, as it is today. I suspect, when the Solomonic narrative was complete, sometime not long after Solomon's death, maybe 925, 920, yes, they're still using Canaanite slaves at that point.

There was also forced labor. Now these are Israelites, and they're not slaves, they're free people, but they are required to give a certain amount of their time to the king's work. We saw how in the building of the temple they were required to give three months each year. He's got two groups. He's got the slaves, who are slaves all the time, and he's got the forced labor, who are slaves some of the time, and it's by use of these people that he accomplishes this great opulence, this great construction, this great building. Once again, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

We turn then to the interesting statement in verse 24. After Pharaoh's daughter had come up from the city of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the terraces. Now there's an earlier mention of that in the chapter. He built these cities and so forth and so forth, and the terraces. What are the terraces, and why that particular reference to the daughter of Pharaoh? Archeologists have found, in the lower part of the city below where the temple stands, a whole, if you will, retaining wall going all the way down into the Kidron Valley and up, and the tentative thought is this was a foundation for the palace of David, and that what Solomon has done is to repair this, to rebuild it, that maybe it had been beginning to fall down, and after the Pharaoh's daughter is out of there, he is repairing it. But, again, why, Mr. Narrator, do you tell us this at this point?

And then, finally, we have the report of his fleet. The Phoenicians, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, these were the great sailors of the ancient world. These were the ones who traveled clear across the Mediterranean, eventually established as a colony the city of Carthage, which was a contender with Rome for ruler of the Mediterranean. They also were known to travel even around the continent of Africa. It's reported, in 600 BC, that they did that. It makes a lot of sense that Solomon, planner, administrator, thinker, should utilize these Phoenician sailors for his ships going out of the port of Alat down here and traveling for three years to the land of Ophir, O-P-H-I-R. Where's that? Nobody knows. But three years is a long time. Is it somewhere far down the east coast of Africa? We don't know. But, nevertheless, here again, is a man who is at work accomplishing a variety of things, a man who is a dreamer, a visionary, a wise man.

That's Solomon's achievements. Now we turn to talk about his glory, and the story of the visit from the Queen of Sheba becomes the vehicle for introducing this whole subject. Sheba is down in the extreme south of the Arabian Peninsula, where Saudi Arabia meets the Indian Ocean in that area, and it is the place where frankincense is harvested. Frankincense was the most precious incense used throughout the ancient Near East in the temples. Its particular flavor, its particular fragrance, made it especially desirable. It's very probable that this visit from the Queen of Sheba is a trade mission.

Solomon controls the upper end of her trade route. The frankincense came by ship up the shore of the Red Sea to Alat, and then out to Damascus, and from Damascus, it was distributed to the world. Here's Solomon with a stranglehold on her trade route. This is not just a casual visit. This is a visit between two very, very important monarchs, two very important business people. She comes, and she comes perhaps with a degree of skepticism, wondering, "What about this man? What about this person I've heard so much about?" Notice that there's no direct mention of the temple, but there is of the palace. Again, we have a feeling that the narrator is setting us up.

One of the effects of this stunning display of wealth, as described in verses four and five, "When the Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord," the burnt offerings that he made to impress her, "she was overwhelmed." And that was the goal. That was the goal, to overwhelm your competitors, your partners, with displays of wealth that would simply reduce them to numbness, "Oh, my goodness, I can't compete with them. I can't overcome them. I'm going to have to make a deal with them, a deal that maybe will not be as much to my advantage as I hoped."

And she says, "If I was a little skeptical about what I'd heard about you, no, the half has not been told of what I see in you. This is glory." Notice especially verse nine, though, "Praise be to the Lord your God who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord's eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain mishpat," order, "and right." Once again, we don't need to discount this. Yes, she saw the incredible wealth, the incredible power, and she said, "Hmm, your God must've had something to do with that. Good, good." We don't need to say, "Well, this is a piece of that old positive stuff about Solomon that is put into the middle of this." The narrator simply telling us as best he can, this is the way it was. Now you, reader, you, hearer, you say, "Is it good or bad?", the power of the Scriptures.

When we look at the exchange of gifts in verses 10 and 13, probably these were about equal. You remember in the gift-giving cultures of the American Northwest, if they gave you a lot of gifts, you were supposed to give them about an equal number of gifts in return. The issue is not who's making more money or who's getting more goods. The issue is relationship, connection, standing, position. All of this glory is summed up in chapter 10, verses 14 through 25.

Notice the emphasis on gold: in verse 14, the weight of gold; in verse 16, shields of hammered gold; 600 shekels of gold into each shield; 17, "He made 300 small shields of hammered gold with three mina of gold in each shield." Verse 18, "The king made a great throne covered with ivory and overlaid with gold." In verse 21, "The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years, it returned carrying gold." And again, in verse 25, "Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift, articles of silver and gold," gold, gold, gold, gold, gold. Silver, that's for people not in Solomon's class. Silver is like paving stones, but gold, ah, that's something special.

When we look at this, we say, again, are we being invited to ask a question about this kind of opulence or is it simply presented in admiration? Now I want you to turn back to the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verses 16 and 17, Deuteronomy 17, verses 16 and 17. This is in a passage which is describing how the king, if they have a king, is supposed to act. Verse 16, "The king moreover must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you you are not to go back that way again. He must not take many wives or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold."

Now go back to 1 Kings 10, and look at the conclusion of chapter 10. Verse 26, "Solomon accumulated chariots and horses. He had 1400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones and cedar as plentiful as sycamore fig trees in the foothills. Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue, Sicilia. The royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. They imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, a horse for 150. They exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans. King Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites."

We don't need to say much, do we? Do not accumulate wealth. Do not go to Egypt to get horses. Do not have many wives. And so we come to the final reckoning. Finally, our narrator is going to speak some words of judgment, although they're still pretty measured. "They were from the nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts away after their gods.' Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods," now here it is, "and his heart was no longer whole. The NIV says fully devoted. "His heart was no longer one to the Lord his God."

I think that's one of the saddest verses in the scripture. He had known what it was to be one for God. All his being's ransomed powers, one for God. But, when he is old, his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was no longer one to the Lord his God, as the heart of David, his father, had been. He followed Astoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Moloch, the detestable God of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil, oh, my, in the heart, in the eyes, of the Lord. He did not follow the Lord completely as his father had done. He even built temples for these gods on what we know as the Mount of Olives.

And so, verse nine, the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's command. The Lord said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you've not kept my covenant and my decrees which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David, your father, I'll not do it in your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David, my servant, and the sake of Jerusalem, which I've chosen."

Oh, my. Oh, my. The Davidic covenant will be kept, but it'll be kept in a tragically diminished state. Here again, we see God at work. His ultimate strategy is going to be realized, but how it is realized is affected directly by the choices that we humans make. We're told then about two rebels who existed during Solomon's kingdom, and we're told, in verse 14, that the Lord raised them up. Now, here again, is an important issue that we need to think our way through.

The Lord knew in advance that Solomon was going to disobey him and turn away from him, and that the kingdom was going to be turned from Solomon, and so God raised up these adversaries. I don't think we have to go that way at all. Once again, here is the issue. Does God control history and run it like a puppet master, or does God simply sit aside and say, "Oh, my, look what they're doing now?" And the answer to both questions is no. Very clearly, God has given us freedom to act, but that freedom is never outside his ultimate design and purpose and control.

If something happens to you, it does not happen because God caused it or because God simply couldn't do anything about it. If it happens to you, it happens because God permitted it. Nothing happens in this world except through God's hands. This is where it's important for us to talk about first cause, second cause, tertiary cause. Does God cause all things? Yes. He's the first cause of everything, but does that mean that therefore God causes every individual event? No. He permits them, and having permitted them, he can indeed bring his good purposes out of them if we'll let him. So what's going on here?

There were people who reacted against Solomon's control, against his use of forced labor, against his power, against his taxes. God caused that reaction. Did he do it to them against their will? No. But, if it happened, it happened within God's control and purposes. Had Solomon in fact been faithful to the end, Hadad and Rezon, the two rebels, would not have succeeded, but because Solomon was unfaithful, they were more successful than they needed to be or could have been or should have been. And it's interesting that they are at the two extents of the kingdom. Hadad is from Edom, and if we look at our map for a second, Edom is located here at the southern end of the Dead Sea. And Edom and Judah were always competitors. Now you remember that Edom is the descendant of Esau and Israel is the descendant of Jacob. Edom and Judah especially were constantly in conflict for this area here called the Negev, the Southland, Edom trying to expand that way, Judah expanding southward.

Here's Hadad, who is a rebel who escapes to Egypt when Edom is oppressed by David, and then continuing under Solomon, and then when he hears what's happening, perhaps Solomon's control weakening a bit, he's back. Did that have to happen? No, it did not have to happen, but that it did happen is under the control and purposes of God. The other is Rezon. Syria, often called Aram in the Bible, A-R-A-M, and Syria and Israel were often in conflict with each other. Again, here is something that didn't have to blossom, but did blossom as a result of Solomon's actions and choices, so two rebels.

There's trouble as a result of Solomon's actions and choices that's been going on all along, and we're told about it now, but much more serious than revolt on the outer edges of the empire is revolt within the empire, and it's a revolt that, in this case, is very clearly the result of the action and choices of the Lord. Jeroboam was a gifted person. He was in charge of some of the forced labor in the north, and Solomon had picked him out as a person of worth and purpose, but God has now made his choice because Solomon had made his choice.

And a prophet meets Jeroboam, a prophet named Ahijah, and we'll see him again, and the prophet tears his robe into pieces and gives 10 of the pieces to Jeroboam. This is verse 31. He said to Jeroboam, "Take 10 pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord the God of Israel says." See, I'm going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you 10 tribes, but for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I've chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I'll do this because they, this is not merely Solomon's actions, they have forsaken me and worshiped Astoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh, the God of the Moabites, Moloch, the God of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me nor done what is right in my eyes nor kept my decrees.

Jeroboam comes to this position as a result of God's prophetic word. That's very important, and we're going to have reason to talk about that some more in the following lectures. Notice what more Ahijah has to say. Verse 37, "However, as for you, I will take you and you will rule over all that your heart desires. You will be king over Israel if you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes," three things, do what I command, walk in obedience, do what is right by obeying my decrees and commands, covenant, "as David my servant did. I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you."

Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. He's saying to Jeroboam, "I'll establish your dynasty on the throne forever." Again, I want us to bear this in mind as we then walk into the future in following lectures, the possibilities. He's been chosen by God. He's been given this kingdom by God. He's been given a mandate that, if he will follow, will result in incredible possibilities out into the future.

But there it is, if, if, "If you'll obey my commands, walk in obedience to me and keep my covenant, all this is wide open before you." This is not a man who is plotting rebellion, a man who is saying, "Well, I'm going to make myself somebody. I'm sick and tired of this old Solomon and I'm going to make my own kingdom." No. This is a man who is chosen by God for this unfortunate purpose of dividing the kingdom. There it is, and there it will be.

In the final verses of the chapter, we see, again, a sad picture. Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt to Sheshach the king, who stayed there until Solomon's death. You see the parallel between Saul and David? God anointed David, gave him the kingdom, and Saul tried to kill him. God anointed Jeroboam, and Solomon tried to kill him. How are the mighty fallen? How are the mighty fallen?

In many ways, what we see here is Israel in microcosm. In many ways, what we see happening here in these 11 chapters is going to going to be played out on the national stage, first in Israel, then in Judah, in the days to come. If you keep my covenant, the future is wide open, the possibilities are endless, but if you don't, tragedy lies before you, all the possibilities. And, again, I think one of the things that grips me about the Solomon narrative is how God blessed the man, all these possibilities. Did he choose to live in a more opulent style than he needed to do? I suspect so, but these are the blessings of God, and it appears that he simply took them upon himself for himself, all the time, indulging himself.

Many times, students will say to me, "The wisest man in the world has 1,000 wives?" Not too wise, I think. Here's a man who clearly had a sexual addiction. He also had a political addiction. Most of these marriages unquestionably were political things. He may have never even met several hundred of his wives except in some treaty ceremony, but still, the heartbreak of all the blessings that were his and to throw them away. That's the heartbreak of the human race, isn't it? And we see it again and again.

We also see here in these 11 chapters the power of the Scriptures. You are simply not going to find literature like this anywhere else in the world of that day. You're not going to have the examination of motives, the revelation of character. Why not? Because, in the pagan world, individuals aren't that important. A human being is only significant to the degree that they reflect ideal humanity. But the God who chooses to reveal himself in the unique events and persons of time and space, oh, my, you better record that. How will you know who God is unless you record exceedingly carefully what he has done in the context of individual lives and individual places?

We come to the end of the Solomon narrative, what I would look at as the first division of the Books of Kings, and we are ready in the succeeding lectures now to look at the second division, the divided kingdom.