Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 3:1 - 3:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 3:1 - 3:1


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Solomon's marriage and the religious state of the kingdom. - 1Ki 3:1. When Solomon had well secured his possession of the throne (1Ki 2:46), he entered into alliance with Pharaoh, by taking his daughter as his wife. This Pharaoh of Egypt is supposed by Winer, Ewald, and others to have been Psusennes, the last king of the twenty-first (Tanitic) dynasty, who reigned thirty-five years; since the first king of the twenty-second (Bubastic) dynasty, Sesonchis or Sheshonk, was certainly the Shishak who conquered Jerusalem in the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign (1Ki 14:25-26). The alliance by marriage with the royal family of Egypt presupposes that Egypt was desirous of cultivating friendly relations with the kingdom of Israel, which had grown into a power to be dreaded; although, as we know nothing more of the history of Egypt at that time than the mere names of the kings (as given by Manetho), it is impossible to determine what may have been the more precise grounds which led the reigning king of Egypt to seek the friendship of Israel. There is, at any rate, greater probability in this supposition than in that of Thenius, who conjectures that Solomon contracted this marriage because he saw the necessity of entering into a closer relationship with this powerful neighbour, who had a perfectly free access to Palestine. The conclusion of this marriage took place in the first year of Solomon's reign, though probably not at the very beginning of the reign, but not till after his buildings had been begun, as we may infer from the expression לִבְנֹות כַּלֹּתֹו עַד (until he had made an end of building). Moreover, Solomon had already married Naamah the Ammonitess before ascending the throne, and had had a son by her (compare 1Ki 14:21 with 1Ki 11:42-43). - Marriage with an Egyptian princess was not a transgression of the law, as it was only marriages with Canaanitish women that were expressly prohibited (Exo 34:16; Deu 7:3), whereas it was allowable to marry even foreign women taken in war (Deu 21:10.). At the same time, it was only when the foreign wives renounced idolatry and confessed their faith in Jehovah, that such marriages were in accordance with the spirit of the law. And we may assume that this was the case even with Pharaoh's daughter; because Solomon adhered so faithfully to the Lord during the first years of his reign, that he would not have tolerated any idolatry in his neighbourhood, and we cannot find any trace of Egyptian idolatry in Israel in the time of Solomon, and, lastly, the daughter of Pharaoh is expressly distinguished in 1Ki 11:1 from the foreign wives who tempted Solomon to idolatry in his old age. The assertion of Seb. Schmidt and Thenius to the contrary rests upon a false interpretation of 1Ki 11:1. - ”And he brought her into the city of David, till he had finished the building of his palace,” etc. Into the city of David: i.e., not into the palace in which his father had dwelt, as Thenius arbitrarily interprets it in opposition to 2Ch 8:11, but into a house in the city of David or Jerusalem, from which he brought her up into the house appointed for her after the building of his own palace was finished (1Ki 9:24). The building of the house of Jehovah is mentioned as well, because the sacred tent for the ark of the covenant was set up in the palace of David until the temple was finished, and the temple was not consecrated till after the completion of the building of the palace (see at 1Ki 8:1). By the building of “the wall of Jerusalem” we are to understand a stronger fortification, and possibly also the extension of the city wall (see at 1Ki 11:27).

1Ki 3:2

“Only the people sacrificed upon high places, because there was not yet a house built for the name of Jehovah until those days.” The limiting רַק, only, by which this general account of the existing condition of the religious worship is appended to what precedes, may be accounted for from the antithesis to the strengthening of the kingdom by Solomon mentioned in 1Ki 2:46. The train of thought is the following: It is true that Solomon's authority was firmly established by the punishment of the rebels, so that he was able to ally himself by marriage with the king of Egypt; but just as he was obliged to bring his Egyptian wife into the city of David, because the building of his palace as not yet finished, so the people, and (according to 1Ki 2:3) even Solomon himself, were only able to sacrifice to the Lord at that time upon altars on the high places, because the temple was not yet built. The participle מְזַבְּחִים denotes the continuation of this religious condition (see Ewald, §168, c.). The בָּמֹות, or high places,

(Note: The opinion of Böttcher and Thenius, that בָּמָה signifies a “sacred coppice,” is only based upon untenable etymological combinations, and cannot be proved. And Ewald's view is equally unfounded, viz., that “high places were an old Canaanaean species of sanctuary, which at that time had become common in Israel also, and consisted of a tall stone of a conical shape, as the symbol of the Holy One, and of the real high place, viz., an altar, a sacred tree or grove, or even an image of the one God as well” (Gesch. iii. p. 390). For, on the one hand, it cannot be shown that the tall stone of a conical shape existed even in the case of the Canaanitish bamoth, and, on the other hand, it is impossible to adduce a shadow of a proof that the Israelitish bamoth, which were dedicated to Jehovah, were constructed precisely after the pattern of the Baal's-bamoth of the Canaanites.)

were places of sacrifice and prayer, which were built upon eminences of hills, because men thought they were nearer the Deity there, and which consisted in some cases probably of an altar only, though as a rule there was an altar with a sanctuary built by the side (בָּמֹות בֵּית, 1Ki 13:32; 2Ki 17:29, 2Ki 17:32; 2Ki 23:19), so that בָּמָה frequently stands for בָּמָה בֵּית (e.g., 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 14:23; 2Ki 21:3; 2Ki 23:8), and the בָּמָה is also distinguished from the מִזְבֵּחַ (2Ki 23:15; 2Ch 14:2). These high places were consecrated to the worship of Jehovah, and essentially different from the high places of the Canaanites which were consecrated to Baal. Nevertheless sacrificing upon these high places was opposed to the law, according to which the place which the Lord Himself had chosen for the revelation of His name was the only place where sacrifices were to be offered (Lev 17:3.); and therefore it is excused here on the ground that no house (temple) had yet been built to the name of the Lord.

1Ki 3:3

Even Solomon, although he loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, i.e., according to 1Ki 2:3, in the commandments of the Lord as they are written in the law of Moses, sacrificed and burnt incense upon high places. Before the building of the temple, more especially since the tabernacle had lost its significance as the central place of the gracious presence of God among His people, through the removal of the ark of the covenant, the worship of the high places was unavoidable; although even afterwards it still continued as a forbidden cultus, and could not be thoroughly exterminated even by the most righteous kings (1Ki 22:24; 2Ki 12:4; 2Ki 14:4; 2Ki 15:4, 2Ki 15:35).