Lange Commentary - 1 Kings 11:1 - 11:13

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Lange Commentary - 1 Kings 11:1 - 11:13


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

FIFTH SECTION

Solomon’s Fall And End

Chap. 11

A.—The unfaithfulness towards the Lord and its punishment

1Ki_11:1-13

1But king Solomon loved many strange [i.e. foreign] women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; 2of 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: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. 3And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. 4For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord [Jehovah] his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and went not fully after the Lord [Jehovah], as did David his father. 7Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Amnion. 8And likewise did he for all his strange [i.e. foreign] wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

9And the Lord [Jehovah] was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, 10and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lord [Jehovah] commanded. 11Wherefore the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to 12thy servant. Notwithstanding, in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s 13sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.

Exegetical and Critical

1Ki_11:1-2. But king Solomon loved, &c. With these words a new and very essential part of the history of Solomon begins; they do not break the thread of the story abruptly, but stand in a connection with the preceding, to be well considered. Our writer evidently had in his mind the command given to kings in Deuteronomy 17 in which, 1Ki_11:16-17, it is said: “but he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses. … neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” The great riches in silver and gold were mentioned in the preceding section, 1Ki_10:14-29, and also, finally, the number of horses brought out of Egypt; and mention of the many strange wives immediately follows. If there were danger of turning away from the strict and serious religion of Jehovah connected with the enormous riches, the luxury and splendor of the court, this was much more the case with the large harem. Solomon did not withstand this last danger; what was foreseen in the laws for the kings happened: “his heart was turned away.” What we learn from the connection of these two sections is very important: namely, that it was not vulgar, coarse sensuality that gave rise to such a large harem, but the reason was rather, that as Solomon grew in riches, esteem, and power, excelling all other kings in these (1Ki_10:23), he wished also to surpass them in what, according to Eastern ideas, even in the present day, especially belonged to the court and splendor of a great monarch; that is, the largest possible harem. But this was the occasion of his fall. It is therefore very arbitrary of the Sept. to describe àָäַá 1Ki_11:1 by ἦí öéëïãýíáéïò êáὶ ἔëáâå ãõíáῖêáò ἀëëïôñßáò , and quite wide of the mark in Thenius, who, explaining this for the original reading, says that Solomon was an “enervated slave to his senses.” Were this the case, traces of it would have been apparent earlier; but we do not hear, respecting Solomon, the slightest intimation of any previous sexual irregularity; he did not succumb to the influence of his many wives until he had become advanced in years (1Ki_11:4), and had reached the summit of his prosperity and power. For his marriage with the Egyptian, see above on 1Ki_3:1; she did not rank among the other strange women, i.e., those whom it was forbidden in the law to marry, as 1Ki_11:2 expressly remarks (cf. Exo_34:16; Deu_7:3-4; Jos_23:12). It was only through them that strange worship, the Asiatic, was introduced into the land; but there is not the slightest trace of Egyptian worship. The Moabites dwelt east of the Dead Sea, the Ammonites were north of them, and the Edomites south; but the Zidonians and Hittites lived north of Palestine, where Phœnician worship prevailed. Cf. Deu_23:4; Ezr_9:12; Neh_13:23.

1Ki_11:3. And he had seven hundred wives, &c. 1Ki_11:3. ùָøåֹú means princesses, women of the first rank; not those who received rank by entrance into the harem, but those who were of noble families. The great number of these women, with all of whom it was not possible for Solomon (now elderly) to hold sexual intercourse, but especially their high rank, shows the reason they were maintained; seven hundred from the noblest princely houses of foreign nations served to add the greatest splendor to the court. Many think it probable that the majority of these wives, although they all were in subjection to him, served rather as singers and dancers to amuse the old and feeble king (Stollberg, Lisco). The opinion is entirely wrong, that (according to Ecc_4:8) Solomon was “guided by a theological idea, and intended to furnish a symbolical representation of the kingdom of Christ, and his dominion over all nations” (Evgl. Kirch.-Zeitg. 1862, s. 691). The numbers 700 and 300 may be only “round, i.e., approximate” ones (Keil), but are not therefore necessarily exaggerated or false. Ecc_6:8 has been quoted in opposition to them: “sixty are the queens, and eighty are the concubines, and innumerable are the virgins,” and in order to reconcile the two passages, the supposition is thrown out, that 60 and 80 were the number in the court at one time, and 700 and 300 the number of all the women at the court during Solomon’s reign (Ewald, Keil). This Thenius, with some reason, declares to be a “subterfuge;” but when he asserts that the statement in the Canticles is “historically founded,” and on the other hand, regards our own statement “as an evidence of the legendary character of the entire section,” we answer that Canticles is not historical but is poetic, and cannot be adduced as testimony against our historical books. Finally, the supposition to which Keil inclines, that there may be errors in the numeral-letters ( ù = 300 instead of ô = 80), rests evidently in the consideration that the numbers 700 and 300 appear too large. But this difficulty ceases when we compare our own with other accounts of the harems of Eastern rulers. Curtius relates (III. 1Ki_3:24) that Darius Codomanus, on his expedition against Alexander, carried 300 pellices with him. Public accounts state that the harem of the present Turkish Sultan contains 1,300 women. The Augsb. Allg. Zeitung of 1862, No. 181, says “that the mother of the Taiping, emperor in Nankin, is the head of her son’s harem, a great establishment containing 3,000 women,” whom the same “lady” has to keep in order. Magelhäus gives the same number, and adds that the emperor had never seen some of them in his life. “The travellers of the seventeenth century reported the number of the wives of the Great Mogul to have been 1,000” (Philippson). In Malcom’s history of Persia it is stated that king Kosros had 5,000 horses, 1,200 elephants, and 12,000 wives; this may be greatly exaggerated, but shows the notions that were entertained about the state which a great ruler should maintain. Cf. also other instances in Rosenmüller, Altes und Neues Morgenland, III. s. 181. The evident intention of the narrator is, not to picture these rulers as brutal sensualists, but, on the contrary, to add to their fame. An immense harem is held in the East to be as requisite to a splendid court as a large stud.

1Ki_11:4. For it came to pass when Solomon was old, …… after other gods, &c. By old age is not meant the time “when the flesh obtained mastery over the spirit” (Keil)—sensuality never first begins with old age—but the time when, in consequence of luxury and indulgence, the energy of spirit and heart deserted him, and a relaxing took possession of him more and more. Then first it happened that the many foreign, well-conditioned women succeeded in turning away Solomon’s heart, i.e., in reducing his tone, making him indifferent towards the strict and exclusive religion of Jehovah, and milder and more indulgent towards the worship of their gods, yea, so to insnare him that he favored the latter by the building of altars to idols. When the text adds, and his heart was not (any longer) perfect ( ùָׁìֵí = complete) with the Lord his God, it says thereby as clearly, as positively, that he did not completely fall away from Jehovah’s service, but that he permitted the idolatrous worship of his wives besides. The formula, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, is used in speaking of every one who broke the commandment in Exo_20:3-4, because this is the first and supremest will of God. To avoid any misunderstanding, 1Ki_11:6 repeats, he went not fully ( îִìֵּà sc. ìָìֶëֶú , as in Num_14:24; Num_32:11-12; Deu_1:36) after the Lord (Jehovah). It is therefore difficult to conceive why it is so often asserted that Solomon formally departed from Jehovah, and became an idolater (Thenius, Duncker, Menzel, and others). All the kings of Judah or of Israel who were idolatrous are said to have served ( òָáַã ) strange gods (cf. 16:31; 22:54; 2Ki_16:3; 2Ki_21:2-6; 2Ki_21:20-22), but this expression is never applied to Solomon either here or elsewhere. Chronicles is never silent in respect of the kings in Judah, when any one of them served idols (2Ch_28:2-3; 2Ch_32:2 sq.; 2Ch_33:22; 2Ch_36:8), yet it says nothing of Solomon in this respect; but this is inconceivable, were it true that he had wholly forsaken Jehovah, and turned to idolatry. Jesus Sirach complains indeed (Sir_47:12-23) that the great Solomon succumbed to the influence of his wives, but does not say a word of his idolatry. All the Jewish traditions, the Talmud, and the Rabbins (Ghemara Schabb. lvi. 2) know nothing of the idolatry of Solomon. Had he himself, as well as his wives, formally worshipped idols, he would have fallen far deeper than Jeroboam, who only made images to represent Jehovah; and his sin would have been far greater than “the sin of Jeroboam,” which is so often alluded to in these books, while there is no mention of the idolatry Solomon is accused of. The statement of the unreliable Josephus (Antiq.viii. 7, 5) about Solomon’s idol-worship is just as much to be credited as his statement that he was ninety-four years of age, and that he broke the law of Moses in placing twelve oxen around the molten sea, and the twelve lions near the throne. We cannot even admit that Solomon held idolatrous worship along with Jehovah’s worship (Winer), nor that his fall “consisted in a syncretistic mixture of Jehovah-worship and idol-worship” (Keil), for in so doing he would have placed Jehovah on a level with idols, whereas the very nature of Jehovah’s service is the sole and exclusive worship of Him. The ìà ùָׁìֵí and ìֹà îִìֵּà 1Ki_11:4; 1Ki_11:6 does not say: he served Jehovah and the idols both, but: he was no longer wholly and completely with Jehovah; and this is made clear in that he allowed his strange wives to observe idolatrous service in the city which the Lord had chosen to put His name there, and even went so far as to favor it by the building of “high-places” (1Ki_11:36; 1Ki_8:16; 1Ki_14:21; 2Ch_6:6). So Hess (Gesch. Salomo’s, s. 436), and recently Vilmar (Pastoral-theol. Blütter, 1861, s. 179); Ewald also (Gesch. Isr. III. s. 378 sq.) says: “there is no evidence from ancient documents that Solomon ever left the religion of Jahve, even in his extreme old age, or sacrificed with his own hands to heathen deities; but, on the contrary, all historical evidences of his times are against the idea. Besides, we find it is expressly mentioned that he sacrificed upon the altar of Jahve, built by him, three times a year (according to the order of the three great festivals) with the greatest solemnity, as befitted a king such as he was” (1Ki_9:25). Cf. below on 1Ki_11:9 sq.

1Ki_11:5-8. Solomon went after Ashtoreth, &c. The åַéֵּìֶêְ , &c., 1Ki_11:5, means that he served these gods, personally, no more than éִáְðֶä in 1Ki_11:7 which follows, means that he built, with his own hands, high-places for the heathen gods; but he allowed it, permitted it to be done. 1Ki_11:8 adds expressly, “and likewise did he (i.e., he built high-places, 1Ki_11:7) for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.” This plainly shows that he did not build the heights for himself and his people, and that he did not burn incense, nor sacrifice on them, but that his strange wives did. He allowed public worship to all, whatsoever divinities they might adore, but did not himself renounce Jehovah-worship. Diestel (in Herzog’s Real-Encyklop. XIII. s. 337) grants that Solomon did not wholly go over into idolatry, but thinks that there is as little question that there was more than mere tolerance. The religious consciousness of the Israelite could not (he thinks) get rid of the idea that certain peculiar powers ruled other nations, dependent indeed upon Jehovah, and a limited service devoted to these foreign inferior gods did not consequently annul the service of the all-ruling Jehovah. This artificial view, in which Niemeyer joins, is contradicted decisively by the fact that the so-called “inferior gods” are mentioned as ùִׁ÷ֻּõ , abomination (1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:7), úּåֹòַáָä abomination (2Ki_23:13), äֲáָìִéí vanity (Jer_2:5) and âִּìּåּìִéí stercora (Deu_29:17), which would not have been possible had “the greatest sympathies” existed “in Israel” for these gods as really “superior beings.” We need not stop to refute the frivolous assertion of Menzel (Staat- und Rel.-Geschichte der Königreiche Israel und Juda, s. 142), that our author, who was devoted to Jehovah’s service, preferred to place the king in an unfavorable light rather than to let it be known how long the strange worship had existed among the people, and in which they took part. For the divinities named in 1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:7, cf. Movers, Relig. der Phönizier, s. 560–584, 602–608; Keil, bibl. Archäologie I. s. 442 sq.; Winer, R.- W.-B. under the appropriate names. Ashtoreth is the highest of the Phoenician (Sidonian) and Syrian female deities, and a personification of the feminine principle in nature. Her form is differently represented, sometimes with a bull’s or woman’s head with horns (crescents), sometimes as a fish (symbol of the watery element). She was specially adored by women; her worship, which is not exactly known, was most probably associated with indecency. Cf. especially Cassel, in the Bibelwerk, on Jdg_2:13. Milcom is said to be the chief god of the Ammonites, in 1Ki_11:33, and 2Ki_23:13; 2Sa_12:30; Jer_49:1; Jer_49:3; there is no accurate description of his nature or worship. As Moloch is immediately after (1Ki_11:7) said to be the god of the Ammonites, and the two names ( îìáí and îìê ) are closely related to each other, it is very reasonable to suppose they were different names for the same divinity. The translations also confuse them; the Sept., 1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:7, gives Ìåë÷ὼì , the Vulg. gives Moloch twice; but in 2Ki_23:13 the former renders Milchom by Ìüëï÷ , and the latter by Melchom. Thenius therefore reads åîìëí in 1Ki_11:7 instead of åîìê , but there is no reason for doing so. Keil and Ewald agree with Movers in holding Milchom and Moloch to be different deities, partly because of the different names, and partly because 2Ki_23:10; 2Ki_23:13 mention that they had different places of sacrifice, and that Moloch was always named in connection with sacrifices of children. Winer, however, justly remarks that each, though not essentially different, had different attributes, and had therefore various altar-places in one and the same town. As for the rest, Molech or Moloch was the divinity which was known and adored throughout Anterior Asia, whose image, according to the Rabbins, was made of brass, with the head of an ox and human arms, in which the children offered were laid. Movers thinks he was the same in part as Saturn or Chronos, and in part the same as Baal the sun-god (cf. s. 322 sq.). There were certainly no child-sacrifices at Jerusalem in Solomon’s time; they were first offered under Ahaz (2Ki_16:3). Chemosh or Chamosh was the war-and-fire-god, according to Movers; Num_21:9, Jer_48:46 call the Moabites the people of Chemosh. That this was the divinity to whom the Moabite king offered his son, 2Ki_3:27, is only a matter of conjecture. At any rate, the character of the latter deity seems very similar to that of Milchom or Molech of the Ammonites, as it (the former) appears, in Jdg_11:24, to be the god of the Ammonites; cf. Cassel on this passage. We have no exact accounts of them. For the “heights,” see above on 1Ki_3:4; for the places where they were built, see on 2Ki_23:13.

1Ki_11:9-13. And the Lord was angry. Solomon, by his conduct, excited the extremest divine displeasure, and deserved punishment the more, as he had been so richly blessed in every respect by Jehovah, and had even been earnestly and emphatically warned in a peculiar vision against leaning towards other gods (1Ki_3:5 sq.;1Ki_9:1 sq.). The announcement of the subsequent chastisement did not follow in another direct revelation, but was no doubt conveyed by a prophet, who, as Nathan was no longer living, must have been Ahijah the Shilonite (1Ki_11:29). It is well worthy of notice that, in this announcement, the oppression of the people by compulsory labor, and taxes, or despotism, is not given as the reason of the dividing of the kingdom by Jehovah, and of limiting Solomon’s dynasty to dominion over one tribe; but only the sin against Jehovah, the “going after other gods.” It was just the same in Ahijah’s address to Jeroboam, 1Ki_11:29-39. For one tribe (1Ki_11:13) see on 1Ki_11:31-32. For David’s sake,i.e., on account of the promise given, for his unchanging fidelity to Jehovah (2Sa_17:12 sq.). Cf. that on 1Ki_8:15 sq. We are not told what impression the prophecy made on Solomon, but we may just for this reason conclude that it was not such as Nathan’s discourse made on David (2Sa_12:13).

Historical and Ethical

1. The turn which, with the events described in the section before us, the reign of Solomon takes, is of the weightiest moment, because it exercised the most wide-spread and lasting influence upon the whole history of Israel: for its immediate result was the rending of the kingdom, which was the beginning of the end. “The happiness to be the most favored people on the earth under a wise king—this happiness which Israel could, as it were, be shown from afar for a brief space, was itself the source of its wretchedness. Wisdom as well as wealth and power were intrusted to a sinful man, who could not keep himself erect upon this dizzy height. Hence this kingdom of peace and of prosperity should be, even in its fall, both a warning example and also a type of the kingdom which, through another, was to bring the blessings of salvation to men which Solomon’s reign signified in earthly symbols” (Von Gerlach). “Just in the period of the highest perfection of the worldly kingdom, the insufficiency thereof to satisfy the higher expectations and hopes, the complete faultiness cleaving to it, and the incapacity to meet the deepest needs of the spirit by sensuous splendor and earthly exhibition of power, must, for the first time, have dawned upon the consciousness” (Eisenlohr, das Volk Isr. II. s. 119).

2. The change which overtook Solomon in his extreme old age would be an insoluble psychological riddle if it consisted in his abandonment of the service of Jehovah, and his yielding to the idolworship practised by his wives. It is impossible that a man who had been brought up in the fear of Jehovah, and had declared this to be the beginning of all wisdom, who up to the fulness of his age had an unclouded and undisturbed knowledge of the one living God, as is shown in the discourse and prayer at the dedication of the temple (chap. 8), that a man who shone forth upon all sides as light amid the darkness, and throughout the whole Orient was regarded as a living symbol of wisdom (1Ki_4:30; 1Ki_9:24), should in his still riper age have fallen into a most gross superstition, and abandoned himself to the crudest, most senseless, and immoral of all forms of worship, namely, that of the Canaanites and the peoples of anterior Asia. We look in vain through all Scripture for an example in the remotest degree like it. Recognizing this, those critics of late, who think that idolatry is actually charged upon Solomon in our text, have adopted the notion, either that the accounts respecting his wisdom and his knowledge of God are false, that in fact he had always before this been given over to idolatry (Gramberg, Vatke, and others)—a view striking all history in the face, and hence needing no refutation—or inversely, that our account about Solomon’s idolatry is inaccurate, and rests first upon the later “deuteronomistic elaborators of the history” who misunderstood and represented the facts falsely (Ewald, Eisenlohr, and others), an assumption which is violent and arbitrary, but which, to be sure, is the most convenient way of solving the problem. By the correct interpretation of the text, according to which Solomon did not himself practise idolatry, but allowed his wives the exercise of public idol-worship, indeed favored it, the difficulty disappears. It is not indeed an unusual psychological phenomenon that a man highly gifted, standing upon a lofty eminence of knowledge and wisdom, decided in his moral and religious principles, should lose, in his old age, in consequence of various influences and relations, and of some especial fortunes of his life, the energy of his spirit and will, or, without abandoning precisely his past convictions, should resign them in respect of decisiveness and exclusiveness, so that towards what he had once regarded as error and had zealously combated it as such, he becomes tolerant and, as it were, indifferent, especially when he hopes thereby to attain ends otherwise pursued by him, as this was the case with Solomon, as we shall see, who therefore furnishes a warning and instructive example in history.

3. The formal allowance and patronage of different idolatries, especially in the place where the central Jehovah-sanctuary of the whole people stood, was, upon the part of the king, an actual equalization of the same with the Jehovah-worship; an official declaration of the equal authorization of idol-worship with the service of the one, true, living God who is the God of Israel. But thereby the first and supreme command of the Israelitish law, i.e., of the Covenant (Exo_20:2), was directly transgressed, and indeed set aside. The people Israel were chosen by God to be the upholders of the knowledge of the one God, and thereby to act for the healing of all nations. To this end it was necessary that as a people they should “be separated” from all peoples (Lev_20:24; 1Ki_8:53): participation in the election and in the covenant was made continual through obedience upon the part of the people, and also through race-derivation. Jehovah’s kingdom and the people’s hence coincide, the religion with the nation, and they stand and fall together. Permission, reception, and introduction of any heathen religion or of different idolatrous worships was not merely an assault upon the religious conviction of individuals, but was also an undermining of the national being inseparably connected therewith. The exclusiveness of the Jehovah-cultus was for the people, in their peculiar life, an absolute necessity. To set aside or remove it was to threaten the existence of this peculiar estate, and to deny its world-historical distinction. If Solomon himself neither offered incense nor sacrificed unto idols, he did yet nothing less than attack the foundations of the kingdom; he brought into the unity of the Israelitish public life the germ of dissolution, and threatened to destroy the covenant and God’s plan of salvation. To this extent his conduct and undertaking must be characterized as a real falling away.

4. The text gives only, as the immediate occasion of this falling away of Solomon, his love for his many foreign wives. We have already remarked, in respect of these high-bred dames from all the neighboring countries, that reference was had to the splendor of the court rather than to the gratification of a common, ungovernable lust. From their youth accustomed to their sensuous, more or less unchaste worship, they were more reluctant to abandon it as the earnest and severe Jehovah-cultus could not please them. What was more natural than the effort to induce the king, advancing in years, that he would permit them to observe their own native religious rites, and would make the regulations necessary therefor, by means of which his kingdom might become a sort of assembly-place for all religions, and acquire additional splendor and glory? This indeed they succeeded in, but not in the way of gross sensuality.—Niemeyer remarks with great pertinence (Charakteristik der Bib. IV. s. 487): “We do not find that Solomon gave the strength of his youth to women, and went the way which destroys kings (Pro_31:3). But even because he did not indulge so much in sensual enjoyment, the more refined voluptuousness became for him the more dangerous: that adhesion of the spirit, that secret enravishment of heart which, unobserved, breaks up the entire independence of the man, and, before he is aware of it, makes him the helpless slave of the woman. It begins far more innocently than that which we call crime, properly speaking, but it leaves behind it usually more melancholy ruins in the soul than the other. In like manner also, Vilmar observes (s. 180), it is not so much coarse sensuality as rather ‘psychical bondage to the female sex’ which wrought the fall of Solomon.” Psychical polygamy dissipates, pulls to pieces, and wastes irresistibly the core of the human soul. … At a certain stage of “culture,” in the intercourse between a man and woman, coarse sensuality by no means prevails, but the psychical pleasure in the woman, and the psychical abandonment to the woman, the desire of the eye, and the desire of the eye for the sex as such, and not for an individual woman.” The surroundings or relations were singularly fitted to awaken that kind of spiritual condition and to impart nourishment to it. The long peace, broken neither by war nor other calamity, the great wealth, the extensive trade, the abundance, by these means, of all objects of luxury possible, the voluptuous court-life in consequence, everything conspired to bring about a relaxation; and this was the soil upon which the numerous strange women could carry out their nature without hindrance. It is very probable that Solomon allowed himself to be governed by the political considerations “to give to the strangers flocking to Jerusalem an opportunity for the exercise of their own worship, and make his residence the desirable centre for the commercial peoples of Anterior Asia” (Bertheau, Zur Gesch. der Israel., s. 323). Like the crowded, brilliant harem itself, so the secured freedom of worship must needs increase the authority and glory of the great king. But always his polygamy is and must remain the first and chief cause of his downfall; this, as Ewald remarks (Gesch. Isr. III. s. 215) strikingly, concerning David’s adultery, is the “inexhaustible source of evils without number. … Here is concealed an inextricable coil of the direst evils, of which scarcely is one put out of the way, when two, three others start up, and each is enough to destroy the peace of an entire kingdom.” So long as this evil, “which the whole ancient world did not sufficiently regard as an evil,” remained, “the kingdom in Israel was therewith exposed to the same convulsions to which all polygamous kingdoms are to this day exposed: and consequently, in his earliest bloom we see arise in Israel the germ of its destruction, which sooner or later can combine with other causes of dissolution. The evils in the house of David introduced by Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah … all hang together with the fundamental evil once brought out; many evils also amongst his successors are fastened to the same thread.” Although Mosaism even in the history of creation represents Monogamy as the original relation ordained by God Himself, nevertheless polygamy was so deeply rooted in the habits of all peoples, that the strict law-giver was not able to uproot it, but sought, by various limitations, to make it difficult (Deu_21:15 sq.; Exo_21:9 sq. Cf. Winer, R.- W.-B. II. s. 662). It was expressly forbidden to a king to have many wives (Deu_17:17), because the dangers which inhered in polygamy were doubly great, and could become dangerous for the whole realm, as Solomon’s example conspicuously shows. The temptation was especially great with kings, because a large harem, according to the custom then prevalent, belonged to a royal state. It is, nevertheless, and remains a shadow resting upon the Old Covenant, and under it the sanctity of marriage was not properly understood and secured. Christendom was the first to make holy the band of matrimony. Without taking away the subordination of the woman, which is grounded in nature (Lev_3:16), it has given to her her rightful place (Gal_3:28), and thereby, in that it represents the relation of Christ to His Church as the examplar of marriage, it sets forth, as a principle, monogamy as the only form and order of the sexual relation (Eph_5:22-33).

5. What now, in recent times, has been set forth as the proximate and co-operating cause or as the chief cause of the fall of Solomon, appears, upon closer examination, untenable. They who are of the opinion that Solomon indeed did not abandon the worship of Jehovah, but worshipped, besides Jehovah, heathen deities also, suppose that he reached this syncretism in the way of comparative reflection. Thus Niemeyer remarks (s. 493): “He knew well enough that these wooden and brazen images are nothing, but in them he paid honor to the spirits to whom the Highest, the Unattainable, the Unknowable had intrusted the rulership of the world. The more assuredly that this idea is derived from an oriental source, the more probable is it that Solomon believed that he could find therein the solution of his doubt whether the Creator of the world occupied Himself with what was insignificant, and with the destiny of each particular people.” The love for his foreign wives brought him to the pass of “denying his convictions, which had been becoming enfeebled.” Von Gerlach expresses himself to the same effect: “It is worthy of note that in respect of Solomon’s wisdom, his knowledge of nature is expressly celebrated, and that this wisdom is compared with and placed above that of the Orient and of Egypt (1Ki_4:30 sq.). … It is easy to perceive that he made an attempt to blend the traditional world-knowledge of the East with the knowledge of the revealed God; that he allowed a certain independence to the powers of creation which he had represented in the figures of the Cherubim in the temple standing far below Jehovah, as His servants, and first tolerated the worship of them, and then in a certain degree himself took part therein.” This whole conception rests upon the erroneous presupposition that Solomon had actually burnt incense and had sacrificed to idols (besides to Jehovah), and it disappears with it. The historical text knows nothing at all of Solomon’s being misled to idolatry by his own reflection and by the blending of his wisdom with that of the East: it knows no other reason for his toleration of idolatry than that his strange wives “turned away his heart.” Lastly, neither in the historical books nor in the writings attributed to Solomon is there the slightest trace of the thought that idols were real living creative-powers, and subordinate deities serving Jehovah. It is a question whether such a view of the relation of Jehovah to gods of the heathen ever obtained in Israel. Certainly this was not the case in Solomon’s time, and the later prophets had no occasion to resist this opinion.—Ewald has set forth another view (as above, s. xiii. 368, 379 sq.). He finds the reason in the direction begun in Solomon’s kingdom, and so full of results to the whole history of Israel in the “violence” which cleaved to the kingdom naturally, by virtue of which he sought to make everything depend upon himself, and to extend his power to every phase of life—in fact, in political absolutism. The kingdom of Israel, under Solomon, felt the strongest tendency to become a thorough kingdom of the world; but in such a kingdom the toleration of different religions is inevitable. But as this toleration was as yet strange, “so the sheer royal authority introduced the innovation,” which to many of strict sentiments was abhorrent. This view has less even in its favor than the preceding. It rests upon an entirely false modern political view of monarchy in general, and of the Israelitish in particular. That which the only historical source in our possession gives as the chief occasion of Solomon’s turning is set wholly aside, and in its place something is advanced, of which not a word is said. Neither the announcement of the punishment (1Ki_11:9-12), nor the prophecy of Ahijah to Jeroboam (1Ki_11:31 sq.), gives in the remotest degree, as the ground of the division of the kingdom, “violence,” i.e., excess of the royal authority, but only Solomon’s want of fidelity to Jehovah occasioned through his wives. A world-kingdom, to convert Israel into which, Solomon is supposed to have had the tendency, is established only by means of military conquests, as the history of the world shows. Thus the great Roman power began, yet it ceased with the freedom of all (kinds of) worship. Solomon was “a man of rest” and of peace (1Ch_22:9), who did not extend the limits of the kingdom, but sought to keep and hold those only as they were under David. He meditated no world-power, and least of all to bring it to pass by the toleration of all religions.

6. The announcement of the divine punishment gives, what is well to notice, as the ground there of, not any sinful passion or any immoral act, not even the possession of many wives or unbridled lust, but only that Solomon had permitted and favored idolatrous worship, and in this had not observed the covenant and the commands of Jehovah. David sinned grievously in the matter of Bathsheba, but his procedure was still simply the immoral act of an individual in relation with an individual. Solomon’s deed, on the other hand, concerned the foundations of the theocracy. It was the setting aside and the destruction of the divine law upon which the whole kingdom, the existence of Israel as a people distinct from all heathen peoples, its world-historical destiny, rested. For a king of Israel, whose calling consisted, especially in this, to be a servant of Jehovah, the true king of Israel, and as such before all things to maintain thoroughly the Covenant, there could be no heavier announcement. In the case of Solomon, moreover, Jehovah had vouchsafed to him special revelations, had answered all his prayers, and had made him the most favored, the richest, and most fortunate king of that time. From the theocratic point of view, the punishment itself, the division of the kingdom and the limitation of the dynasty of Solomon to the tribes Judah and Benjamin, appears even-merciful, for in reality Solomon had rendered himself completely unworthy of the theocratic kingdom. For the rest, the punishment corresponded with the offence in so far as it brought to fruit and maturity the germ of the destruction of the kingdom which Solomon by his conduct had planted and tended. And it is true here also that what a man soweth that shall he reap. Solomon, befooled by his wives, believed that he could become still greater by transgression of the Covenant, and that he would make his kingdom more conspicuous and glorious; but this same transgression laid the foundation of irreparable breach and final ruin. From the modern liberalistic point of view Solomon’s act has been judged differently. So Ewald says (s. 380): “In that he allowed his wives to sacrifice to their deities was the best evidence of a general toleration of religion in his kingdom that he could furnish. In fact the act, a legal toleration of different religions in that early age of the wise Solomon was attempted—a toleration which the true religion must allow as soon as it recognizes its own being, and against which in our land to-day, this side the Niemen, the Jesuits alone are condemned to work. Certainly at that time the religion of Jahve was something too weak to stand alone by itself without any outward protection.… If only Solomon’s rule had not become gradually distasteful to the popular feeling for other causes, who knows what might have been established in this age for the continuance of the new wisdom!” After his usual fashion, Eisenlohr has adopted this view (s. 115). With Solomon, says he, “we see in place of the purely hostile posture towards heathenism a friendly approximation, in many respects even a formal blending, and indeed this took shape in a very natural way. In a great kingdom consisting of diverse nationalities, room must be allowed for the most diverse forms of religion.… Every genuine, sound type of religion (religiosität), in so far as its element is freedom, the right of individual contemplation and elevation above stiff outward forms in the region of the spirit, carries within itself the germ for the scattering of every exclusive kind.” That this way of viewing the subject is in direct contradiction with the biblical, scarcely needs mention. Were general religious toleration a work of wisdom, and the furtherance of true religion as soon as it recognizes its own being, Solomon, by his tolerance of the wild, immodest, and shameful Astarte-and-Moloch cultus, instead of the “wrath” of Jehovah and the punishment of the limitation of his kingdom to one tribe only, would have merited praise only, and the broader extension of his kingdom; and all the great prophets, an Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Hosea, &c., who opposed the toleration of every idolatrous cultus, and were zealous for the exclusiveness of the Jehovah-cultus, should be considered as the “Jesuits” of the old world, who did not know the nature of true religion. Solomon would have then erred only in investing the religion of Israel with too much power, and in his zeal for progress, in anticipating general religious freedom. With incomparably more right, Vilmar has rendered an opposite judgment (s. 179 sq.). “We have here before us a type of the authorization of all forms of religion within a definite, limited divine sphere of life.… Solomon’s ideal here is to let each man be saved à sa facon … the beginning of the (unlimited) “authorization of individuality”—this proposition is thoroughly subversive, belonging, in this form, to the last decades, in virtue of which church-bodies, States, peoples come to an end.”

For the rest we need not look for New-Testament views in the Old Testament, nor for Old Testament views in the New. They are distinct economies. Christianity is not like the Mosaic, conditioned by bodily descent and bound up in a given race, and does not impose the obligation forcibly to suppress any other religion within its jurisdiction. It knows no other instrument of its continuance and of its spread than that of the Word, and of the conviction thereby wrought. But if no people can be without religion, and if this have the most decisive, profound influence upon the spiritual and moral formation of the people, then the political power cannot be indifferent in respect of all religions, and cannot simply consider them of equal authority in any relation. Of the Solomonic prototype there remains thus much for all times and peoples, that the introduction and authorization of all, even the most diverse religions and forms of worship within a nation, does not make the same strong, but weak, and carries with it the danger of its national and political division and destruction; for religious indifferentism is the death of all true patriotism, and is more destructive of a people than religious fanaticism.

Homiletical and Practical

1Ki_11:1-13. Solomon’s fall. The beginning, 1Ki_11:1-4; the progress, 1Ki_11:5-8; the end, 1Ki_11:9-13.—M. Fr. Roos: Here we see plainly how a godly man may gradually fall into sin. He first allows himself too much liberty. He ventures into danger, and then perishes therein.… He who scorns danger, who by marriage and by a wilful intrusion upon certain positions exposes himself to it, or who even ventures in his daily course too much into the world, under the pretext of liberty; he who indulges in the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life instead of enjoying with gratitude and moderation the gifts of God, such an one becomes the slave of sin, and falls under the wrath of God. The heart is first inclined, then wanders upon evil paths, and at last does openly what is displeasing to the Lord. At first we permit in others, through complaisance, sin, which we could and should have checked, and thus we actually assist ourselves to sin. Still we preserve our appearance of wisdom and godliness, and will not have it supposed that we have entirely deserted the Lord. But he whose heart is not wholly with the Lord his God, follows him not at all; he who follows him not wholly, follows him not at all; for “a man cannot serve two Masters.” 1Ki_11:1-8. The example given by the Bible in the case of Solomon. 1. What it teaches. (a) That for the sinful human heart, a constant outward prosperity is allied to spiritual dangers; for what profiteth, &c., Mat_16:26. Thus it is that trial and sorrow are often blessings for time and eternity, Heb_12:6-12. (b) That the most abundant knowledge, the highest education and wisdom are no protection against moral and religious short-comings. Wine and women make foolish the wise man (Sir_19:2). No wise man commits a little folly, says an old proverb. Therefore, trust in the Lord, &c. (Pro_3:5-7). How it warns us. (a) Watch. If a Solomon can fall, a Solomon brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and walking in the ways of God in old age, a Solomon, the wisest man of his time! how necessary is it for us all to watch. Without watching, the greatest wisdom may become foolishness, and the highest spiritual condition may end in the wrath and judgments of God. (b) Pray. In the great prosperity and delight of this life, Solomon forgot prayer, as he had so well practised it in earlier years (chaps. 3. and 8.). His wives did not elevate his heart, they debased it. Prayer alone holds watch, and is therefore most necessary in prosperity and success (Psa_76:2; Psa_139:23 sq.).—”Let him who stands take heed,” &c. (1Co_10:12). (a) Solomon did stand in the living knowledge of God, in faith, and in humility (1Ki_3:6; 1Ki_8:23), but (b) he looked not well to himself, he did not observe that the thorns of wealth and the pride of life were choking the good seeds in his heart, therefore he fell, broke his covenant with God, and was under the just judgment of God. 1Ki_11:1-4. Christian marriage in contradistinction to pre-Christian marriage (see Hist. and Ethic. 4) vs. Denial of the existence of marriage as a divine ordinance (Mar_10:6-9) is the source of the greatest and weightiest evils. Solomon sinned in this wise: That, contrary to the Law, he not only took to himself many wives, but foreign, i. e., heathen wives.—Osiander: Not without danger is it that a man takes a wife who is not of his own religion (1Co_7:16).—Lust of the eyes and the pride of life drowse the soul and cripple the will, gradually and imperceptibly influence the heart, so that it loses all sense of holy and earnest things, and all pleasure therein, and becomes stupid and indifferent to everything divine and noble.—A prince who allows himself to be advised and led by women in the affairs of his government, instead of guiding himself by the unchangeable law of God, destroys the prosperity of himself and his kingdom. Confidential intercourse and intimacy with those who know nothing of the living God, and of his word, but rather resist Him—those who well know how to flatter—this is a most perilous position for a God-fearing heart (Ecc_7:27).

1Ki_11:4. Even as in youth exuberance of life and strength opens the door to temptation, so likewise does the weakness of old age. But an old gray-haired sinner is much more abominable in the sight of the Lord than a youth. Therefore, pray ever: Forsake me not in my old age, &c. (Psa_71:9; Psa_71:18).—There is no object worthier of compassion than the man who, having served the Lord, and kept the faith from his youth up, when old age has brought him near to his everlasting rest, turns his back upon it, and thus renders useless all his earlier struggles with sin and the world.—Vilmar: The sole condition under which, amid his natural weakness, an old man can maintain his spiritual strength, and guard his honor, is this: that “his heart is purely fixed upon God;” this condition failing, let a man’s whole life be influenced by the opinions of others; influenced by such opinions without sharing them, yet still without combating them, then complete wantonness will take possession of his old age.

1Ki_11:5-8. Although Solomon did not himself practise idolatry, he permitted and encouraged it in others; but the receiver is as bad as the thief. That is the curse resting upon sin, that the very means by which men seek to raise themselves in the world’s estimation become the very means for their destruction. By perverted compliance and long toleration, Solomon brought ruin and destruction upon himself and his people for centuries to come. All indulgence which is grounded upon indifference to truth, or founded upon lukewarmness, is not virtue but a heavy sin before God, how much soever it may resemble freedom and enlightenment. In a well-ordered Church and State establishment neither bigotry nor superstition should have equal rights with faith and truth. Where the gate is opened to them, or where they are patronized instead of being resisted, then both people and kingdom are going to meet their ruin (see Ethical 6). 1Ki_11:9-13. The punishment that fell upon Solomon shows us (a) the holiness and righteousness of God (Psa_145:17; Psa_5:5; Jer_17:10; Luk_12:47). (b) His faithfulness and mercy (1Ki_11:12-13). He knows how to punish, so that His gracious promises remain firm (2Ti_2:13; Rom_3:3).—God makes known to us His judgments through His Word, so that we may have time to repent and to turn unto Him (Eze_33:2).—If judgment fell especially upon Solomon, notwithstanding the fact that the Lord appeared to him twice in a dream, and he was honored with distinguished grace, what judgment must we expect, to whom He has appeared tenderly in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, &c. (1Co_1:30; Heb_2:3; Heb_10:29).—God knows how, in the proper time, to belittle him who abandons and forsakes the Lord and His cause, in order to become great and distinguished in the eyes of the world (Dan_4:34).

Footnotes:

1Ki_11:1.—[The Sept. renders here ἦí öéëïãýíçò , which is not borne out by the character of Solomon, as is pointed out in the Exeg. Com. Immediately after this the Vat. Sept. introduces 1Ki_11:3, transposed from its place, but omits its last clause altogether.

1Ki_11:1.—[All the ancient versions class Pharaoh’s daughter among the “strange wives,” which sense our author, as also Keil rejects. See Exeg. Com.

1Ki_11:4.—[The Vat. Sept. omits the middle clause of 1Ki_11:4, and mixes together 1Ki_11:6-8, omitting much of them.

1Ki_11:5.—[Notwithstanding the arguments in the Exeg. Com. against the personal idolatry of Solomon, it is to be remembered that the phrase äָìַêְ àַçֲøֵé àֱìֹäִéí àֲçֵøִéí , to go after other gods (1Ki_11:4-5; 1Ki_11:10) is one already established as far back as the Pentateuch as an expression of idolatry.

1Ki_11:13.—[For one tribe the Sept. have óêῆðôñïí ἕí , which is, however, probably to be understood in the same sense.—F. G.]