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Slept with his fathers: this expression is promiscuously used concerning good and bad, and signifies only that they died as their fathers did. But hence interpreters question, whether Solomon was saved, or damned? That he was damned, some believe upon this only argument, that he died without repentance; which they gather,
1. Because his repentance is not mentioned in his history.
2. Because if he had repented, he would have abolished the monuments of idolatry which he had erected; which that he did not they gather from 2Ki_23:13, of which (God assisting) I shall speak upon that place. But to the former many things may be said:
1. We read nothing of the repentance of Adam, Noah, after his drunkenness, Lot, Samson, Asa, &c.; shall we therefore conclude they were all damned? The silence of the Scripture is a very weak argument in matters of history.
2. If he did repent, yet the silence of the Scripture about it in this history was not without wise reasons; as, among others, that his eternal condition being thus far left doubtful, his example might have the greater influence for the terror and caution of future offenders.
3. His repentance is sufficiently implied in this, (to omit divers other passages,) that after Solomon’s death the way of Solomon is mentioned with honour, and joined with the way of David, 2Ch_11:17. But it seems to be put out of dispute by the Book of Ecclesiastes, which (by the general consent both of Jewish and Christian interpreters) was written by Solomon, and that after his fall, as is evident, not only from the unanimous testimony of the Hebrew writers, who thence conclude that he did repent, and was saved; but also from the whole strain of that book, which was written long after he had finished all his works, and after he had liberally drunk of all sorts of sensual pleasures, and sadly experienced the bitter effects of his love of women, Ecc_7:27, &c; which makes it more than probable, that as David wrote Psa 51, so Solomon wrote this book, as a public testimony and profession of his repentance. And this argument is so cogent, that those interpreters who are of the other opinion confess it, if Solomon did write this book after his fall, which they pretend he wrote before it; but they offer not any argument to prove it. And therefore we have reason to conclude that Solomon did repent, and was saved.