Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 21
Today is: Thursday, December 26th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of October: (Show All Months)
1Ki_11:1-7
Solomon, with all his wisdom, did not discern this. Though a wise man, he was an Oriental prince; and his sagacity failed to carry his views in this matter beyond the influences and circumstances belonging to his position. To seek first the prosperity of the people subject to his rule, and to wait for his own harvest of profit and renown, through and from their prosperity, was a reach of thought and patriotism to which even Solomon could not attain. An Oriental prince generally seeks first, as he did, his own glory and advantage, and the welfare of the people may or may not result from it. If it does, and it seldom does, and never does to the extent in which it might do so under right principles—if it does, so much the better—it is a fortunate accident, forming no part of the design, which is nothing more nor less than to fill the royal coffers, and to supply the means of regal outlay. Nothing is clearer than that the commerce of Israel in all its lines, was, in the great reign of Solomon, a monopoly of the crown. In the maritime traffic this was absolute; and although it may be, that all the land trade was not in the hands of the king and his servants, and that dealers and chapmen were within certain limits tolerated, and allowed to send their camels in the royal caravans, it will appear that permission to do this could only be obtained at a cost, by the payment of dues, which went far to secure all the profits of individual enterprise. Besides, it has always been the rule in such cases, that all goods, except those imported by the crown, are subject to heavy duties on entering the country; and this is a dead loss to the merchants, for they cannot find purchasers unless their goods come into the market at the same price as those which are not subject to any such charges and imposts.
One advantage may accrue to the people through such monopoly of trade in the bands of the crown; and this is, where the wants of the court are thus so far supplied as to render the ordinary source of revenue, the taxation of the people, more light than it would otherwise be. The Israelites did not reap this benefit from their wise king’s undertakings. Either his traffic was such that, notwithstanding its magnificence, or, perhaps, by reason of its magnificence, the expenses nearly or quite devoured the profits; or else the costliness of his buildings and improvements, and the splendor of his court, were so wholly beyond proportion to his means and position—were so much more suited to the sovereign of a vast empire than to the ruler of a state small at the largest—as to render all his traffic and tributes from without unequal to his wants. Certain it is that the Israelites were never so heavily and exactingly taxed as during the latter part of his reign. The amount of this taxation might not, if stated, seem heavy to us; but almost any amount of taxation must at this time have appeared onerous to the Hebrews, who, during the reign of David, had seen the tributes of conquered kings far more than adequate to the moderate expenses of the government, and who, during the early part of Solomon’s own reign, had beheld the expenditure of the state sustained from the treasures left by David, which were in the end exhausted, and from sources of outer revenue, which fell off as the king advanced in years. Solomon had to learn that taxation, really or relatively heavy, unless for great public objects which touch the national heart, is incompatible with popularity. And this he did learn, from the deep discontent which his exactions occasioned throughout the land, and which was with difficulty, and only through the Lord’s special purpose, restrained during his lifetime, from that violent outbreak which, in the next reign, rent the kingdom in twain.
The discerning eye may detect other errors in the conduct of this wise man. Some of them are oriental miscalculations—mispolicies—for which, in regard to the notions of his time and country, we may hold him excused. But others were of a different nature—scarlet sins, for which as a man, as a king in Israel, as one who knew the Lord, and was his covenanted servant, no excuse is to be found.
He had a numerous harem—700 wives and 300 concubines, or wives of a lower order; a thousand in all. This was an enormity. In the simplest view, the sexes being nearly equal, it deprived a thousand men of wives, that one man might have 999 more than he required. Still, this was not strictly unlawful. Polygamy was not absolutely forbidden, although, with a view to the very danger into which Solomon fell, kings were forbidden to multiply wives unto themselves. From convenience, and from regard to economy, few men had more than one wife; and when that is the only consideration that keeps a man from a form of indulgence which he holds to be lawful—whether in wives, in horses, in chariots, in servants, or in palaces—his wealth and importance become proportioned to the number he possesses. It is a piece of state; his greatness is estimated by it. Hence, at the present day in the East, the extent of a man’s harem rises with his rank; and usually the king (unless he be a man of ostensibly ascetic profession, as is sometimes the case) considers it a sort of duty, a piece of necessary state, to have most of all—more than any of his subjects can afford to maintain. It is, therefore, often not so much with regard to sensual indulgence, as with reference to the consequence which the possession of a large harem imparts, that some eastern kings are found to have establishments as great as that of Solomon. The king who reigned in Persia in the early part of this century, was reputed to possess wives and concubines scarcely less numerous than those of the Hebrew monarch. In fact, the analogy incidentally stated just now is substantially correct. The same consideration of state which leads a western prince or noble to multiply horses, leads an eastern prince to multiply wives—with often as little of personal consideration in the one case as in the other. We can conceive the possibility of an eastern king conceiving himself bound to maintain a hundred wives, who, so far as his own wishes are concerned, thinks he might be happier with one. This view of the case is one excuse that may be urged for Solomon—but how far it may have been really in his case available, it is impossible to tell. It is right, however, to put the best construction upon his motives that circumstances will allow; and certainly his manifest and even inordinate taste for regal state and magnificence, may be some encouragement to us in placing his harem on the same footing as his other great and stately establishments.
There is yet another excuse suggested by the fact, that the “wives”—that is, we suppose, the majority of them, were women of high rank—“princesses”—which may suggest that many of them were taken, as is still the usage in Persia, as virtual hostages for the good behavior of their fathers—the lords or chieftains of the numerous small tribes and states subject to his sway, and which were for the most part ruled internally by their native chiefs under conditions of tribute.
But although the mere fact of possessing so many wives may thus variously be accounted for or extenuated in an eastern king, nothing whatever can be urged in excuse of the woeful fact, that “in his old age” he suffered his wives to turn away his heart.” Turned it away from what? From God, and from the simplicity of his faith and worship. His strong mind, like the strong body of Samson, lay besotted and enthralled in the lap of the “fair idolatresses” with whom he had filled his house from the nations around, and from whose blandishments he rose another man, shorn of his glory, shorn of his strength. He tolerated their corruptions and worships; this soon grew into active patronage and participation. Presently, upon the high hills overlooking the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, arose the shrines, the altars, and the images of Chemosh, of Molech, of the Ashtaroth, and the other gods of his wives; and the heart of every holy man fainted within him, to behold the son of David, himself so highly favored of God, sanctioning, by his presence and active co-operation, the degrading worship of the grim, the bloody, and abominable idols of Moab, of Ammon, and of Zidon, in the very presence of that “holy and beautiful house,” which in his younger days he had reared to the glory of the Lord.