1 Kings 11:9-14 sits inside this longer paragraph.
1Now king Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites; 2of the nations concerning which Yahweh said to the children of Israel, “You shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you; for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon joined to these in love. 3He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. His wives turned his heart away. 4When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with Yahweh his God, as the heart of David his father was. 5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6Solomon did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and didn’t go fully after Yahweh, as David his father did. 7Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon. 8So he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. 9Yahweh was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he didn’t keep that which Yahweh commanded. 11Therefore Yahweh said to Solomon, “Because this is done by you, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant. 12Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days, for David your father’s sake; but I will tear it out of your son’s hand. 13However I will not tear away all the kingdom; but I will give one tribe to your son, for David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.”
14Yahweh raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite. He was one of the king’s offspring in Edom. 15For when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the army had gone up to bury the slain, and had struck every male in Edom 16(for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom); 17Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go into Egypt, when Hadad was still a little child. 18They arose out of Midian, and came to Paran; and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house, and appointed him food, and gave him land. 19Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him as wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. 20The sister of Tahpenes bore him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh. 21When Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me depart, that I may go to my own country.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11, 13, 14 That thou hast forsaken me and worshipped idols.
That thou hast forsaken me and worshipped idols.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv9–14 1Ki 11:9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon,…
1Ki 11:9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice,
Ver. 9. And the Lord was angry with Solomon.] Though he were his Jedidiah, his darling. His chastisements laid on his children are the fruits of love displeased. The Antinomians say - but not truly - that God is never displeased with his people, fall they never so foully; no, not with a fatherly displeasure. See to the contrary, Isa 57:17 1Co 11:30.
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Which had appeared unto him twice.] Good turns aggravate unkindnesses. See on 1Ki 9:2.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12, 13 From the Lord God of Israel; from the express…
From the Lord God of Israel; from the express command and from the worship of God; not that he wholly neglected God, but because God esteems all the worship of idols (though it be not exclusive of, but conjoined with his own worship) to be a forsaking of and departing from God, and ofttimes so calls it.
Which had appeared unto him, to wit, in an extraordinary and most gracious and obliging manner.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv9, 14 Here is, I. God's anger against Solomon for his…
Here is, I. God's anger against Solomon for his sin. The thing he did displeased the Lord. Time was then the Lord loved Solomon (Sa2 12:24) and delighted in him (Kg1 10:9), but now the Lord was angry with Solomon (Kg1 11:9), for there was in his sin, 1. The most base ingratitude that could be. He turned from the Lord who had appeared unto him twice, once before he began to build the temple (Kg1 3:5) and once after he had dedicated it, Kg1 9:2. God keeps account of the gracious visits he makes us, whether we do or no, knows how often he has appeared to us and for us, and will remember it against us if we turn from him. God's appearing to Solomon was such a sensible confirmation of his faith as should have for ever prevented his worshipping any other god; it was also such a distinguishing favour, and put such an honour upon him, as he ought never to have forgotten, especially considering what God said to him in both these appearances. 2. The most wilful disobedience. This was the very thing concerning which God had commanded him - that he should not go after other gods, yet he was not restrained by such an express admonition, Kg1 11:10. Those who have dominion over men are apt to forget God's dominion over them; and, while they demand obedience from their inferiors, to deny it to him who is the Supreme.
II. The message he sent him hereupon (Kg1 11:11): The Lord said unto Solomon (it is likely by a prophet) that he must expect to smart for his apostasy. And here, 1. The sentence is just, that, since he had revolted from God, part of his kingdom should revolt from his family; he had given God's glory to the creature, and therefore God would give his crown to his servant: "I will rend the kingdom from thee, in thy posterity, and will give it to thy servant, who shall bear rule over much of that for which thou hast laboured." This was a great mortification to Solomon, who pleased himself no doubt with the prospect of the entail of his rich kingdom upon his heirs for ever. Sin brings ruin upon families, cuts off entails, alienates estates, and lays men's honour in the dust. 2. Yet the mitigations of it are very kind, for David's sake (Kg1 11:12, Kg1 11:13), that is, for the sake of the promise made to David. Thus all the favour God shows to man is for Christ's sake, and for the sake of the covenant made with him. The kingdom shall be rent from Solomon's house, but, (1.) Not immediately. Solomon shall not live to see it done, but it shall be rent out of the hand of his son, a son that was born to him by one of his strange wives, for his mother was an Ammonitess (Kg1 14:31) and probably had been a promoter of idolatry. What comfort can a man take in leaving children and an estate behind him if he do not leave a blessing behind him? Yet, if judgments be coming, it is a favour to us if they come not in our days, as Kg2 20:19. (2.) Not wholly. One tribe, that of Judah, the strongest and most numerous, shall remain to the house of David (Kg1 11:13), for Jerusalem's sake, which David built, and for the sake of the temple there, which Solomon built; these shall not go into other hands. Solomon did not quickly nor wholly turn away from God; therefore God did not quickly nor wholly take the kingdom from him.
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Upon this message which God graciously sent to Solomon, to awaken his conscience and bring him to repentance, we have reason to hope that he humbled himself before God, confessed his sin, begged pardon, and returned to his duty, that he then published his repentance in the book of Ecclesiastes, where he bitterly laments his own folly and madness (Ecc 7:25, Ecc 7:26), and warns others to take heed of the like evil courses, and to fear God and keep his commandments, in consideration of the judgment to come, which, it is likely, had made him tremble, as it did Felix. That penitential sermon was as true an indication of a heart broken for sin and turned from it as David's penitential psalms were, though of another nature. God's grace in his people works variously. Thus, though Solomon fell, he was not utterly cast down; what God had said to David concerning him was fulfilled: I will chasten him with the rod of men, but my mercy shall not depart from him, Sa2 7:14, Sa2 7:15. Though God may suffer those whom he loves to fall into sin, he will not suffer them to lie still in it. Solomon's defection, though it was much his reproach and a great blemish to his personal character, yet did not so far break in upon the character of his reign but that it was afterwards made the pattern of a good reign, Ch2 11:17, where the kings are said to have done well, while they walked in the way of David and Solomon. But, though we have all this reason to hope he repented and found mercy, yet the Holy Ghost did not think fit expressly to record his recovery, but left it doubtful, for warning to others not to sin upon presumption of repenting, for it is but a peradventure whether God will give them repentance, or, if he do, whether he will give the evidence of it to themselves or others. Great sinners may recover themselves and have the benefit of their repentance, and yet be denied both the comfort and credit of it; the guilt may be taken away, and yet not the reproach.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv9–14 And had commanded him concerning this thing that he…
And had commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods,.... Which is another aggravation of his sin that it was against an express command of God, and was particularly given him, and he was warned to observe it, and threatened with evil should he break it:
but he kept not that which the Lord commanded: see Kg1 9:5.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv12–13 Fathers sake - For my promise made to him,…
Fathers sake - For my promise made to him, 2 Sam. vii, 12-15.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 13, 14 Verse 9. The Lord was angry with Solomon] Had…
Verse 9. The Lord was angry with Solomon] Had not this man's delinquency been strongly marked by the Divine disapprobation, it would have had a fatal effect on the morals of mankind. Vice is vice, no matter who commits it. And God is as much displeased with sin in Solomon as he can be with it in the most profligate, uneducated wretch. And although God sees the same sin in precisely the same degree of moral turpitude as to the act itself, yet there may be circumstances which greatly aggravate the offense, and subject the offender to greater punishment. Solomon was wise; he knew better; his understanding showed him the vanity as well as the wickedness of idolatry. God had appeared unto him twice, and thus given him the most direct proof of his being and of his providence. The promises of God had been fulfilled to him in the most remarkable manner, and in such a way as to prove that they came by a Divine counsel, and not by any kind of casualty. All these were aggravations of Solomon's crimes, as to their demerit; for the same crime has, in every case, the same degree of moral turpitude in the sight of God; but circumstances may so aggravate, as to require the offender to be more grievously punished; so the punishment may be legally increased where the crime is the same. Solomon deserved more punishment for his worship of Ashtaroth than any of the Sidonians did, though they performed precisely the same acts. The Sidonians had never known the true God; Solomon had been fully acquainted with him.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 14 1Ki 11:9-10. The Lord was angry with Solomon —…
1Ki 11:9-10. The Lord was angry with Solomon — Displeased with his actions, and determined to punish him for them; in which sense we are generally to understand such expressions, for we must always remember that human passions can have no place in God. Because his heart was turned from the Lord, who had appeared to him twice — First at Gibeon, in the beginning of his reign, (1Ki 3:5,) and then at Jerusalem, after the building of the temple. And had commanded him concerning this thing — For in both those visions, the happiness promised him was declared to depend upon his observing God’s statutes. And when he began to build the temple, he was divinely admonished that he had better desist than go on in that work, unless he purposed to walk according to all God’s commandments, 1Ki 6:12-13. But he kept not, &c. — Which was the greater crime, because God had so often admonished him of his duty, and done such great things for him.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv13–14 One tribe - i. e., (marginal reference) the tribe…
One tribe - i. e., (marginal reference) the tribe of Judah. Benjamin was looked upon as absorbed in Judah, so as not to be really a tribe in the same sense as the others. Still, in memory of the fact that the existing tribe of Judah was a double one 1Ki 12:2 l, the prophet Ahijah tore his garment into twelve parts, and kept back two from Jeroboam 1Ki 11:30-31.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12, 13, 14 Twice, or repeatedly. See chap. ix. 2. (Haydock) ---…
Twice, or repeatedly. See chap. ix. 2. (Haydock) --- He had appeared to him at Gabaon, and after the consecration of the temple, (Menochius) besides sending a prophet to him while he was building, chap. vi. 12. (Abulensis) --- God was not content with giving him the general commandments: he had condescended to caution him in a most particular and earnest manner: (Haydock) so that his transgression is more horrible and ungrateful. (Calmet) --- No doubt the priests and prophets had often besought him to alter his conduct; but the sinner is deaf, till God speak to his heart. (Salien, the year of the world 3054.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v14 Solomon’s Adversaries and Death
Solomon’s Adversaries and Death
B.— 1Ki_11:14-43
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14And the Lord [Jehovah] stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad6 the Edomite: he was of the king’s seed in Edom. 15For it came to pass, when David was7 in [with, i. e., at war with] Edam, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom; 16(for six months did Joab remain there with all Israel [i. e., the host], until he had cut off every male in Edom:) 17that Hadad fled, he and certain8 Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go into Egypt: Hadad being yet a little child. 18And they arose out of Midian, and came to Paran: and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt, unto Pharaoh king of Egypt; which gave him a house, and appointed him victuals, and gave him land. 19And Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him to wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. 20And the sister of Tahpenes bare him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house: and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s household among the sons of Pharaoh. 21And when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the host was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, Let me depart, that I may go to mine own country. 22Then Pharaoh said unto him, But what hast thou lacked with me, that, behold, thou seekest to go to thine own country? And he answered, Nothing: howbeit, let me go in any wise.
23And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah: 24and he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band, when David slew them of Zobah: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus. 25And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon,9 beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria.
26And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomon’s servant, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand 27against the king. And this was the cause that he lifted up his hand against the king: Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breaches of the city of David his father. 28And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. 29And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field10: 30and Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces: 31and he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord [Jehovah], the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee: 32(but he shall have one11 tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:) 33because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,12 Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom13 the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes 34and my judgments, as did David his father. Howbeit, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes: 35but I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. 36And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. 37And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel. 38And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build 39thee a sure house, as I built for David,14 and will give Israel unto thee. And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not fore1 Kings 1Ki_11:40 Solomon sought therefore15 to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shi-shak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. 41And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon? 42And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.
Exegetical and Critical
1Ki_11:14. And the Lord stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, &c. It is clear and beyond dispute that the whole section, from 1Ki_11:14-40, which treats of the different adversaries that God raised up against Solomon, is intimately connected with the immediately preceding account of his fall, and of the impending and threatened division of the kingdom. The latter was not to occur till after Solomon’s death; but the presages of it were already appearing. The peace of the kingdom hitherto undisturbed was endangered from that time on, both by internal and by external adversaries. The two external ones, Hadad and Rezon, had, indeed, always been foes to Israel and Solomon, but they had never ventured to show their animosity in open deed, inasmuch as the kingdom had become powerful and respected under Solomon. But Solomon, in permitting the idolatrous worship, gave great dissatisfaction to all the faithful servants of Jehovah, and with his own hands he shook the foundations of the kingdom. Other measures also, more or less connected with the former, caused him to lose, more and more, the esteem and confidence of his subjects; and then the long pent-up hatred of his old foes began to show itself more; their courage grew, and though they did not proceed to formal attack or to open rebellion (of which our narrative says nothing) Solomon had occasion to fear them more than ever before; the tranquillity and peace of his kingdom was endangered, and the time of prosperity past. Every one will admit that this is what the author meant to convey. But recent criticism reckons him a “later worker-up of Deuteronomy,” and accuses him of a shifting of the historical facts. According to Ewald (Gesch. Isr. III. s. 274–281), uproar and rebellion did not first break out towards the end of Solomon’s reign, but immediately after the death of David and of his formidable army-chief, Joab, in the beginning of the reign of the young and inexperienced king, both in the south (Edom) and in the north (Syria), as depicted by Solomon himself in the second Psalm With the divine courage and the admonition supported by prophetic assurance, which this Psalm expresses, together with wonderful firmness of spirit, Solomon met the storm of rebellion, and deprived his foes of their chief weapon of attack by his alliance with Egypt. Against the northern insurgents he himself marched, and stormed Hamath. Thus were the ragings of the people stilled, and in a brief space he became master of the situation. This view has been reiterated in several books (cf. for instance Eisenlohr, das Volk Isr. II. s. 47 and 57; Duncker, Gesch. des Alt. I. s. 387), and has been accepted as a matter of course; although there are the strongest reasons for rejecting it. (a) Our historical book says repeatedly how, and that the kingdom of Solomon became established (1Ki_2:12; 1Ki_2:46), without making the remotest allusion to rebellion having broken out in the lands David had conquered, and being put down by Solomon; yet this would especially have tended to establish his throne and increase the esteem in which he was held. Even in the chapter we are considering, no mention is made of actual rebellion, but only of adversaries; therefore to say there were certainly such, is not writing history, but making history. (b) The rebellion of whole nations which, like Edom, lived far off, could have been put down only by force of arms, and not by “reproof” or “strength of mind;” but the history says nothing of Solomon’s marching into Edom. He went indeed to Hamath, but not to conquer it, only to “fortify” it (חזק cf. 2Ch_11:11-12; 2Ch_26:9), as the short notice stands in 2Ch_8:3, in the middle of the details of the different city-buildings. In fact we do not hear of a single warlike enterprise of Solomon’s; he was, as his name denotes, the king of peace, the “man of rest,” in distinction from David, the man of war (1Ch_22:9); and his reign was distinguished by works of peace (building, commerce, intellectual culture), above that of all other kings. (c) The 2d Psalm does not contain a history, and our narrative cannot be completed, much less contradicted or corrected by it. It is a mere unproven hypothesis that this psalm was composed by Solomon, and that the rebellion alluded to in it took place during his reign, not in the last years of it, but in the first. What is here said of Hadad and Rezon certainly occurred at an earlier period, but is repeated, “because its influence only began to be felt in the latter part of Solomon’s reign, and should have guarded him from over-security from the beginning” (Keil).
1Ki_11:14-22. Hadad, the Edomite. He is called Ahad [the English version does not distinguish] in 1Ki_11:17. A Hadad is mentioned among the Edomite kings as early as Gen_36:35; who evidently belonged to an earlier period. It is quite uncertain whether our Hadad was the grandson of the last king of Edom, whom 1Ch_1:50 wrongly calls Hadad instead of Hadar (Gen_36:39) (Ewald, Thenius). Details of his former fortunes are no doubt designed to show how firmly he clung to his native land, and therefore how much more he was to be dreaded. For David’s war with the Edomites cf.Sam. 1Ki_8:13 sq. “The slain, whom Joab came out to bury, cannot be the Israelites who fell in the battle of the valley of salt, but those killed on the invasion of the country by the Edomites, and who lay yet unburied. After performing this act Joab defeated the Edomites in the valley of salt, and dwelt six months in Edom, till he had extirpated all the males (i. e., all those capable of bearing arms that fell into his hands, and especially those of royal blood”) (Keil). Midian, 1Ki_11:18, cannot certainly be the town Madian mentioned by Arabian geographers, but a district; it is not very well defined, but it must have been between Edom and the desert, south-west of Palestine, Paran (Num_13:3; Num_13:27; Num_10:12); the road from Egypt still leads across the latter, through Aila to Mecca. The people whom the followers of Hadad took from Paran with them, were to lead the way across the desert. The Pharaoh who entertained the fugitives with such friendliness, and not only supported Hadad himself, but gave land to those with him, could scarcely be Solomon’s father-in-law, but his predecessor. His consort is here named הגְּבִירָה, the Queen-mother’s usual appellation (1Ki_15:13; 2Ch_15:16); but it does not always necessarily mean that; and consequently we are not obliged to accept Hitzig’s and Thenius’ reading of הַגְּדוֹלָה, i. e., the elder. The weaning of a child (1Ki_11:20) usually took place the second or third year (2Ma_7:27), and was observed as a family feast (Gen_21:8). Genubath was thus adopted among the royal children, and brought up with them (Winer, R.-W.-B., I. s. 657). Hadad’s petition (1Ki_11:21) was not so much because he had now no longer any fear for his life, but because he, as a royal prince, hoped to ascend the throne, and free his land from the Israelitish yoke; this was the only reason why he is named an adversary. Pharaoh’s question, 1Ki_11:22, contains the counsel to remain where he was, where he was well off, rather than undertake a dangerous and uncertain enterprise. This advice of his near relative was well meant, and did not spring from the policy of seeking to acquire or keep Solomon’s friendship. Hadad, however, remained firm in his resolve; we are not told of his actual departure, but it is to be understood; so that the Sept. addition, καὶ ἀνέστρεφεν ‛Αδερ εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτοῦ, considered as original by Thenius, is unnecessary. It appears from 1Ki_9:26 sq.;1Ki_10:11, that Hadad was not able to carry out his plans at once, but, the fire smouldered under the ashes, and threatened to break out as soon as Solomon began to be less respected. Ewald continues Hadad’s history further. He says the Egyptian king received him in so friendly a manner, “evidently intending to make use of him in the future against the growing power of Israel.” Genubath must have “acted an important part in Asia, later, or he would otherwise not have been named at all.” When the feeling of the Egyptian court changed towards Israel’s kings, “an evasive answer” was returned to the Idumæan prince; he would “not be detained, however, but fled secretly to his ancestral mountains, was there acknowledged by many of his people as king, and caused Solomon much perplexity, though he was never completely victorious.” Every one who can read may see that there is not a single word of all this in the text, and yet Eisenlohr has blindly followed the writer l. c., s. 58). Cf. also on 1Ki_22:48.
1Ki_11:23-25. And God stirred him up.… Rezon … the son of Eliadah, &c. 1Ki_11:23. 2Sa_8:3 sq. mentions that David smote Hadadezer, king of Zobah, in Syria, whereupon Rezon forsook his master, gathered together an army from the remains of the Syrian host, and proceeded later to Damascus, settled there, and usurped the chief power. This may have occurred in David’s time, or in the beginning of Solomon’s reign. It is nowhere said that he rebelled on Solomon’s accession, and was conquered by him, and there is nothing to show “that he was at least twenty or thirty years older than Solomon” (Ewald). It is not impossible that he survived Solomon, for had he died sooner it could not be, as in 1Ki_11:25, that “he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon.” He did not undertake any enterprise against the powerful king, but is he had always entertained hostile feelings to him, he now became a more dangerous and open enemy, as the power and fame of Solomon were declining. The words וְאֶת־הָרָעָה אֲשֶׂר הֲדָד are difficult, but can be translated only as many old translators give them, and among the recent ones, De Wette, Gesenius, Keil, Philippson; and “beside the mischief that Hadad (did).” וְאֶת is as in 1Ki_11:1 and Exo_1:14. We are not told what the mischief that Hadad did really was; the writer only means that Rezon’s enmity was added to that of Hadad. This view, which suits the context, relieves the following sentence of all difficulty: “and he (Rezon) abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria.” Whilst Hadad agitated the south, Rezon rebelled from Solomon in the north, and took the supreme power. The Sept. translates as if it read זֹאת instead of ואת and אֱדֹם instead of ארם: Αὕτη ἡκακία ἥν ἐποίησεν ’Αὁάρ. καὶ . . . ἐβασίλευσε ἑν γῇ ’Εδώμ, i. e., this is the mischief which Hadad did; he abhorred Israel and was king in Edom. Thenius asserts that this was the original text. But in this case the whole sentence could not be here, where the question is about the second adversary, Rezon, but should have followed 1Ki_11:22. It is incomparably less probable that it was there passed over by the oversight of a copyist (Thenius), and inserted here, than that the Sept. misunderstood the ואת, &c., and translated wrongly as it so often does, and was then obliged to change ארם to אדם because it did not suit Hadad. The Sept. has arbitrarily mixed the two accounts of the adversaries together (it puts 1Ki_11:23-24 into 1Ki_11:14), so that we should be very foolish to follow it in this case. Ewald translates, “as for the mischief which Hadad did, he was hostile to Israel and reigned over Edom;” but then the sentence should be back of 1Ki_11:22 and not here. It is not right to change ארם into אדם, because the two foregoing verses absolutely require that Rezon should be considered as subject to וַיָּקָץ. Cf. Keil on the place.
1Ki_11:26-27. Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Hadad and Rezon were dangerous “adversaries” to Solomon, but Jeroboam, though a subject and servant of Solomon, lifted up his hand against the king, i. e., he actually rebelled. His personal circumstances are given more at length because of his vastly greater importance. Zereda is not Zarthan, as Keil thinks (1Ki_7:46); the latter is not in Ephraim; but Zereda is Zerira in the mountains of Ephraim (cf. Thenius on 1Ki_12:2). The second half of 1Ki_11:27 says, like 1Ki_9:15 : “to build Millo and the walls of Jerusalem;” there is, therefore, no question here of stopping “a gap in the city of David” (Luther), but of the closing up of a ravine (Vulgate, vorago) in the city, which was done by walls. By פֶּרֶץ is meant the once very deep ravine of what was subsequently the Tyropœon, which separated Zion from Moriah and Ophel. This ravine became part of the interior of the city through these walls, and was made inaccessible to enemies (Thenius). The words, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph, are not in contradiction with 1Ki_9:22; for slave-levy is not spoken of here (מַס־עֹבֵד), but that of the Israelites (מַם מִכָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל) 1Ki_5:13, who worked alternately. It is not, therefore, necessary to suppose that the “house of Joseph,” i. e., the Ephraimites (Jos_17:17) were obliged to work at Millo, as a punishment for their rebellion under Sheba (2 Samuel 20). But the Ephraimites, who had an old and irrepressible jealousy of Judah, submitted very reluctantly to labor in the king’s citadel and the royal city of Judah; their compulsory work increased their dislike to hatred, so that it was easy to fan the flame of insurrection among them.
1Ki_11:29. And it came to pass at that time,i. e., not at the time Jeroboam made the insurrection, but—taken with 1Ki_11:28—the time when he entered upon the office of superintendent over all the Ephraimite levy; therefore, before he lifted his hand against the king, and proceeded to acts, but still he was brooding over insurrection. The notion that 1Ki_11:29-39 is a section taken from another source and inserted here (Thenius) is, to say the least, unnecessary; it contains an explanatory and needful account, which is closely connected with 1Ki_11:28. Jeroboam’s banishment from Jerusalem was probably the occasion for preparations of rebellion. The prophet Ahijah was of the same tribe as Jeroboam, for Shiloh was in the tribe of Ephraim, north of Bethel, south of Lebonah (Jdg_21:19), and was the seat of the tabernacle from Joshua to Eli (Jos_18:1; 1Sa_21:3). They no doubt knew each other well. The Sept. adds to the words in the way (for explanation): καὶ ἀπἐστησεν αὐτὸν ἐκ τῆς ὁδοῦ.
1Ki_11:30-39. Ahijah caught the new garment.שַׂלְמָה (for שִׂמְלָה) is “probably similar to the Arabian burnou; a large square piece of cloth, thrown over the shoulders and almost covering the whole person in the daytime, and used at night for a coverlet” (Keil). Hess wrongly imagines it to have been a “new mantle which Jeroboam had on;” and Ewald thinks it was his “new and splendid official uniform.” It was the prophet’s own cloak, as 1Ki_11:30 plainly says. The prophet himself explains the meaning of this symbolic act. Le Clerc says that the repetition of the word new shows that the prophet did what he did, non temere. Thenius thinks the new garment denoted the young and powerful kingdom; but both these explanations are strained. A new garment is one that is whole and complete, integer, without a rent or hole; the kingdom was hitherto without split or division, but was now to be torn and divided. קָרַע is usually applied to tearing the garments in sign of mourning (Gen_37:29; Gen_44:13; 2Sa_13:21; 2Ki_18:37), i. e., of inward rending. Now when the prophet tore the cloak into twelve pieces, and gave Jeroboam only ten pieces instead of eleven, we must of course infer that neither Benjamin nor Judah alone was meant here, or in 1Ki_11:13, by “one tribe,” but both together (cf. 1Ki_12:20-21; 2 Chron. 11:3; 12:23). Little Benjamin, over against Judah, came scarcely into consideration; and as, besides, the capital of the kingdom (Jerusalem) lay on the borders of both tribes, they might very well be reckoned as one. If, as Keil says, the number ten represents the total sum here, in distinction to the one part (all Israel fell away from the house of David, only a single portion remained to it), the prophet would have torn off only one small piece. For 1Ki_11:32 see above on 1Ki_11:12-13; and for 1Ki_11:33 see on 1Ki_11:5-8. The plural in 1Ki_11:33 is remarkable (all translations, except the Chaldee, have the singular, which we expect here); perhaps it only means our vague word “one;” it is plain, however, that Israelites had already abandoned themselves to the licensed heathen worship. In the words in 1Ki_11:36, that David may have a light always before me, “light” is not a symbol of prosperity (Keil), and ניר certainly does not mean breaking forth afresh (Hitzig), but it means simply the continuance of his race, as in 1Ki_15:4; 2Ki_8:19; 2Ch_21:7. As a house (dwelling) is dark (uninhabitable) without a light, so also is a house (family, race) without posterity; this is why we speak of the dying out of a race, at the present day, as its extinction. The same expression, 1Ki_11:37 : and thou shalt reign according to all, &c., is used in 2Sa_3:21, about David; it does not mean pro lubitu tuo imperabis Israelitis (Dathe), but, thou shalt have the dominion thou now strivest for, &c., &c. 1Ki_11:38. Jeroboam’s dominion then was connected with the condition upon which all dominion in Israel was based.
1Ki_11:40-42. Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. The immediate connection of these words with Ahijah’s address can scarcely mean otherwise than this: that Solomon heard of it, and sought to get Jeroboam out of the way by some means. Jeroboam could but know of this, and he lifted up his hand against the king, i. e., he proceeded to actual rebellion (1Ki_11:26-27). But not succeeding, he fled to Egypt. The king then reigning was not, of course, Solomon’s father-in-law, nor Sesostris, as older commentators think, but was probably Seconchis or Sesonchusis, the first king of the twenty-second dynasty (cf. Winer, R.-W.-B. s. v. Sishak). The reception he gave Jeroboam shows his feeling towards Solomon. 1Ki_14:21 sq. speaks of his open hostility to the kingdom of Judah.
1Ki_11:43. Solomon slept with his fathers, at about sixty years of age, as he very early succeeded to the throne (1Ki_3:7). Josephus thinks he was eighty or even ninety-four years old, but this is quite wrong, and was caused, probably, by confusion of the ciphers. All copies and translations give forty. Our author gives, in a general way, the “book of the acts of Solomon,” as the original source of his history; but 2Ch_9:29 names, with more exactness, the “book (דִּבְרֵי) of Nathan the prophet, the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam.” But it does not follow that these three writings are only extracts from one historical one (Bertheau), but it certainly does appear that each one wrote down his own experience. When Solomon fell away, and Ahijah appeared, Nathan must have been dead. Cf. the Introduction, § 2. Rehoboam was not a son of the first and real consort of Solomon, the Egyptian princess (1Ki_3:1; 1Ki_9:24; 1Ki_7:8), but the son of the Naamah the Ammonitess (1Ki_14:21; 1Ki_14:31). He appears to have been the only living son, as no children, especially sons, of Solomon are named (though he had so many wives), except the two daughters mentioned, 1Ki_4:11; 1Ki_4:15; and no brothers disputed the succession of Rehoboam, which was the case with Solomon. For his age at his accession see on 1Ki_14:21.
Historical and Ethical
1. The appearance of the various adversaries of Solomon seems to have been a special act of divine retributive justice; God is named as the direct agent. He is said not only to have permitted them, but to have “stirred them up,” called them to it. The word הֵקִים means, as here, the stirring up of enemies and rebels, also of deliverers, helpers, prophets (Jdg_2:18; Deu_18:15; Deu_18:18; 1Sa_2:35; Eze_34:23; Jer_29:15), where there is no allusion to mere permission. It is not indeed the absolutely Holy One who excites hatred, enmity, and revenge in one man towards another, for he tempts no man to evil (Jam_1:13); but the Almighty Ruler of the world can use the hatred that He sees in the hearts of sinful men, to fulfil, without their knowledge or wish, the purposes of His retributive justice and the chastisements of His love; and in so far, the stirring up is no passive permission, but the act of God. Thus Nathan announces to David, after his grievous sin, this word of the Lord, “behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house” (2Sa_12:11), and David himself says of Shimei who was cursing him, “so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him” (2Sa_16:10-11). The Assyrian is, without knowing it, the rod of His anger in the hand of Jehovah (Isa_10:1; Isa_10:5), and Solomon’s adversaries also served for instruments of divine justice. This expression of stirring up shows clearly that the appearance of the adversaries did not take place, as recent commentators say, in the beginning of Solomon’s reign, for up to that time Solomon had given no occasion for any act of retribution or discipline. Though he did not lose his throne through them, during his life-time; yet it was very humiliating to him, whose power and splendor had been a spectacle to the world, and whose wisdom people of all nations had come to hear (1Ki_4:14; 1Ki_10:24), to be obliged to fear these men, who were far inferior to him, and whom he had once despised.
2. While Hadad and Rezon did not affect materially the destiny of Israel, the third opponent of Solomon was of vastly greater significance. Jeroboam does not disappear, like them, without leaving a trace in the history of the kingdom. His entrance on the scene was felt profoundly for centuries; the breach and partition of the kingdom take place with and through him; a partition which was no temporary one, but lasted about three hundred years, and ended with the dissolution of the kingdom. In this respect he is one of the most important of the characters in the history of Israel. Witsius, in reference to his whole career says (Decaphylon, p. 307): vir sagax, inquietus et dominandi avidus atque ab ineunte œtate iis eruditus artibus, quibus ingenia ad magnœ fortunœ cultum incitantur. Here where he is first mentioned the question properly arises, how it came to pass that he lifted up his hand against the King. The text certainly says nothing explicit about it, but gives some distinct clues. It says, first of all, he was an Ephraimite, thus being a member of the largest, most powerful, and warlike tribe, that had always vied with Judah for pre-eminence; and that, even when David had subdued them, never renounced their deeply rooted jealousy and love of independence and dominion over the other tribes (2Sa_2:9; 2Sa_20:21). After the division of the kingdom, Ephraim stood at the head of the ten tribes, so that the kingdom of the ten was called Ephraim (Hos_4:17; Hos_5:9; Hos_12:1 sq.; Isa_7:2). Dislike of the supremacy of Judah was in the very blood of so young and powerful a man as Jeroboam, and it needed not much to excite thoughts of rebellion and independence in him. The fact that Solomon employed the Ephraimites not so much in the matter of levy-works as in building Millo, and in stopping up the ravine which served to fortify the city of David and to secure the supremacy of Judah, was calculated to increase the ancient jealousy and dislike to Judah, and to excite discontent and disgust. Recognizing the distinguished ability of young Jeroboam, Solomon made him overseer of his own people; thus feeding the ambition of this man who was born to rule. He now first became conscious of his powers, and soon acquired the confidence of his already discontented tribe by his prudence and energy, so that he could hope to succeed in placing himself at their head, and lifting his hand against the Judah-King. Perhaps he also perceived that the splendor of Solomon had lost its ground through the influence of his wives, the open introduction of idol-worship side by side with that of Jehovah, and the luxurious court life, and that his rule gave great dissatisfaction to the most worthy of the people. When we consider all this we readily conceive that a man like the Ephraimite, Jeroboam, should, without being especially influenced by any one, think of breaking loose from Solomon’s rule. The later critics have therefore no grounds for asserting that “the prophet Ahijah, who appeared at the head of a (discontented) faction,” induced Jeroboam to rebel against the king (Winer, R.-W.-B. I. s. 544). Thenius is quite right when he says, “Ahijah did not incite Jeroboam, but he knew the thoughts he cherished, and when Ahijah addressed him he was about taking steps to realize these thoughts, as 1Ki_11:37 says: the prophet then appeared, for he saw that the deed would infallibly follow the resolve in this case, and recognized in Jeroboam a capable man, knowing also the promise of success under condition of continuance in a God-fearing mind. This relation is quite in the spirit of prophecy, and is totally different from an intentional and forcible introduction.” The text says distinctly that Ahijah met Jeroboam when the latter “went out of Jerusalem” (1Ki_11:29) to lift up his hand against the king.
3. The prophet Ahijah stands in a relation to Solomon and Jeroboam analogous with that of Samuel to Saul and David (1Sa_15:16). “As Saul’s sentence of rejection was accompanied by the calling of David, so the prophetical announcement to Solomon was accompanied by the prophecy to Jeroboam” (v. Gerlach). Ahijah opened to him the same divine decision which he had first made known to Solomon (cf. 1Ki_11:11-13). In doing so he emphasizes two things particularly, and these are worthy of notice; the first is, that Solomon was to remain king of all Israel to the end of his life, and the division of the kingdom was to take place under his son (1Ki_11:31 sq.); the second, that Jeroboam only received dominion over the ten tribes, on the presupposition and condition that he would walk in all the commandments of Jehovah, as David did, and not sin like Solomon (1Ki_11:37 sq.). It is added also that David’s seed was to be humbled, but not forever (1Ki_11:39). We should not overlook the circumstance that the prophet met Jeroboam on the way as he came out of Jerusalem, and was proceeding to carry put his intentions, and that the prophet took him aside (as the Sept. at least has it) so that they “two were alone in the field” (1Ki_11:29). Ahijah’s communication was, therefore, not intended for the public, but was confidential, thus intimating to Jeroboam that he ought not to proceed to rebellion at once, but keep quiet, and wait till it might please the Lord to bring about circumstances to fulfil the purpose He had announced. The prophet, so far from counselling him to rebellion, warned him rather, and recommended patience as long as Solomon lived. But when Jeroboam, nevertheless, lifted up his hand against the king, he committed an inexcusable, sinful deed on his own responsibility, and anticipated divine providence. His conduct was just the opposite of David’s, who, though anointed to be king, and persecuted by Saul, endured every wrong, never revenged himself on the king, though the latter was often in his power, even mourned his death, and had the Amalekite who killed him executed as a traitor (2Sa_1:11-16). He believed that the Lord knew the right hour to fulfil his promise. It cannot, therefore, be accounted a crime in Solomon to strive to kill a man whom he had raised from nothing, and who then rebelled against him. From all this it appears that it is quite erroneous to account for Jeroboam’s appearance by saying that “the ancient prophetical estate wished, by the forcible introduction of a new royal house, to stand directly under the Lord and above the human monarchy;” so that the kingdom of the ten tribes was “the birth of this prophet-power,” and the latter “a retarded error” (Ewald). And it is equally untrue that the rebellion of the ten tribes was “an enterprise which the prophet had encouraged, to bring back the old national constitution, and restore the consideration in which his class was held in Samuel’s time, when he, their founder and representative, deposed a king who disobeyed him, and raised up another in his place” (Menzel, l. c. s. 152). When will men cease to compare the old prophets with modern demagogues and ambitious priests!
4. The symbolic procedure of the rending the garment into twelve pieces preceded the prophecy delivered by the prophet. It could not, therefore, have been intended to make that prophecy clear, but rather inversely, the prophecy explained the transaction. This was the case not only here, but the prophets generally performed a preliminary symbolic action which represented the substance of the meaning of the solemn prophecy which followed; and they performed this act on the impulse of the divine spirit, just as they proclaimed the word following in their divine commission. Cf. Isa_20:2 sq.; Jer_13:1 sq.; Jer_29:1 sq.; Jer_35:2 sq.; Jer_43:9 sq.; Eze_4:1 sq.; Eze_5:1 sq.; Eze_12:3 sq.; Eze_24:2 sq.; Eze_37:15 sq.; Eze_13:15 sq. From these passages we see that the performance of such actions was as much a part of the prophetic calling and office as the proclamation of the word. All revelation of God is in the way of act as well as of word: God’s deeds as well as His words are signs that testify of Him. His acts are also, as it were, speech, i. e., a revealing of Himself. The speaking of God is a sign-language, and therefore a symbol-language. The entire cultus has, hence, symbolic form as the real expression of the divine-human relation. When the prophets, therefore, appeared as such, i. e., as “men of God,” as mediators and instruments of divine revelation, they did not communicate it in words only, but in solemn acts, which were signs; and thus they proved themselves the servants of God, speaking in His language. Their prophetic acts, as well as their prophetic words, were announcements and revelations of the divine purpose. When they anticipate their words by an act commanded by God, this act is not to be viewed as a mere image, according to their own pleasure, but it represents the future which they had to reveal as a fact, as it were, a present deed of God, and therefore as something which would assuredly happen. The action, then, was an assurance and pledge of the fulfilment of the prophecy; and it was entirely natural that it should precede the word explaining and interpreting it. Besides, every thought which is embodied in a deed produces a much greater and more lasting impression than if only expressed in words. Of Christ, in whom all that is prophetic culminates, the disciple says (Luk_24:19): “which was a prophet mighty in deed and word,” thus proving that not words only, but actions also belong to the essence of the calling of the prophet. The people concluded from his deeds that “a great prophet is risen up among us” (Luk_7:16). His prophetic deeds were “signs” (Joh_6:26; Joh_20:20), not mere evidences of power, but of divine authority; and they spoke of divine things as loudly and, if possible, more loudly than His words. He himself says, “Though ye believe not me, believe the works” (Joh_10:38); “the works that I do in my Father’s name they bear witness of me” (Joh_10:25).
5. The rending of the ten tribes appears, in the prophet’s prediction here as in 1Ki_11:11-13, to be a punishment ordained and determined by Jehovah for Solomon’s falling away, not, therefore, as an event merely permitted by God but designed; and therefore announced beforehand. The question arises, in what relation did this partition, determined on by Jehovah, stand to His plans regarding Israel considered as one people composed of twelve tribes? The whole nation was His inheritance, for He had called them from among all nations to be a divine kingdom (Exo_19:5-6), i. e., a theocracy. The one God, Jehovah, was, as the true King and Lord of that people, so also the root and principle of their unity—the bond binding together all the tribes into one whole. The human monarchy afterwards established by the desire of the people did not destroy the theocracy but served rather to sustain and preserve it (see above). But it was not now absolutely necessary that all the tribes should have one head; in fact they might each have had a head, had they only acknowledged Jehovah as the one true king of all Israel, and held fast to the covenant, i. e., the law of God. “It was not contrary to the Mosaic constitution for Jehovah to weaken—not destroy—a royal house that had turned to idolatry; to rend away some tribes from it, and to place them under the government of another king. It was rather the fittest thing to be done; for otherwise the principles that lay in the very nature of the constitution—namely, that disaster should follow idolatry, and prosperity the fear of God, would have been violated. One of these two things must (according to these principles) have come upon David’s house after a lapse into idolatry, viz. either expulsion from the throne (which could not be on account of the promise of perpetual succession), or weakening such as was foretold by Jehovah,.… a falling away of some tribes” (Hess, Von dem Reiche Gottes, I. s. 301). As Jehovah had heretofore governed his people by one king (David and Solomon) he could also do it by two without destroying the theocratic principle. The new kingdom is offered to Jeroboam and continuance is promised to his dynasty on the express condition that he should, “like David,” faithfully adhere to the law; with the explanation, nevertheless (1Ki_11:39), that the humiliation of the house of David would be but temporary. Thus it is indicated that the promise of the everlasting kingdom would not be realized in Jeroboam’s race, “but in that of David” (Oehler). The prediction of Ahijah does not imply a partition of the theocracy or of Israel, but only of the human monarchy under two kings. The double nature of the kingdom was not the cause of the permanence of the division, nor of the commencement of the destruction of the kingdom; these were the results of the continued falling away from the supreme commandment of the theocratic law on the part of the ten tribes.
6. There are no accounts of Solomon’s end, nor of his life and acts from the time of his lapse till his death; all is reduced to the notice that he sought to kill Jeroboam, and that he died and was buried. This is the more remarkable as the life and acts of this king are more minutely narrated than those of any succeeding one, and that the last days and end of David in particular are recorded with such evident care both in our books and in the Chronicles. Had Solomon ended his life like David, who with joyous heart blessed the Lord to the last (1Ch_29:10 sq.), and charged his son and successor most emphatically to remain faithful to Jehovah (1Ki_2:1 sq.), and been anxious that the prosperity of the kingdom should endure on the basis of the covenant with Jehovah (2Sa_23:1 sq.), such a circumstance would not have been passed over. We must therefore conclude, from the entire silence of the history, that Solomon did not die as David died, that he remained in the state of mind into which he had fallen in his later age. The question whether Solomon was finally converted and saved was formerly discussed extensively (Buddeus, Hist. Eccl., II. p. 237 sq.), but we see no occasion to introduce it here. Both Hess and Niemeyer have endeavored to ascertain from Ecclesiastes what Solomon’s state of mind was in his last days; but apart from the mistaken presupposition that this treatise was composed by Solomon, no one could prove his conversion from it; and Niemeyer concludes his character-sketch with these words: “the cheerful peace of his soul was gone. Gloomy was his retrospect of life, and gloomy was his view of the near and of the distant future.” It is worthy of remark, that while Solomon (Suleiman) is held in high honor in the East at the present day, his memory is far less revered among the Jews than that of David, which could not have been the case had his reign ended as gloriously as it began. Bertheau justly remarks that Solomon “did more towards undermining the distinctive peculiarity of his people than any other king.” We are not, however, to seek the cause of this simply in his making a people who were adapted to agriculture, commercial, and in his splendid buildings, his harem, and his court, all hitherto unknown in Israel, but the real specific reason was that by the introduction and the toleration of foreign idolatrous forms of worship he undermined the religion of his people, forth from which religion flowed all the characteristics which distinguished them over against all other peoples; that was the worm at the root of the kingdom and the national life.
[7. It is extremely difficult to give a portraiture of Solomon which can harmonize at once both the demand for historic truth and the general estimation which tradition assigns to him. The story is extraordinary. David the father of the wise king founded and consolidated the kingdom. His life was stormy and checkered. His character was romantic and chivalric and generous. He showed himself capable both of great self-sacrifice and of revolting criminality and treachery. He was tender and he was brave. His soul rested upon the covenant-keeping Jehovah, yet he dared to violate all the duties of the decalogue which concern man’s dealings with his brother man. Solomon did not inherit the personal traits of his father. He was not warlike; he was a man of peace. He sought wisdom, and he sought it from Jehovah. He desired to administer his government according to the law and will of God. He had fine talent for observation. He was a naturalist of rare attainments. He knew much of the earth; he knew much of men. He was a man of understanding, expressing his thoughts and observations in proverbs. He was splendid in his tastes. He sought wealth by commerce and by trade with heathen nations. He made Israel a kingdom of this world; at the same time, he built the temple, lavishing upon it untold sums of money, and aiming to make it, according to Eastern conceptions, splendid in all respects. Certainly at its dedication he is one of the most imposing and majestic figures in all history. But by degrees, enervated by luxury, by pleasure, by plenty, he lost the strength of his convictions. He became wise in this world. The law of Jehovah lost its hold upon his conscience. He began to justify idolatry. “He that built a temple to the living God for himself and Israel, in Sion, built a temple to Chemosh in the Mount of Scandal for his mistresses of Moab, in the very face of God’s house. No hill about Jerusalem was free from a chapel of devils: each of his dames had their puppets, their altars, their incense; because Solomon feeds them in their superstition, he draws the sin home to himself, and is branded for what he should have forbidden.”—Bp. Hall. And by degrees the splendor passed away, and darkness and weariness, and hopelessness, and an ignoble old age came on. He forsook the noble path of his youth, and his glory was lost. See Stanley, Jewish Church, second series, Lect. 28., and F. D. Maurice, The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Sermon on the Wise King. The sun of his life rose in all splendor, and shone brilliantly, to go down at last amid the heavy darkness of impending storm and night. The people lost their sense of the exclusive sovereignty of Jehovah; their burdens were heavy—and the brief glory of Israel as a kingdom of this world passed away forever.—E. H.]
Homiletical and Practical
1Ki_11:14-40. Solomon’s enemies. 1. They are roused against him by God, so that he may know and confess what heart-suffering it brings to forsake the fear of the Lord his God (Jer_2:19). Cramer: So marvellously does God bring it about, that he who will not fear him, must needs fear his fellow-men. Once the man of rest, and the Prince of Peace (1Ki_5:4), now he is pressed sore by enemies from the north, from the south, and from his midst; they are the scourges with which the Lord chastises him. When foes and opponents rise against thee, and cause thee care and anguish, then think: The Lord has summoned them on account of thy sins, and unfaithfulness. The hostility of men is a sermon of repentance from thy God to thee. 2. They were in God’s hand, and could do no more than he permits; they rebelled, but they were powerless to take from Solomon the throne and kingdom during his lifetime. The Lord commands our foes: So far shalt thou go, and no further.—J. Heermann: If thou speakest the word, they soon become friends: they must needs lay down arms and defences, and stir no finger.—P. Gerhardt: If I am beloved of God, and have the Head for my friend, what can troops of foes and opposers do to me? For he can humble the proud (Dan_4:35). Formerly all kings did homage to Solomon, and brought him gifts, and journeyed from all countries to see and to hear him; his power was as great as his kingdom. But now his power and might are abased before those who hitherto ranked far below him, whom he had regarded as the least of his slaves and vassals. Humiliation coming through weak and inferior means is much more bitter than the same humiliation through strong and powerful means; the latter we can ascribe to men, but in the former we must recognize the will and power of God.
1Ki_11:14-22. The fate of Hadad is recounted to us not so much on his account as on our own, in order that we may learn to regard the ways of God with man, and order our own ways by Him, who is ever mercy and wisdom (Psa_25:10). If God brought back the heathen Hadad by mysterious ways to his native land, how much more will he lead those who keep his covenant and testimony to the true native land, and to the eternal rest, how dark and inscrutable soever may be the ways by which he leads them. 1Ki_11:21. Let me go into mine own country. The power of love of country. Not ubi bene, ibi patria, but ubi patria, ibi bene. Yet must we not in the earthly country forget the heavenly “Fatherland.” 1Ki_11:23-25. Though vanquished and cast down, tyranny and ambition do not forget; they think perpetually of vengeance, and seek to satisfy it, now by rough means now by subtle ones, whenever an opportunity offers. Therefore, warns the apostle so earnestly (Rom_12:19) against those secret and mighty motives in the natural heart of man.
1Ki_11:26-28. God is wont to chastise the rebellion of princes against his will, by means of the rebellion of their own subjects; as Solomon raised his hand against Jehovah, so did his servant Jeroboam against him. Destruction from above unites with ruin from below. Whatever Solomon undertook after his fall, was deprived of God’s blessing. By the building of Millo he intended still further to strengthen his dominion over all his enemies, and to render impregnable his dwelling-place, but this very building was the cause why his throne began to totter, and why he lost the greater part of his kingdom. Here applies Psa_127:1. It was by divine decree that Solomon himself, without his own will or knowledge, should raise from the dust to high places the very man appointed by God to abase him, and to dismember his kingdom. Conspiracies and rebellions are chiefly led by those who have to complain least of injustice or oppression, but have been pampered and favored until ambition incites them to suppress every feeling of gratitude (Joh_13:18).
1Ki_11:29-39. cf. above 1Ki_11:9-13. The prediction of the prophet Ahijah announces 1. the division of the kingdom as a consequence of the going astray to the worship of strange gods (1Ki_11:31-33); 2. the preservation of the kingdom of Judah on account of the promise given to David (1Ki_11:34; 1Ki_11:36; 1Ki_11:39); 3. the choice made of Jeroboam, on condition of inflexible fidelity to Jehovah and to his law (1Ki_11:37-38). 1Ki_11:31. All the world must confess, upon beholding the abasement of the house of David and the elevation of Jeroboam, that the Most High has power over the kingdoms of men, and bestows them upon whom he will (Dan_4:29; 1Sa_2:7-8; Luk_1:52). 1Ki_11:36. Even in the midst of his just anger the Lord is merciful, and the inconstancy of man can never shake His fidelity. The fulfilment of 2Sa_7:14-15, is seen in Solomon’s history. The house of David remained a light “forever,” until that Son of David came who is the light of the world, which lighteth all men who come into the world (Joh_1:9; Rom_15:12).
1Ki_11:40-43. These three truths are nowhere more powerfully exemplified than in the life of Solomon: What availeth it a man, &c., (Mat_16:26); Vanity of vanities, &c. (Ecc_1:2), and The world passeth away, &c. (1Jn_2:17; cf. 1Pe_1:24). 1Ki_11:40. Roos: Sin obscures the soul. He who turns aside from God departs from wisdom; and let those who, instead of bowing and submitting with resignation to the chastisements of God, haughtily strive against them, contemplate the fate of Jeroboam, who, doubtless, stirred up the plot against Solomon, since he afterwards eagerly abetted the desertion of the ten Tribes. Even as Solomon, when he sought to slay Jeroboam, must have felt that in vain he resisted the divine decrees, and was powerless to hinder them, so likewise Jeroboam, compelled to fly to Egypt, must have become conscious that in vain he strove rashly and insolently to anticipate the execution of the divine decrees. We must even make bitter expiation when we haughtily resist and oppose the Lord, or when we strive to hasten his designs, or to appoint time and place for their fulfilment. The life of Solomon closes with the words: Therefore Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam. Instead of seeking forgiveness from Him who forgiveth much, and himself granting forgiveness, he is thinking of murder and vengeance. How great and noble the contrast between this and the Figure of Him who in the face of death upon the cross cried: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Let us strive to become like unto his image, and that our last thought in life may be of love and reconciliation, and not of revenge and hatred. Solomon possessed the fairest and noblest crown that mortal can wear, yet it was perishable, not enduring beyond death and the grave. The Lord promises an immortal crown to those who love and follow Him. Be faithful unto death, then He will give thee the crown of life; blessed is he who endureth unto the end.
Footnotes:
[6]1Ki_11:14.—[This name is variously written in the printed Heb. text הֲדַד and אֲדַד; in some MSS. and in the Syr. it is uniformly written הדר. The Sept. has Ἄδερ, and the Vulg. Hadad. The Chald. follows the variations of the Hebrew. After the mention of his name the Vat. Sept. subjoins a summary of 1Ki_11:23-25, omitted in their place.
[7]1Ki_11:15.— Instead of בִּהְיוֹת the Sept ., Syr., and Arab. read בְּהַכּוֹת (when David had slain the Edomites), which Maurer and Thenius consider right. But according to 1Ch_20:5; Gen_14:9 [add Num_20:13], the reading of the text is not to be peremptorily rejected.
[8]1Ki_11:17.—[The Sept., in curious contradiction to 1Ki_11:15-16, has here “all the Edomites,” &c.
[9]1Ki_11:25.—[The Vat. Sept. here resumes the course of the Heb. narrative, but gives quite a different sense: “this is the evil which Hadad did: he abhorred Israel and reigned in Edom.” On the true rendering of the verse see Exeg. Com. In regard to the last word, three MSS., followed by the Sept., Syr., and Arab., have אדם for ארם: but, as pointed out in the Exeg. Com., the true reading must necessarily be that of the text. Our author in his translation, in opposition to his own exegesis, follows the Sept.
[10]1Ki_11:29.—[The Sept. renders or replaces the last clause by “and he took him aside from the way.”
[11]1Ki_11:32.—[The Sept. has δύο σκῆπτρα—two tribes. So also 1Ki_11:36.
[12]1Ki_11:33.—[Instead of the peculiar form צִדֹנִין many MSS. read צִדוֹנִים.
[13]1Ki_11:33.—[The Sept. has evidently understood in מִלְכֹּם the final ם as a pronominal suffix, and so translate “their king, the stumbling-block of the children of Ammon.” Throughout this verse the Sept. puts the verbs in the singular as having Solomon for their nominative.
[14]1Ki_11:38.—[The Vat. Sept. omits the clause “and will give Israel unto thee.”
[15]1Ki_11:40.—[וַיְבַקֵּשׁ שְׁלֹמֹה = but Solomon sought. The word “therefore” of the ancient version is not necessary, and connects the attempt of Solomon quite too distinctly with the communication of Ahijah, which may have been known to him (see Exeg. Com.) or may not. The true connection of 1Ki_11:40 is with 1Ki_11:26, 1Ki_11:27-39 being parenthetical.—F. G.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv9, 13, 14 GOD THREATENS HIM. (Kg1 11:9-13)
GOD THREATENS HIM. (Kg1 11:9-13)
the Lord was angry with Solomon--The divine appearance, first at Gibeon [Kg1 3:5], and then at Jerusalem [Kg1 9:2], after the dedication of the temple, with the warnings given him on both occasions [Kg1 3:11-14; Kg1 9:3-9], had left Solomon inexcusable; and it was proper and necessary that on one who had been so signally favored with the gifts of Heaven, but who had grossly abused them, a terrible judgment should fall. The divine sentence was announced to him probably by Ahijah; but there was mercy mingled with judgment, in the circumstance, that it should not be inflicted on Solomon personally--and that a remnant of the kingdom should be spared--"for David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, which had been chosen" to put God's name there; not from a partial bias in favor of either, but that the divine promise might stand (Sa2 7:12-16).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 13, 14 THE LORD’S ANGER AGAINST SOLOMON, 1Ki_11:9-13.
THE LORD’S ANGER AGAINST SOLOMON, 1Ki_11:9-13.
9. The Lord was angry — Divine anger, as presented in the Bible, is no sudden burst of passion, no low and hateful motion of revenge, as human anger often is, and with which, perhaps, too many are ever prone to associate their idea of Divine anger. It is rather the deep, eternal antagonism of holiness to sin, of truth to error, of right to wrong. Our God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; and how much soever he may love a human soul as such, if that soul cleaves unto sin, it must of necessity place itself along with the sin in enmity towards God, and so become obnoxious to the Divine anger. See note on Jdg_2:14.
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Appeared unto him twice — At Gibeon and Jerusalem. 1Ki_3:5; 1Ki_9:2, where see notes.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv9–14 9–13. Anger of the Lord at these offences (Not…
9–13. Anger of the Lord at these offences (Not in Chronicles)
9. which had appeared unto him twice] See 1Ki_3:5 for the first appearance of the Lord in Gibeon; and (1Ki_9:2) for the second when the Temple and the king’s house were finished.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12, 14 (12, 13) For David my servant’s sake—that is, evidently,…
(12, 13) For David my servant’s sake—that is, evidently, in order to fulfil the promise to David. By the postponement of the chastisement, the blessing promised to his son personally would be still preserved; by the retaining of the kingdom, though shorn of its splendour, and limited to Judah, the larger and more important promise, the continuance of the family of David till the coming of the Messiah, would be fulfilled. The “one tribe” is, of course, Judah, with which Benjamin was indissolubly united by the very position of the capital on its frontier. This is curiously indicated in 1Ki_11:31-32, where “ten tribes” are given to Jeroboam, and the remainder out of the twelve is still called “one tribe.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv9–14 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his…
And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice. cf. 1Ki3:5 9:2. The anger arose partly from the exceptional favours which had been shown to him; (cf. Amo_3:2; Luk_10:12-15)
Vers. 9-13.
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The Anger of God.
This is the inevitable consequence of sin. Had God expressed no displeasure against Solomon, what mischief might not his example have wrought? The terrible judgments of the great day will have a most salutary effect upon the order and stability of the whole moral universe. If men sufficiently considered these things they would hesitate before they plunged into vices. Let us be admonished from this history as to
I How THE ANGER OF GOD IS PROVOKED. It is provoked
1. By the turning, away of the heart from Him.
(1) And justly so, for to do this is to outrage the highest propriety. God is everything that should engage the affections of an intelligent creature perfection of beauty;" "the altogether lovely.
(2) For to do this is the straight road to the deepest demoralization. Man is made in the image of God expressly that his nature may have its perfection in union and communion with Him. To turn away from God must lead to depravation evermore. This, in other words, is everlasting damnation.
(3) Then let us keep our hearts. (Pro_4:23) No diligence should be spared. Our life is in it.
2. By doing this wantonly.
(1) It was an aggravation of Solomon"s sin that God had appeared to him. Review the circumstances of the vision he witnessed before he set about the building of the temple. (see 1Ki_3:5-15) He could not have been wholly ignorant of the glorious character of God.
(2) It was a further aggravation that God had appeared to him twice (ver. 9). Review the circumstances of the vision after the work of the temple was finished. (see 1Ki_9:1-9) Note: Privileges imply corresponding responsibilities. Note further: God keeps account of His favours conferred upon us, though we may forget them. He will remind us of them all in the great day of judgment.
(3) It was an additional aggravation that he had been forewarned of the very evils into which he fell. And the promises of God to him had been so remarkably verified that he had the best reason to accept the truth of His admonitions. How slow of heart are the men to believe the inflexibility of Divine justice!
(4) A king who exacts obedience from subjects, or a master who claims the obedience of servants, should be the last to forget his duty to God. Consider
II How THE ANGER OF GOD IS EXPRESSED. It is expressed
1. In the severity of justice.
(1) The kingdom of Solomon was now doomed to be rent. He had divided his affections (between Jehovah and Molech), so are the affections of his subjects now to be divided.
(2) A considerable portion of his kingdom is to be turned over to one of his servants. What a fitness there is in this judgment also! Solomon, the servant of God, rebelled against God; Jeroboam, the servant of Solomon, rebels against Solomon.
(3) What a melancholy reversal! Time was when God loved Solomon. (see 2Sa_12:24; 1Ki_10:9; Neh_13:26) Severe is the fall from the height of a throne. From a vastly greater elevation is the fall of one east from the bosom of God.
(4) Behold how sin works ruin! It ruins individuals, families, nations. The anger of God is expressed
2. With the mitigations of mercy.
(1) For the sake of David his father these judgments were not to come upon Solomon in his day. We little know the benefits or the evils entailed upon us by our forefathers. We should see that we entail not evils but benefits upon our descendants.
(2) "For David"s sake!" David, the beloved, was a type of Christ, for whose sake the entail of infinite mischief is cut off from his sons, and they are made heirs of inestimable blessings.
(3) Even Rehoboam was to reap the benefit of the faithfulness of David. One tribe, the most important, was to be retained to him. The promises respecting the true son of David must be fulfilled.
(4) "For Jerusalem"s sake," also, mercy must rejoice upon judgment (ver. 13). The temple was there. The shechinah was there. Kingdoms are spared the severity of judgments in respect to the interests of religion in many ways little dreamed of by statesmen and rulers. M.
Vers. 9-13.
God"s Anger.
I SINS ARE SET IN THE LIGHT OF PAST MERCIES.
1. Solomon"s idolatry is contrasted with the advantages conferred upon him,
The Lord had appeared to him twice. The reality of God"s existence and His personality had been engraven upon Solomon"s soul.
2. With the commandment given. The Lord "had commanded him concerning this thing." The rebellion and ingratitude are both marked. Our sins are judged not only in themselves and their effects, but also in the light of what God has done and said to us. There is a baseness and an enmity in sin that will yet crush the sinful heart. Do we weigh sins in this way? Does our repentance read them thus? God"s judgment will: "Forasmuch as this is done of thee," etc.
II THE DIVINE JUDGMENT.
1. Hopes frustrated. Solomon may have excused his sin to himself because it conciliated neighbouring princes and nations and so strengthened his kingdom. But while he fancied himself building up, he was in reality casting down. Forgetfulness of God is forgetfulness of one"s own good.
2. Pride abased. The dominion is given to a servant. There is not only loss but shame. There are first that will be last, and last first.
3. Punishment reflects sin. Solomon"s rebellion and ingratitude are punished by rebellion and ingratitude. The kingdom is rent from him by a subject, and by one whom he had trusted and advanced (ver. 28). "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." As the wicked have shut out God, God will shut out them.
III THE DIVINE MERCY. In God"s chastisements there is ever a gateway of kindness through which we may pass up into His forgiveness and love.
1. The judgment is delayed. It was a heavy judgment that the kingdom should be rent from his son, but it would have been an added bitterness had his own day set in disaster and shame.
2. The whole will not be taken even from his son. His seed will still reign in Jerusalem.
3. There is humbling even in the mercy. It is done for David"s sake and for Jerusalem"s sake. Pride is crushed beneath God"s mercy as well as beneath His judgment. We are pardoned for Christ"s sake and His name"s sake. In the midst of rebuke for iniquity there is mercy and life for lowly faith. U.
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND
Vers. 9, 10.
The Downfall of Solomon.
The fall of Solomon has appeared to some commentators incredible. As to the fact itself, however, there can be no doubt. Nor is his fall so exceptional as many suppose. Others beside this king have had pious parentage, a religious education, a promising youth, extraordinary intellectual endowments, frequent warnings of their danger, and yet have failed and come short of the glory of God. Give examples. It is noteworthy that God saw Solomon"s danger and warned him of it on the evening of that day upon which his religious devotion appeared most intense. The dedication of the temple was at once the zenith of the nation"s glory, and of their king"s highest attainments. Describe the Feast of Dedication; the song of the people up your heads, O ye gates, etc.;" the prayer of Solomon that this might be so; and the manifestation of the Divine Presence. Contrast this scene with the silence of the following night, in which the message of the Lord came, bidding him beware lest the emotion and resolve of the day should be evanescent (9:2). Our times of religious excitement are not our safest hours. Enthusiasm has its perils as well as its powers. Refer to Peter"s eager protestation, and the Lord"s word of caution, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have," etc. (Luk_22:31) The sins which constituted Solomon"s decadence against which, through him, we are warned appear to have been these:
I SENSUALITY. His base self indulgence grew upon him, as it does on any man. The life he lived was degrading to his manhood. Love became debased to lust, because it was divorced from purity. Physically, as well as morally, he became a wreck, and though not 60 years of age when he died, he was already weary, broken, and old (ver. 4). Some light may be thrown upon his downward progress by the books which bear his name, and which, if not written by him, were declarations of the experience he knew. If the Song of Solomon represents his bright youth, when love, though passionate, was undefiled, the book of Ecclesiastes is the outcry of his age, when all seemed "vanity and vexation of spirit," and when he tried once more painfully to lay the old foundation of the shattered fabric of his life. (Ecc_12:13) Compare him with Samson; show how the indulgence of passion destroys kingliness. Even such sin was not beyond pardon. It would have been well for Solomon had he returned to God, as his father had done (see Ps 51)
II EVIL COMPANIONSHIP (ver. 2). The Israelites were often warned against marriage with the heathen. At times ordinary international intercourse was forbidden. Instances are given in which disobedience to this law of severance brought terrible effects. Some companionship is essential to man. The hermit must be a very imperfect Christian. John the Baptist was in the wilderness, but Christ, whom we follow, was ever found in the haunts and homes of men. Yet under the new dispensation the wise choice of companionship is insisted on, and provided for. The twelve apostles were associated together, as well as separated from others; and in their work they went forth by two and two. The Apostolic Church presents a beautiful picture of fellowship (Ac 2) It is amongst the wise hearted and devout that we are to find our friends. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." The importance of this to the young, whose characters are not yet formed. Hence responsibility rests on parents, who can encourage or hinder acquaintances, and on young people themselves. He must have something of Christ"s wisdom and strength, and must be animated by His motives, who, like Him, would be safe and useful amongst "the publicans and sinners.
III EXTRAVAGANCE. The wealth of Solomon was enormous. The treasure saved for him by David seemed inexhaustible, and the tribute from other peoples, (1Ki_10:25) the monopolies granted by the king, (1Ki_10:28, 1Ki_10:29) the importation of gold from Ophir, (1Ki_9:28) etc., brought immense revenues. The king was proportionately extravagant. See the account given of his palaces, his gardens, and his retinue. No country could long bear such a strain. Increased taxation was necessary, and this was one of the causes of the break up of the kingdom under Rehoboam. Show in modern life the temptations to extravagance and ostentation; the injury caused by these sins to a nation; the moral perils to which the extravagant are exposed; the diminution of help to God"s cause and to God"s poor.
IV OPPRESSION. He appears to have copied the Pharaohs not only in magnificence, but in disregard for human suffering. The Canaanites were reduced to the position of helots; multitudes were torn from their homes to fell timber in the forests, or hew stone in the quarries. Even the Israelites had to do forced labour. Kings have responsibility to their people, as well as the people to their kings. God"s laws were violated by Solomon. (Exo_22:21 Exo_23:9) Show from history the Nemesis of oppression. Indicate manifestations of the spirit of tyranny in business, in homes, schools, etc.
V IDOLATRY. Solomon erected temples to Ashtoreth, Milcom, and Chemosh. Describe the idolatries specified. All idolatry, sternly forbidden. The cultus of these deities hideously cruel, dark, impure. Heathenism degrades man and dis-honours God. Show the steps which led Solomon to the commission of such egregious sin.
(1) He was broad in his views, far advanced from the traditional knowledge of the age, and often conversed with wise men of other creeds. Slowly he lost his sense of the pre-eminence of the truth revealed to him. He saw what was true in other systems, but meantime lost his horror at what was false in them. This one of the special perils of our age; point it out.
(2) He wished all that was connected with him to reflect his own magnificence. It was not enough that his wives and concubines should be at liberty to worship their idols; they must do it splendidly, if at all, for his glory was concerned in their acts.
(3) He would please and attract surrounding nations. This partly for commercial ends, chiefly for personal glory. Base motives lead to fake policy, and false policy prepares for national ruin.
CONCLUSION.
1. The possibility of ruin to those whose religious advantages are greatest.
2. The retribution heavier in proportion as the offence is aggravated by neglected warning. A.R.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Vers. 9-13.
Solomon"s Fall.
The dark omen that marred the brightness of Solomon"s second vision (1Ki_9:6) has come to be fulfilled. He was forewarned of danger and yet has fallen into it. The splendour of royal circumstance remained the same, but how completely has his true glory departed! "How is the gold become dim and the fine gold changed!" The smile of God that rested as glad sunshine on his head, has turned to "anger." The cause of the change is in the secresy of his own soul. The Scripture narrative is silent about the course of his tuner life, the phases of thought and feeling through which he may have passed; so that this sudden note of discord in the midst of the harmony strikes us with something of sad surprise. Enough, however, is said to show that it was a moral change in the man himself. The Lord God of Israel had not changed in His purpose or method; it is Solomon whose "heart is turned from him." How far this was a fatal change, a real apostasy, we know not. We need not attempt to solve the purely speculative question as to whether he ever recovered from his fall; his later writings suggest at least the hope that it was so. Enough for us now to note the facts, to trace the causes, and learn the lessons. Certain broad principles of moral life are here strikingly illustrated.
I THE TREACHERY OF HUMAN NATURE. Beneath the fairest exterior there may be latent germs of evil that only need outward incentives to develop themselves into disastrous issues. Even the inspirations of the highest wisdom and the raptures of religious emotion may have underlying them tendencies to the grossest forms of folly and the lowest deeps of sin and shame. Solomon was sincere enough in his earlier piety, but too little alive to the slumbering forces of evil that he bore within him. His moral history confirmed the truth of his own proverb: "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool". (Pro_28:26) An Arab tradition says that in the staff on which he leaned there was a worm which was secretly gnawing it asunder. That worm was the hidden corruption of his moral nature. It is a solemn lesson: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." We can look upon no form of wrong doing in others without being reminded that there is something akin to it in ourselves. Concealed in our own bosoms there is that which might possibly develop into similar issues. Our only security lies in the triumph of that gracious Divine power that can thoroughly purge the fountain of the heart, and destroy there the very germs of evil.
II THE BASE USES TO WHICH THE HIGHEST ADVANTAGES OF LIFE MAY BE PERVERTED BY THE WAYWARD HEART. Solomon"s greatness became the occasion and aggravation of his fall. His royal magnificence fostered "the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." His consciousness of power degenerated into tyranny (1Ki_12:4; 1Sa_8:11) The wealth of his emotional nature took the form of illicit love and boundless self indulgence. His studious interest in Nature induced the dream of occult mysterious powers in material things, and the practice of magic arts. His intercourse with men of other nations led to his catching the infection of their idolatries, until at last the rival temples of Moloch, Chemosh, and Ashtaroth, with all their cruel and abominable rites, frowned darkly upon Olivet, over against the glorious house of the Lord on Mount Moriah. So fatally may the noblest personal endowments and the richest advantages of life foster the evil tendencies of the heart when once it has surrendered itself to their control If it be true that "there is a soul of goodness in things evil," it is equally true that nothing is so good but that the spirit of evil may transform it into an instrument of moral injury. The fascinations of outward life are full of danger when that spirit lurks within. The wealth of a man"s intellectual resources, the multitude of his possessions, the range of his influence, do but put into his hands the more abundant means of wrong doing when his heart is not loyal to the good and true.
The fairest things below the sky Give but a flattering light; We must suspect some danger nigh, Where we possess delight.
This idea is not to be carried too far. Life would be intolerable on the principle of universal suspicion and distrust. The great Father of all would have His children use and enjoy freely the good of every kind that falls to their lot. But let them beware lest the spirit of evil, in some form of outward charm, through some secret avenue of soul or sense, should gain an entrance to the citadel of their heart, and "turn it away" from Him.
III THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE RETRIBUTIONS. Solomon cannot sin with impunity. His personal defection involves the throne in dishonour and the whole nation in discord and sorrow. He had been forewarned that it should be so, and the threatenings of God are as sure as His promises. What is God"s "anger" but just the reverse side of that faithfulness that secures the purposes of His grace? What are His judgments but the severer methods of His holy love? An inexorable Nemesis tracks the path of the transgressor; not a mere blind fate not a mere impersonal law of moral sequence but a Divine will and power, pledged to vindicate the cause of eternal righteousness. It may follow him slowly, as with "leaden foot," but sooner or later it overtakes him. "Whatsoever a man soweth," etc. (Gal_6:7, Gal_6:8) And though one only may sow the evil seed, how many, often, are the reapers! "The sins of the fathers are visited on the children," etc. No man can "perish alone in his iniquity." According to the range of his social relations so is the mischief his wrong doing works. When the king falls, how many fall with him! The laws of God
must work their will, Whatever human heart may bleed; And more than they who do the ill Must suffer for the evil deed.
IV THE MERCY THAT TEMPERS DIVINE JUDGMENTS. The execution of the sentence is both delayed and modified. Not in Solomon"s own reign shall the thing be done; "nor shall the kingdom be wholly torn from his house" (vers. 12, 18). This is partly from tender regard for the sacred memory of David his father, and partly, we may believe, in mercy to himself, that space may be given him for repentance. (see Psa_89:30-37) We have here a type and example of the general method of God"s ways. "In wrath he remembers mercy." Something of gracious forbearance is seen in the severest of His judgments. His chastisements are fatherly. And beneath the darkest providences and the sternest retributions there is the steady flow of a loving kindness that endures throughout all generations, the strength of a covenant that shall never be broken. W.
HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE
Vers. 9-13. After the consecration of the temple Solomon reached the culminating point of his reign, both in a spiritual and temporal point of view. His fame and his dominion continued to increase. The Queen of Sheba came from the far East to pay him homage. From this summit of glory he had a sudden and shameful fall, and became all but an apostate. This son of David, whose high honour it was to have built and consecrated the temple of Jehovah, this heir of the promises on which hung the salvation of mankind, sank into idolatry. The causes of his fall were 1st, PRIDE: he forgot to give glory to God. 2nd, LUST: strange women enticed him after strange gods. (1Ki_11:8) The fall of Solomon repeats in a manner the features of the first transgression. It began in the desire to be as God, and was consummated in the gratification of the flesh. Its emphatic warning to all God"s people is, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall". (1Co_10:12) Chastisement from God is the consequence of this fall. God had already warned Solomon that His most glorious promises were contingent on obedience to His commands. "If thou walk in my ways," etc.. (1Ki_3:18, 1Ki_3:14) God chastens Solomon because He loves him, and does not altogether take His mercy from him, since He still leaves the kingdom of Judah to his descendants. The book of Ecclesiastes, with its blending of bitterness and repentance, is perhaps the ripening fruit of this merciful severity. E.deP.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv12, 14 Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it.
1Ki_11:12
Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it.
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Solomons sin
I. The action related to us. To appreciate it, we must consider
(1) the greatness of the offence. Here was authority itself doing that which it ought to have prevented and punished; Davids son departing from Davids God; wisdom guilty of indescribable folly; a man conspicuously favoured (1Ki_11:9), conspicuously disobedient; the appointed builder of Jehovahs temple building rival temples close by. Yet observe, in comparison with it
(2) the lightness of the correction. The offender loses nothing of his power or renown. He has enemies (1Ki_11:14, etc.), but they dare not attack him. There is not a loose stone in his throne till he dies. Only he is warned of the consequences to happen after his death; those consequences themselves, moreover, not being carried out to the full extent even then. Compare the case of pious Hezekiah, who acknowledged the goodness of God, when, for a less offence, he received a heavier stroke (2Ki_20:17-19). Just so it is Gods goodness that is here revealed to us most (Rom_11:22).
II. The motive revealed to us. Why this mercy shown in this instance? Only two reasons are mentioned. One had to do with Jerusalem (1Ki_11:13), the place of Solomons throne. God had chosen it for His dwelling-placer with great objects in view. The other motive (twice mentioned) has to do with Solomons father. For Davids sake the threatened evil was postponed till after his sons death; and even then, for the same Davids sake, it was not to be complete. See, finally, how all this encourages us in the hope of salvation through Christ. See how completely it is part of Gods character to spare one man for anothers sake; especially where they are so connected that they may be considered as one. Also, if He does thus for a sinner and a servant (as here), how much more for His Holy One (Act_2:27), His own Son, the Christ of God! (W. S. Lewis, M. A.)
Children honoured for their fathers sake
Many peerages have been created in this realm which descend from generation to generation, with large estates, the gift of a generous nation, and why? Because this nation has received some signal benefits from one man and has been content to ennoble his heirs for ever for his sake. I do not think there was any error committed when Marlborough or Wellington were lifted to the peerage; having saved their country in war, it was right that they should be honoured in peace; and when for the sake of the parents perpetual estates were entailed upon their descendants, and honours in perpetuity conferred upon their sons, it was only acting according to the laws of gratitude. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v14 "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the…
THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND
1Ki_11:14-41
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"He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption."
- Gal_6:8
SUCH degeneracy could not show itself in the king without danger to his people. "Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." In the disintegration of Solomons power and the general disenchantment from the glamour of his magnificence, the land became full of corruption and discontent. The wisdom and experience of the aged were contemptuously hissed off the seat of judgment by the irreverent folly of the young. The existence of a corrupt aristocracy is always a bad symptom of national disease. These "lisping hawthorn-buds" of fashion only bourgeon in tainted soil. The advice given by the "young men" who had "grown up with Rehoboam and stood before him" shows the insolence preceding doom which had been bred by the idolism of tyranny in the hearts of silly youths who had ceased to care for the wrongs of the people or to know anything about their condition. Violence, oppression, and commercial dishonesty, as we see in the Book of Proverbs, had been bred by the mad desire for gain; and even in the streets of holy Jerusalem, and under the shadow of its Temple, "strange women," introduced by the commerce with heathen countries and the attendants on heathen princesses lured to their destruction the souls of simple and God-forgetting youths. The simple and joyous agricultural prosperity in which the sons of the people grew up as young plants and their daughters as the polished corners of the Temple was replaced by struggling discontent and straining competition. And amid all these evils the voices of the courtly priests were silent, and for a long time, under the menacing and irresponsible dominance of an oracular royalty, there was no prophet more.
Early in Solomons reign two adversaries had declared their existence, but only became of much account in the darker and later days of its decline.
One of these was Hadad, Prince of Edom. Upon the Edomites in the days of David the prowess of Joab had inflicted an overwhelming and all but exterminating reverse. Joab had remained six months in the conquered district to bury his comrades who had been slain in the terrible encounter, and to extirpate as far as possible the detested race. But the kings servants had been able to save Hadad, then but a little child, from the indiscriminate massacre, as the sole survivor of his house. The young Edomite prince was conveyed by them through Midian and the desert of Paran into Egypt, and there, for political reasons, had been kindly received by the Pharaoh of the day, probably Pinotem I of the Tanite dynasty, the father of Psinaces whose alliance Solomon had secured by marriage with his daughter. Pinotem not only welcomed the fugitive Edomite as the last scion of a kingly race, but even deigned to bestow on him the hand of the sister of Tahpenes, his own Gebria or queen-mother. Their son Genubath was brought up among the Egyptian princes. But amid the luxurious splendors of Pharaohs palace Hadad carried in his heart an undying thirst for vengeance on the destroyer of his family and race. The names of David and Joab inspired a terror which made rebellion impossible for a time; but when Hadad heard, with grim satisfaction, of Joabs judicial murder, and that David had been succeeded by a peaceful son, no charm of an Egyptian palace and royal bride could weigh in the balance against the fierce passion of an avenger of blood. Better the wild freedom of Idumea than the sluggish ease of Egypt. He asked the Pharaohs leave to return to his own country, and, braving the reproach of ingratitude, made his way back to the desolated fields and cities of his unfortunate people. He developed their resources and nursed their hopes of the coming day of vengeance. If he could do nothing else he could at least act as a desperate marauder, and prove himself a "satan" to the successor of his foe. Solomon was strong enough to keep open the road to Ezion-Gebir but Hadad was probably master of Sela and Maon.
Another enemy was Rezon, of whom but little is known, David had won a great victory, the most remarkable of all his successes, over Hadadezer, King of Zobah, and had then signalized his conquest by placing garrisons in Syria of Damascus. On this occasion Rezon, the son of Eli, who is perhaps identical with Hezion, the grandfather of Benhadad, King of Syria in the days of Asa, fled from the host of Hadadezer with some of the Syrian forces. With these and all whom he could collect about him, he became a guerilla captain. After a successful period of predatory warfare he found himself strong enough to seize Damascus, where, to all appearance, he founded a powerful hereditary kingdom. Thus with Hadad in the south to plunder his commercial caravans, and Rezon on the north to threaten his communication with Tiphsah, and alarm his excursions to his pleasances in Lebanon, Solomon was made keenly to feel that his power was rather an unsubstantial pageant than a solid dominion.
The enmity of these powerful Emirs of Edom and Syria was a hereditary legacy from the wars of David and the ruthless savagery of Joab. A third adversary was far more terrible, and he was called into existence by the conduct of Solomon himself. This was Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. In himself he was of no account, being a man of isolated position and obscure origin. He was the son of a widow named Zeruah, who lived at Zarthan in the Jordan valley. The position of a widow in the ancient world was one of feebleness and difficulty; and if we may trust the apocryphal additions to the Septuagint, Zeruah was not only a widow but a harlot. But Jeroboam, whose name perhaps indicates that he was born in the golden days of Solomons prosperity, was a youth of vigor and capacity. He made his way from the wretched clay fields of Zeredah to Jerusalem, and there became one of the vast undistinguished gang who were known as "slaves of Solomon." The corvee of many thousands from all parts of Palestine was then engaged in building the Millo and the huge walls and causeway in the valley between Zion and Moriah, which was afterwards known as the Valley of the Cheesemongers (Tyropaeon). Here the unknown youth distinguished himself by his strenuousness, and by the influence which he rapidly acquired. Solomon knew the value of a man "diligent in his business," and therefore worthy to stand before kings. Untrammeled by any rules of seniority, and able to make and unmake as he thought fit, Solomon promoted him while still young, and at one bound, to a position of great rank and influence. Jeroboam was an Ephramite, and Solomon therefore "gave him charge over all the compulsory levies (Mas) of the tribe of the house of Joseph"-that is, of the proud and powerful tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who practically represented all Israel except Judah, Benjamin, and the almost nominal Simeon.
The spark of ambition was now kindled in the youths heart, and as he toiled among the workmen he became aware of two secrets of deadly import to the master who had lifted him out of the dust-secrets which he well knew how to use. One was that a deep undercurrent of tribal jealousy was setting in with the force of a tide. Solomon had unduly favored his own tribe by exemptions from the general requisition, and Ephraim fretted under a sense of wrong. That proud tribe, the heir of Josephs preeminence, had never acquiesced in the loss of the hegemony which it so long had held. From Ephraim had sprung Joshua, the mighty successor of Moses, the conqueror of the Promised Land, and his sepulcher was still among them at Timnath-Serah. From their kith had sprung the princely Gideon, the greatest of the judges, who might, had he so chosen, have anticipated the foundation of royalty in Israel. Shiloh, which God had chosen for His inheritance, was in their domains. It required very little at any time to make the Ephraimites second the cry of the insurgents who followed Sheba, the son of Bichri, -
"We have no part in David, Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel."
Jeroboam, who was now by Solomons favor a chief ruler over his fellow-tribesmen, had many opportunities to foment this jealousy, and to win for himself by personal graciousness the popularity of Solomon which had so long begun to wane.
But a yet deeper feeling was at work against Solomon. The men of Ephraim and all the northern tribes had not only begun to ask why Judah was to monopolize the kings partiality, but the much more dangerous question, What right has the king to enforce on us these dreary and interminable labors, in making a city of palaces and an impregnable fortress of a capital which is to overshadow our glory and command our subjection? With consummate astuteness, by a word here and a word there, Jeroboam was able to pose before Solomon as the enforcer of a stern yoke, and before his countrymen as one who hated the hard necessity and would fain be their deliverer from it.
And while he was already in heart a rebel against the House of David, he received what he regarded as a Divine sanction to his career of ambition.
The prophets, as we have seen, had sunk to silence before the oracular autocrat who so frequently impressed on the people that there is "a Divine sentence on the lips of kings." No special inspiration seemed to be needed either to correct or to corroborate so infallible a wisdom. But the heaven-enkindled spark of inspiration can never be permanently suffocated. Priests as a body have often proved amenable to royal seductions, but individual prophets are irrepressible.
What were the priests doing in the face of so fearful an apostasy? Apparently nothing. They seem to have sunk into comfortable acquiescence, satisfied with the augmentation of rank and revenue which the Temple and its offerings brought to them. They offered no opposition to the extravagances of the king, his violations of the theocratic ideal, or even his monstrous tolerance for the worship of idols. That prophets as a body existed in Judah during the early years of this reign there is no proof.
The atmosphere was ill-suited to their vocation. Nathan probably had died long before Solomon reached his zenith.
Of Iddo we know almost nothing. Two prophets are mentioned, but only towards the close of the reign-Ahijah of Shiloh, and Shemaiah; and there seems to have been some confusion in the roles respectively assigned to them by later tradition.
But the hour had now struck for a prophet to speak the word of the Lord. If the king, surrounded by formidable guards and a glittering court, was too exalted to be reached by a humble son of the people, it was time for Ahijah to follow the precedent of Samuel. He obeyed a divine intimation in selecting the successor who should punish the great kings rebellion against God, and inaugurate a rule of purer obedience than now existed under the upas-shadow of the throne. He was the Mazkir, the annalist or historiographer of Solomons court; {2Ch_9:29} but loyalty to a backsliding king had come to mean disloyalty to God. There was but one man who seemed marked out for the perilous honor of a throne. It was the brave, vigorous, ambitious youth of Ephraim who had risen to high promotion and had won the hearts of his people, though Solomon had made him the task-master of their forced labor. On one occasion Jeroboam left Jerusalem, perhaps to visit his native Zeredah and his widowed mother. Ahijah intentionally met him on the road. He drew him aside from the public path into a solitary place. There, seen by none, he took off his own shoulders the new stately abba in which he had clad himself, and proceeded to give to Jeroboam one of those object-lessons in the form of an acted parable, which to the Eastern mind are more effective than any words. Rending the new garment into twelve pieces, he gave ten to Jeroboam, telling him that Jehovah would thus rend the kingdom from the hands of Solomon because of his unfaithfulness, leaving his son but one tribe that the lamp of David might not be utterly extinguished. Jeroboam should be king over Israel; to the House of David should be left but an insignificant fragment. God would build a sure house for Jeroboam as He had done for David, if he would keep His commandments, though the House of David "should not be afflicted forever." {1Ki_11:34-39}
A scene so memorable, a prophecy of such grave significance, could hardly remain a secret. Ahijah may have hinted it among his sympathizers. Jeroboam would hardly be able to conceal from his friends the immense hopes which it excited; and as his position probably gave him the command of troops he became dangerous. His designs reached the ears of Solomon, and he sought to put Jeroboam to death. The young man, who had probably betrayed his secret ambition, and may even have attempted some premature and abortive insurrection, escaped from Jerusalem, and took refuge in Egypt. There the Bubastite dynasty had displaced the Tanite and from Shishak I, the earliest Pharaoh whose individuality eclipsed the common dynastic name, he received so warm a welcome that, according to one story, Shishak gave him in marriage Ano, the elder sister of his Queen Tahpanes (or Thekemina, LXX) and of Hadads wife. He stayed in Egypt till the death of Solomon, and then returned to Zeredah, either in consequence of the summons of his countrymen, or that he might be ready for any turn of events.
Under such melancholy circumstances the last great king of the united kingdom passed away. Of the circumstances of his death we are told nothing, but the clouds had gathered thickly round his declining years. "The power to which he had elevated Israel," says the Jewish historian Gratz, "resembled that of a magic world built up by spirits. The spell was broken at his death." It must not, however, be imagined that no abiding results had followed from so remarkable a rule. The nation which he left behind him at his death was very different from the nation to whose throne he had succeeded as a youth. It had sprung from immature boyhood to the full-grown stature of manhood. If the purity of its spiritual ideal had been somewhat corrupted, its intellectual growth and its material power had been immensely stimulated. It had tasted the sweets of commerce, and never forgot the richness of that intoxicating draught which was destined in later ages to transform its entire nature. Tribal distinctions, if not obliterated, had been subordinated to a central organization. The knowledge of writing had been more widely spread, and this had led to the dawn of that literature which saved Israel front oblivion, and uplifted her to a place of supreme influence among the nations. Manners had been considerably softened from their old wild ferocity. The more childish forms of ancient superstition, such as the use of ephods and teraphim, had fallen into desuetude. The worship of Jehovah, and the sense of His unique supremacy over the whole world, was fostered in many hearts, and men began to feel the unfitness of giving to Him that name of "Baal" which began henceforth to be confined to the Syrian sun-god. Amid many aberrations the sense of religion was deepened among the faithful of Israel, and the ground was prepared for the more spiritual religion which, later reigns found its immortal expositors in those Hebrew prophets who rank foremost among the teachers of mankind.
But as for Solomon himself it is a melancholy thought that he is one of the three or four of whose salvation the Fathers and others have openly ventured to doubt! The discussion of such a question is, indeed, wholly absurd and profitless, and is only here alluded to in order to illustrate the completeness of Solomons fall. As the Book of Ecclesiastes is certainly not by him it can throw no light on the moods of his latter days, unless it be conceivable that it represents some faint: breath of olden tradition. The early commentators acquitted or condemned him as though they sat on the judgment-seat of the Almighty. They would have shown more wisdom if they had admitted that such decisions are-fortunately for all men-beyond the scope of human judges. Happily for us God, not man, is the judge, and He looks down on earth
"With larger other eyes than ours
To make allowance for us all."
Orcagna was wiser when, in his great picture in the Campo Santo at Pisa and in the Strozzi Chapel at Florence, he represented Solomon rising out of his sepulcher in robe and crown at the trump of the archangel, uncertain whether he is to turn to the right hand or to the left.
And Dante, as all men know, joins Solomon in Paradise with the Four Great Schoolmen. The great mediaeval poet of Latin Christianity did not side with St. Augustine and the Latin Fathers against the wise king, but with St. Chrysostom and the Greek Fathers for him. He did so because he accepted St. Bernards mystical interpretation of the Song of Songs:-
"La quinta luce, che tra noi pitt bella Spira di tale amor, che tutto il mondo Laggiu ne gola di saver novella. Entro ve lalta mente, u si profondo Saver fu messo, che si il vero e vero, A veder tanto non surse il secondo."
There is a famous legend in the Quran about the death of Solomon.
"Work ye righteousness O ye family of David; for I see that which ye do. And we made the wind subject unto Solomon And we made a fountain of molten brass to flow for him. And some of the genii were obliged to work in his presence by the will of his Lord. They made for him whatever he pleased of palaces, and statues, and large dishes like fishponds, and caldrons standing firm on their trivets; and we said, Work righteousness, O family of David, with thanksgiving; for few of my servants are thankful. And when we had decreed that Solomon should die, nothing discovered his death unto them, except the creeping thing of the earth that gnawed his staff. And when his body fell down, the genii plainly perceived that if they had known that which is secret they had not continued in a vile punishment."
The legend briefly alluded to was that Solomon employed the genii to build his Temple, but, foreseeing that he would die before its completion, he prayed God to conceal his death from them, so that they might go on working. His prayer was heard, and the rest of the legend may best be told in the words of a poet:-
King Solomon stood in his crown of gold,
Between the pillars, before the altar
In the House of the Lord.
And the king was old,
And his strength began to falter,
So that he leaned on his ebony staff,
Sealed with the seal of the Pentegraph.
And the king stood still as a carven king,
The carven cedar beams below,
In his purple robe, with his signet-ring,
And his beard as white as snow.
And his face to the Oracle, where the hymn
Dies under the wings of the cherubim.
And it came to pass as the king stood there,
And looked on the House he had built with pride,
That the hand of the Lord came unaware
And touched him, so that he died
In his purple robe and his signet-ring
And the crown wherewith they had crowned him king.
And the stream of folk that came and went
To worship the Lord with prayer and praise,
Went softly ever in wonderment,
For the king stood there always;
And it was solemn and strange to behold
The dead king crowned with a crown of gold.
"So King Solomon stood up dead in the House Of the Lord, held there by the Pentegraph,
Until out from the pillar there ran a red mouse,
And gnawed through his ebony staff;
Then fiat on his face the king foil down,
And they picked from the dust a golden crown."
The legends of the East describe Solomon as tormented indeed, yet not without hope. In the romance of Vathek he is described as listening earnestly to the roar of a cataract, because when it ceases to roar his anguish will be at an end.
"The king so renowned for his wisdom was on the loftiest elevation, and placed immediately beneath the Dome. The thunder, he said, precipitated me hither, where, however, I do not remain totally destitute of hope; for an angel of light hath revealed that, in consideration of the piety of my early youth, my woes shall come to an end. Till then I am in torments, ineffable torments; an unrelenting fire preys on my heart. The caliph was ready to sink with terror when he heard the groans of Solomon. Having uttered this exclamation, Solomon raised his hands towards heaven, in token of supplication; and the caliph discerned through his bosom, which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames."
So Solomon passed away-the last king of all Palestine till another king arose a thousand years later, like him in his fondness for magnificence, like him in his tamperings with idolatry, like him in being the builder of the Temple, but in all other respects a far more grievous sinner and a far more inexcusable tyrant-Herod, falsely called "The Great."
And in the same age arose another King of Solomons descendants, whose palace was the shop of the carpenter and His throne the cross, and whose mortal body was the true Temple of the Supreme-that King whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose dominion endureth throughout all ages.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv9, 14 1Ki_11:11. Forasmuch as this is done of thee; or,…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1Ki_11:11. Forasmuch as this is done of thee; or, is purposed of thee.
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HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_11:9-13
THE DIVINE ANGER AND HUMAN DISOBEDIENCE
I. That the Divine anger is a fact. “And the Lord was angry with Solomon.” It is the fashion with many to expatiate on the Divine benevolence while they ignore the Divine anger. But the fact of that anger is one of the plainest and most awful revelations of the Bible (Isa_13:13; Joh_3:36; Rom_1:18). Divine anger is no sudden burst of passion, no low and hateful motion of revenge, as human anger often is, and with which too many are prone to associate their idea of the Divine anger. It is rather the deep, eternal antagonism of holiness to sin, of truth to error, of right to wrong. However much God may love the human soul as such, if that soul cleaves unto sin, it must of necessity place itself along with the sin in enmity towards God, and so be exposed to the Divine anger. It requires a sound judgment and a heart of tenderest love to speak with profit on the subject of the Divine anger.
II. That the Divine anger is excited by human disobedience. “Because his heart was turned from the Lord” (1Ki_11:9).
1. Disobedience is aggravated when committed against definite commands. “And had commanded him concerning this thing” (1Ki_11:10; comp. 1Ki_6:12; 1Ki_9:6). When law is violated ignorantly it is still a sin, but is not so aggravated as when committed with the full knowledge of the prohibition. Princes who have dominion over others are apt to forget the Divine dominion over them, and while they exact obedience from their own subjects, to neglect on their part to render obedience to the Great Ruler of all. The mariner who disregards the lights and landmarks which define the path of safety is the more reprehensible when he wrecks his vessel among the treacherous shoals.
2. Disobedience it aggravated when committed notwithstanding repealed Divine manifestation. The Lord “appeared unto him twice” (1Ki_11:9; comp. 1Ki_3:5; 1Ki_9:1-2). Good turns aggravate unkindnesses. It is a great privilege to receive the law through the lips of God’s ministers, but a greater still to hear it from the lips of God Himself. Solomon was singularly favoured with Divine blessings. His recalcitrance excited the greater displeasure, and merited the greater punishment. The Lord does not trifle with men in the declarations of His word, and He will not eventually allow men to trifle with Him.
III. That the Divine anger will manifest itself in some form of punishment (1Ki_11:11). The threat to divide the kingdom was carried out: the subsequent repentance and restoration of Solomon did not prevent it. There are some things in which repentance comes too late. Repentance does not arrest the course of physical law. It must have been a bitter experience to Solomon to know that the magnificent empire it had been his life-work to build up must ere long be rent asunder and crumble into ruins. “Solomon had let go the sincere service of God by sharing himself betwixt Him and his idols; his servant therefore shall share the kingdon with his son, and bear away the better half from him.” The Divine anger is not a theological scare-crow set up to frighten timid souls, but a terrible reality, as the evil-doer will by-and-by discover to his dismay. Homer has given expression to a similar idea:—
Fast by the threshold of Jove’s court are placed
Two casks, one stored with evil, one with good.
To whom He gives unmixed
The bitter cup, He makes that man a curse,
His name becomes a by word of reproach,
His strength is hunger-bitten, and he walks
The blessed earth unblest, go where he may.
IV. That the Divine anger is ever tempered with mercy.
1. Mercy in delaying punishment. “Notwithstanding in thy day I will not do it” (1Ki_11:12). Compare a similar mitigation of punishment promised to Josiah (2Ki_22:20). Delay affords space for repentance. If the opportunity it presents is despised, the punishment will be the heavier, and the sufferer be without excuse.
2. Mercy in moderating the severity of punishment. “Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son” (1Ki_11:13). Two tribes were really retained. The tribe of Benjamin seems to have been absorbed into the tribe of Judah, to which David belonged (1Ki_12:21). This second mitigation of the sentence reveals the tender compassion of God, and His unwillingness to punish. Solomon did not at once turn from God: his defection was gradual; and Jehovah did not at once wrest the kingdom from him. This additional proof of the Divine mercy must have greatly affected Solomon; and there is room to hope that it led him to repent and retrace his wanderings. Kindness succeeds where a stern severity fails.
3. Mercy shown on account of ulterior Divine purposes. “For David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen” (1Ki_11:13). The line of the Messiah must be preserved. The prevailing lion must come out of the tribe of Judah: not only the tribe must be preserved, but the regal line and the regal right. All this must be done for the true David’s sake; and this was undoubtedly, observes Dr. A. Clarke, what God had in view by thus miraculously preserving the tribe of Judah and the royal line in the midst of so general a defection. As David was a type of the Messiah, so was Jerusalem a type of the true church: therefore the old Jerusalem must be preserved in the hands of the tribe of Judah, till the true David should establish the new Jerusalem in the same land and in the same city. And what a series of providences did it require to do all these things! The prosperous career of Solomon was only part of a great scheme for the benefit of the entire race; and the failure of even so great a man as Solomon must not be allowed to frustrate the Divine intention.
LESSONS:—
1. Man cannot sin with impunity.
2. The Divine anger is righteous.
3. The manifestation of the Divine anger it terrible.
4. God has more delight in showing mercy than in punishing.
5. He who most delights in mercy most resembles God.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki_11:9. Had not this man’s delinquency been strongly marked by the Divine disapprobation, it would have had a fatal effect upon the morals of mankind. Vice is vice, no matter who commits it. And God is as much displeased with sin in Solomon as He can be with it in the most profligate, uneducated wretch. And, although God sees the same sin in precisely the same degree of moral turpitude as to the act itself, yet there may be circumstances which greatly aggravate the offence, and subject the offender to greater punishment. Solomon was wise; he knew better: his understanding showed him the vanity as well as the wickedness of idolatry. God had appeared unto him twice. The promises of God had been fulfilled to him in a most remarkable manner. All these were aggravations of Solomon’s crimes, as to their demerit; for the same crime has, in every case, the same degree of moral turpitude in the sight of God; but circumstances may so aggravate as to require the offender to be more grievously punished: so the punishment may be legally increased where the crime is the same. Solomon deserved more punishment for his worship of Ashtoreth than any of the Sidonians did, though they performed precisely the same acts. The Sidonians had never known the true God: Solomon had been fully acquainted with Him.—A. Clarke.
1Ki_11:9-11. The sin of idolatry.
1. Is a tendency of fallen humanity.
2. Is an insult to God.
3. Is a violation of the most specific prohibitions.
4. Is the cause of national disgrace and ruin.
1Ki_11:9-13. The punishments that fell upon Solomon show us—I. The holiness and righteousness of God (Psa_145:17; Jer_17:10; Luk_12:47). II. 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 specially on Solomon, notwithstanding the fact that the Lord appeared unto him twice in a dream, and he was honoured with distinguished grace, what judgment must we expect, to whom He has appeared tenderly in Christ Jesus (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).—Lange.
1Ki_11:12-13. In the midst of the horror of this spectacle, able to affright all the sons of men, behold some glimpse of comfort. Was it of Solomon that David his father prophesied—“Though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand”? If sensible grace, yet final mercy, was not taken from that beloved of God. In the hardest of this winter, the sap was gone down to the root, though it showed not in the branches. Even while Solomon removed, that word stood fast: “He shall be my son, and I will be his father.” He that foresaw his sin, threatened and limited his correction (Psa_89:31-33). Behold, the favour of God doth not depend upon Solomon’s obedience. If Solomon shall suffer his faithfulness to fail towards his God; God will not requite him with the failing of his faithfulness to Solomon: if Solomon break his covenant with God, God will not break His covenant with the father of Solomon, with the son of David. He shall smart; he shall not perish. O gracious word of the God of all mercies, able to give strength to the languishing, comfort to the despairing, to the dying, life! Whatsoever we are, thou wilt be still thyself, O Holy one of Israel, true to thy covenant. The sins of thy chosen can neither frustrate thy counsel, nor outstrip thy mercies.—Bp. Hall.
1Ki_11:13. One tribe remains to him—that is, of the Divine grace only a single part of the sovereignty over all Israel is left to him. This view is confirmed by the observation that even the standing distribution in the Old Testament of Israel into twelve tribes has its most proper ground, not in the fact that Jacob had exactly twelve sons, as after the recognition of Ephraim and Manasseh as separate tribes, the people properly formed thirteen tribes; but is to be sought in the import which this number had acquired in the remotest antiquity by the observation of the twelve months of the year, and the twelve signs of the zodiac.—Keil.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v14 Solomon’s Adversaries and Death
Solomon’s Adversaries and Death
v. 14. And the Lord stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, one of those who imperiled the peace of the kingdom and reminded Solomon of the fact that he owed the peace of his reign entirely to the grace of God, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the king’s seed in Edom, of royal descent.
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v. 15. For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, 2Sa 8:14, and Joab, the captain of the host, was gone up to bury the slain, those that were killed when the Edomites invaded the country, after he had smitten every male in Edom, all those who bore arms, all this taking place during a period of six months,
v. 16. (for six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off every male in Edom,)
v. 17. that Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go in to Egypt, at a time when the predecessor of Solomon’s father-in-law reigned there, Hadad being yet a little child.
v. 18. And they arose out of Midian, on the west side of the Elanitic Gulf, in the southern part of Edom, and came to Paran, the desert between Sinai and the southern boundary of Canaan; and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt, unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, seeking refuge with him; which gave him an house and appointed him victuals, the necessary food for himself and his companions, and gave him land, showing true hospitality to his visitors.
v. 19. And Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him to wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes, the queen, the chief of the king’s wives and the mistress of the harem.
v. 20. And the sister of Tahpenes bare him Genubath, his son, whom Tahpenes, probably at a special family feast, Gen 21:8, weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s household among the sons of Pharaoh, being educated with the princes of Egypt and ranking with them.
v. 21. And when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the host, was dead, his two most dangerous enemies thus being removed, Hadad said to Pharaoh, Let me depart that I may go to mine own country. He sought his dismissal, since the return to his own country now seemed safe.
v. 22. Then Pharaoh said unto him, But what hast thou lacked with me that, behold, thou seekest to go to thine own country? He was sure that no breach of hospitality had occurred. And he answered, Nothing, he had nothing to complain of on that score; howbeit, let me go in any wise, a request which Pharaoh undoubtedly did not refuse. So Hadad, as a kind of Bedouin chieftain, was able to stir up a good deal of trouble on the boundary.
v. 23. And God stirred him (Solomon) up another adversary, Rezon, the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer, king of Zobah, at the time of David’s campaign in the north, 2Sa 8:3;
v. 24. and he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band when David slew them of Zobah. And they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus, usurping the power in that part of Syria.
v. 25. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did; and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria. As the power and fame of Solomon were declining, these men became bolder in their enmity and probably organized border raids, which were very unpleasant to the king.
v. 26. And Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, in the mountains of Ephraim, Solomon’s servant, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king; it was an actual, open rebellion of a subject against the constituted authority.
v. 27. And this was the cause that he lifted up his hand against the king: Solomon built Millo, the citadel or fortress of Jerusalem, particularly of the upper city, and repaired the breaches of the city of David, his father, by walling up a ravine which might have afforded enemies access to the city.
v. 28. And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor, an energetic, capable man; and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he did his work well, he accomplished what he set out to do, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph, the overseer of the levy of men out of the tribe of Ephraim, It is probable that the use of men of Ephraim for this work nourished the spirit of rebellion which Jeroboam afterwards used for his benefit.
v. 29. And it, came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, when he had entered upon his work as superintendent, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he, Ahijah, had clad himself with a new garment, a large square piece of cloth, thrown over the shoulders and almost covering the entire body in the daytime and used at night for a coverlet; and they two were alone in the field.
v. 30. And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, he took hold of it with a firm grasp, and rent it in twelve pieces.
v. 31. And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces; for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee, the northern tribes being known as the Ten Tribes or Israel, more in a symbolic than in a literal way of speaking,
v. 32. (but he shall have one tribe for My servant David’s sake, Benjamin and the cities of Simeon being counted with Judah, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel,)
v. 33. because that they have forsaken me, the people having taken their cue from the king and indulged in the idol worship which he permitted the members of his harem, and have worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in Mine eyes, and to keep My statutes and My judgments, as did David, his father.
v. 34. Howbeit, I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince, ruler, all the days of his life for David, my servant’s sake, whom I chose because he kept My commandments and My statutes;
v. 35. but I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes.
v. 36. And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David, my servant, for whose sake all these merciful concessions were made, may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem, for the upholding of his family, for the continuance of his race, the city which I have chosen Me to put My name there.
v. 37. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel, the position which he was seeking even at that time.
v. 38. And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as David, My servant, did, that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, the dynasty founded by him would be well established, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee, giving him the dominion for which he was striving.
v. 39. And I will for this, on account of the defection practiced by Solomon, afflict the seed of David, but not forever. The descendants of David were to suffer humiliation, but only until such a time as the Lord considered best.
v. 40. Solomon sought therefore, having heard of this prediction, to kill Jeroboam, who probably proceeded to incite actual rebellion at once, 1Ki 11:26-27. And Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak, king of Egypt, a ruler hostile to the kingdom of Judah, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.
v. 41. And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? This was a secular book containing a history of the reign of Solomon, similar to that referred to 2Ch 9:29, from which the inspired writers took no more material.
v. 42. And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years, his entire age therefore not exceeding sixty by many years.
v. 43. And Solomon slept with his fathers, having evidently turned back to the Lord in true repentance, and was buried in the city of David, his father. And Rehoboam, his son, whose mother was Naamah the Ammonitess, 1Ki 14:21-31, reigned in his stead. Like Solomon, many a brand was snatched from the burning by God’s grace and again made a partaker of all His blessings.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9, 11, 14 his heart had turned away from him
his heart had turned away from him
The words "his heart had turned" refer to his having changed allegiance and affection. See how you translated a similar phrase in 1 Kings 11:01. AT: "Solomon had stopped worshiping Yahweh" (See: Idiom and Metonymy)
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he had appeared to him twice
"Yahweh had appeared to Solomon twice"
translationWords
Yahweh
anger
heart
turn
God
Israel
command
obey
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9, 11, 14 11:9-10 The Lord . . . had appeared to…
11:9-10 The Lord . . . had appeared to him twice (3:5-15; 9:1-9): On both occasions, God reminded Solomon of the need to be faithful. When the king failed to heed the Lord’s warning about worshiping other gods, he clearly violated the first commandment (Exod 20:3) and God’s covenants with both Moses and David.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.