Samuel Thru Solomon Lesson 39-1 Kings 11:1-11:42 and 2 Chronicles 9:29-9:31 In the last lesson we saw a summary of the many other things that happened in King Solomon's reign besides the building of the Temple and its dedication. We studied the LORD's second appearance to Solomon after he had finished building his palace, twenty four years into his reign. At that time, the LORD gave Solomon a conditional promise that the line of the Messiah would come through him if he or his descendants didn't forsake the Law of God and go off to serve other gods and worship them. However, if they did, the nation would be destroyed, the Temple destroyed, and the people would be driven into exile. The passage then went on to describe the extensive fortifications and public works that Solomon had built with the slave labor of the aliens. It also described Solomon's continued alliance with the King of Tyre, his treaties with him, and the joint shipping venture they engaged in out of the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber (modern Aqaba). We also studied the visit of the Queen of Sheba. We saw how Solomon's yearly income in gold was 666 talents, and how he acquired great numbers of horses and chariots (which was forbidden), and traded in them. We also noted how in the end, the palace he built for himself was far larger and more richly appointed than the Temple he built for God. This lesson begins with an extensive comment from 1 Kings which is not duplicated in 2 Chronicles. 1 Kings 11:1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 1 / 18
As we have studied, the King was forbidden to have more than one wife (Deuteronomy 17:17), but all the people were forbidden to take wives who were not of Israel (unbelievers). 1 Kings 11:2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. Solomon ignored this command from Deuteronomy 7:3 again and again. 1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. It is an interesting fact that only three children of Solomon are mentioned in the Bible. One was his son (Rehoboam) and two were daughters (Basemath and Taphath). Rehoboam was the son of Solomon's first wife. You would think that with a thousand sexual partners, he would have had hundreds of children. That he didn't was probably God's curse, and is probably the reason that five hundred years later, when the people wanted to raise up a son by a Levirate birth, by the wife of Jehoiachin, the closest kin that could be found was descended from Solomon's 2 / 18
brother Nathan. 1 Kings 11:4 As Solomon grew old older, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. The phrase "grew old" has to be understood as "grew older." We know that Solomon became King when he was a teenager and reigned for forty years, thus he never was "old" as we understand it." Since Solomon died after a 40 year reign (1 Kings 11:41, 2 Chronicles 9:30), he had to be in his middle or late 50's when he died. The same phrase (1 Kings 15:23) is applied to King Asa who died at 58. Whatever may have been David's sins, failures or shortcomings, he never worshipped other gods. In that sense, David was "fully devoted to the LORD his God." 1 Kings 11:5a He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, [a] Among others, Solomon worshipped the goddess of his friend and ally, Hiram of King Tyre (the Sidonians). The religion worshipped sexual lust, which obviously appealed to Solomon. 3 / 18
1 Kings 11:5b and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. The worship of Molech involved burning infants alive in a fire. 1 Kings 11:6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, he was not satisfied following only the Lord, [b] as David his father had done. Thus from the very first generation, Solomon and his descendants had violated the conditional covenant the LORD had made to them. 1 Kings 11:7-8 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. 4 / 18
Solomon not only worshipped other gods, he built temples to them which would lead others in Israel astray. 1 Kings 11:9 The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Solomon was thus in direct violation of the first and most important commandment: Exodus 20:2-5 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God." Evidently, the fact that the LORD had appeared to Solomon twice, did not humble Solomon at God's grace lavished on him. Instead it seems to have made him proud and arrogant. We should all take heed. 5 / 18
1 Kings 11:10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD's command. The first commandment above. 1 Kings 11:11 So the LORD said to Solomon, "Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates your servant. We are not told how the LORD communicated this to Solomon. Possibly through one of His prophets, although, by this time, Nathan the prophet was probably dead. The word the NIV translates as "subordinates" is Ö Ö {eh' ved} which means "servant," or even "slave." The point God is making with this word is to rebuke Solomon's pride in thinking anything God had given him was because of his own merit. 1 Kings 11:12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 6 / 18
Evidently, in order to emphasize that the promise the LORD had made to David still stood, God would wait until Solomon died to carry out this judgment on Solomon's line. The promise the LORD had made to David was that the Messiah and Eternal King would come out of David's line. However, judgment on Solomon as an individual was not long in coming. He died in his mid fifties, possibly within a couple of years of this pronouncement. 1 Kings 11:13 Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen." Again, this was for the sake of the promise of the Messiah. As it turned out, it was the southern Kingdom, the Jews, by whom the word of God and the Temple worship were preserved. And it was through them that Jesus Christ came one thousand years later. 1 Kings 11:14-22 Then the LORD raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite, from the royal line of Edom. Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab the commander of the army, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom. Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom. [c] But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father. They set out from Midian [d] and went to Paran. 7 / 18
[e] Then taking men from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh King of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food. Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage. The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath, whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There Genubath lived with Pharaoh's own children. While he was in Egypt, Hadad heard that David rested with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was also dead. Then Hadad said to Pharaoh, "Let me go, that I may return to my own country." "What have you lacked here that you want to go back to your own country?" Pharaoh asked. "Nothing," Hadad replied, "but do let me go!" [f] This seems to tell how after the LORD's pronouncement against Solomon, He raised up an enemy who troubled Solomon's kingdom. The seeds of this story took place well before the reign of Solomon, when David defeated Edom and subdued it. Our passage tells how Hadad, an enemy of Israel, had become entrenched as a favorite in Pharaoh's court. Evidently, after Solomon had become King, Hadad continually pestered Pharaoh to let him go back and try to make war on Israel and take his country back. Remember, at this time, Pharaoh not only had an alliance with Solomon by marriage, but also was a major trading partner with him. Because of this, he evidently resisted Hadad's entreaties until late in Solomon's reign. Perhaps, by that time, when his sister clearly wasn't going to produce the heir to Solomon's throne, he thought it would be useful to his interests to turn Hadad loose to make war on Solomon. Although, whatever Hadad accomplished may have been troublesome to Solomon, it was ultimately an unsuccessful guerilla movement among the Edomites. We know that the Edomites did not regain their independence until the time of King Jehoram of Judah about ninety years later. [g] 1 Kings 11:23-25 And God raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah. He gathered men around him and became the leader of a band of rebels when David destroyed the forces [of Zobah]; the rebels went to Damascus, where they settled and took control. [ h] 8 / 18
Rezon was Israel's adversary as long as Solomon lived, adding to the trouble caused by Hadad. So Rezon ruled in Aram and was hostile toward Israel. While Hadad disturbed Israel's southern possessions, Rezon actually took back Aram and Damascus to Israel's north. 1 Kings 11:26 Also, Jeroboam [i] son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon's officials, an Ephraimite (Ephrathite) [j] from Zeredah, [k] and his mother was a widow named Zeruah. This begins the account of the "servant" to whom the LORD would give much of the Kingdom of Solomon. 1 Kings 11:27-28 Here is the account of how he rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the supporting terraces and had filled in the gap in the wall [l] of the city of David his father. Now Jeroboam was a man of standing, and when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the house of Joseph. 9 / 18
Solomon spotted the young man's leadership abilities and appointed Jeroboam chief over the laborers of Ephraim and Manasseh. 1 Kings 11:29a About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. Ahijah is a strong candidate for the one who had delivered the LORD's prophecy to Solomon. 1 Kings 11:29b-32 The two of them were alone out in the country, and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, "Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. 10 / 18
At that time Simeon had ceased to exist as a separate tribe, having been absorbed into Judah which surrounded it. [m] However, Ephraim and Manasseh (the tribe of Joseph) had become two tribes. Thus there were still twelve tribes. Ten went to Jeroboam (Ephraim, Manasseh, Dan, Reuben, Naphtali, Gad, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, and Benjamin). One went to Solomon's heir (Judah, which included the absorbed Simeon). The twelfth tribe, Levi was to remain scattered among the tribes to serve as priests and teachers. In the actual event, because Jerusalem was on the territory of Benjamin, Benjamin was split between the Kingdoms, with Jericho going to Jeroboam, and Jerusalem going to Solomon's heir. Also, Rehoboam wound up driving out the Levites because he wanted to set up his own priesthood and worship. So, of the original twelve tribes, the Kingdom of Judah eventually contained large numbers of the descendants of Judah, Simeon, Benjamin and Levi. 1 Kings 11:33 I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molech the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in my ways, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my statutes and laws as David, Solomon's father, did. Ahijah explained to Jeroboam why this was happening to Solomon. Jeroboam didn't pay much attention. He did the same thing, although in a slightly different way. His line paid the same price. 1 Kings 11:34 " But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon's hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who observed my commands and statutes. 11 / 18
Jeroboam was told this would only happen after Solomon had died. 1 Kings 11:35 I will take the kingdom from his son's hands and give you ten tribes. This would only happen when Solomon's son was king. 1 Kings 11:36 I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name. You should note that the LORD made it abundantly clear to Jeroboam that Jerusalem was to be the center of worship of His Name. He had no excuse for later setting up a rival worship outside of Jerusalem as he did. 1 Kings 11:37 However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart 12 / 18
desires; you will be king over Israel. This ambition was evidently already in his heart. As we shall find next week, he knew that the other tribes had been chafing under the oppressive and selfish rule of Solomon, and that he already stood high in their esteem. 1 Kings 11:38 If you do whatever I command you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. The LORD gave the option to Jeroboam that he gives to any of us. Follow the LORD and have true prosperity, or turn from Him and lose his gracious blessing. Of course, since we already have the history of Jeroboam in the following chapters, we know that Jeroboam failed miserably. We also know that the LORD also knew this in advance. This provokes the question: Why didn't the LORD pick somebody to be King of Israel who would be faithful to Him? I am sure there must have been somebody in all of Israel who would have been faithful. For one thing, the prosperity or faithfulness of a nation never depends on its leader, but on the spiritual walk of the individuals in it. It is my belief that each nation gets the leader it deserves. The Kings who would follow Solomon were exactly who those people deserved. 1 Kings 11:39 I will humble David's descendants because of this, but not forever.'" 13 / 18
In closing, the LORD (through Abijah) again confirms that the Davidic Covenant still stands. 1 Kings 11:40 Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death. This had to have been very close to the end of Solomon's reign. Shishak was not the Pharaoh who had been Solomon's father in law thirty to forty years earlier. Shishak later allied with Jeroboam to attack Judah and Solomon's son. 1 Kings 11:41 As for the other events of Solomon's reign--all he did and the wisdom he displayed--are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon? 2 Chronicles 9:29 As for the other events of Solomon's reign, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat? 14 / 18
As with all the records in Kings and Chronicles, the scriptures are clear to say that their record is far from extensive. They give the names of more complete, and perhaps source records that were extant at the time of writing. 1 Kings 11:42-43 Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king. 2 Chronicles 9:30-31 Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king. And so Solomon died in his mid 50's after forty years of reign. Saul had reigned 40 years and died at about the age of 80. David had reigned 40 years and died at the age of 70. All of them started out well and finished disappointingly, but David had never turned from the LORD. Even Saul had never worshipped idols like Solomon. 15 / 18
In the next lesson (our last in this series) we will see how the LORD's judgment on Solomon's line came down on his son, Rehoboam. [a] That was the people of King Hiram of Tyre. [b] The Hebrew word translated "did not follow completely" in the NIV is the Piel Perfect of the verb alem; which can mean "to fill up, satisfy, ordain, consecrate." This is followed by the Hebrew adverb rj'a' whi ch means "following." Thus I have provided the alternate translation in italics which is more in keeping with the story of David; who did not "follow the Lord completely," but did "follow him only." He did not worship other Gods as Solomon did. [c] 2 Samuel 8:13-14 "And David became famous after he returned from striking down eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt. He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David." [d] Midian was to the east of Edom. [e] Paran would have been on the western borders of what had been Edom. These were 16 / 18
evidently other Edomite fugitives who had fled. [f] This would have been shortly after David's death and before the marriage of Solomon to Pharaoh's daughter. [g] 2 Kings 8:20. [h] According to 2 Samuel 8:6 and 1 Chronicles 18:6, in David's time Israel controlled Damascus. [i] The Hebrew is Ö Ö Ö Ö {yä rov äm'} which means "the people will contend." [j] This should be "Ephrathite" not "Ephraimite." That is the way it appears in the Hebrew bible. It seems to have been translated that way because, in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Torah, it was translated Ephraimite. The translation, "Ephrathite" could be important because Ephrath is Bethlehem, one of the supremely important locations in scripture and would indicate that Jeroboam was in fact from the line of Judah and perhaps from the line of Boaz. This is one of five instances of verses containing the word "Ephrathite" ( *;95u) Strong's number 0673 in the Masoretic Text. They are: Judges 12:5, Ruth 1:2, 1 Samuel1:1, 1 Samuel 17:12, 1 Kings 11:26. However this verse is translated "Ephraimite" in the NIV, NKJV, ASV, NASV, and RSV rather than "Ephrathite." I suppose, since Jeroboam reigned over the tribes that included Ephraim, and had his capital in Shechem in Ephraim, the translators decided to go with the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew. Webster's, Young's, Darby's, the Vulgate, and the Hebrew names version on the other hand translated the word as "Ephrathite." [k] Not mentioned elsewhere in scripture by that spelling. Hence of uncertain location. [l] Probably between the old city walls and the Temple Mount. 17 / 18
[m] The lands of Judah surround Simeon. (Joshua 19:1 "The second lot came out for the tribe of Simeon, clan by clan. Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah.") Actually, t he tribe of Simeon seemed to have been eventually absorbed by the tribe of Judah. It is quite possible that many of the males of that tribe were killed in the plague that killed 24,000 men after the affair of the cohabiting with the Midianite women (Numbers 25:1-15). Certainly, the example that was made was one of the leaders of the Simeonites (Numbers 25:14). They are never mentioned as a tribe after the first conquest of the land (Judges 1:3, 17), when they teamed with Judah to take their land from the Canaanites... 18 / 18