Spiritualizing Solomon
Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. 1 Kings 3:1 NASB
Marriage alliance – You can’t interpret the Bible without knowing the history. Unfortunately, sometimes we forget this fact and spiritualize human biblical events as if they were merely morality lessons for the faithful. For example, Philip Ryken comments on this verse: “Since we have no reason to think that Pharaoh’s daughter had faith in the God of Israel, we can only conclude that Solomon was unequally yoked.”[1] He argues that this unequally yoked marriage (and others) led Solomon into idolatry. He then comments, “His poor example is a warning for Christians not to pursue a romantic relationship with anyone who is not committed to Christ.”[2]
This is not exegesis. This is homily. First, it is completely anachronistic. A concept articulated by Paul (unequally yoked) is used to condemn Solomon. It’s just 1000 years late. Secondly, Solomon’s marriage has nothing to do with love. This is politics, pure and simple. TWOT rightly notes:
Once Solomon was established on the throne of Israel, he began the well-known practice of contracting marriages for political purposes (I Kgs 3:1). The nation had been admonished on this very score with regard to the nations already resident in the land of promise (Deut 7:3). The questionable value of contracted marriages to settle problems between peoples had already been witnessed in the case of the sons of Jacob and Shechem the Hivite, who had violated the sanctity of Jacob’s household. Saul the king enticed David to become his son-in-law to satisfy his inordinate jealousy (I Sam 18:26–27). [3]
Romance has nothing to do with this. Commitment to Christ isn’t even on the horizon. Nor should it be. Solomon is acting like an ancient Near Eastern king, not the principal actor in a Shakespearean play.
Finally, we should note that Solomon is probably fifteen years old at this time. While hormones might be raging, he is following in the footsteps of his father, David, by cementing political territory through marriage. And just like his father, love doesn’t seem to play any part in these arrangements. This is acquisition. Solomon is not succumbing to lust. He is doing what every king did. Grabbing territory.
Eventually this pattern destroys Solomon and the kingdom with him. But political marriages are not the cause of the downfall. Something else is at work in the wisest man in the world; something far more devastating, so much so that 1000 women could not give him peace.
Ryken’s analysis is colored by his desire to preach relevant topics using Solomon as a springboard. The result is spiritualizing what should have been an in-depth analysis of a very troubled man. Frankly, we don’t learn much from Ryken. I doubt the story of Solomon is in the Bible so that we will avoid dating non-Christians. There’s a lot more here—if you step out of the sanctuary and pay attention to the real world of human actions. We have been lulled to sleep by sermons instead of doing real investigation, and, I’m afraid that the result has been biblical characters whose lives don’t really seem to connect to us. The moral output of these sermons is encouragement to be better people but without truly acknowledging the human struggle it takes to follow God’s directions. It’s time to confront our Pollyanna pictures, our spiritualized excuses and deal with the men and women in the Bible as if they are us! Because they are.
Solomon’s world is about power, wealth, prestige and—yes—sex. But you won’t know how to apply what Solomon’s story tells us if you don’t see him as a king doing what kings usually do.
Topical Index: Philip Ryken, Solomon, marriage, yoked, 1 Kings 3:1
[1] Philip Ryken, King Solomon: The Temptations of Money, Sex and Power (Crossway, 2011, p. 47.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Feinberg, C. L. (1999). 781 חתן. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
Shalom everyone. Skip you had mentioned doing a book on Solomon if this is just a taste of it can’t wait. Just disgust last night at Bible study. Exodus 10 .8 is when the Pharaoh asks who is going with you? The answer is our young in our old sons and our daughters. The discussion was about the importance of the family unit and how the pharaoh wanted to break down this unit. By not allowing the children to be taught for the Next Generation. What you are saying here is virtually the same thing. The examples Solomon is setting is really a horrible example that he is setting for his children but he was taught it by David how could this of gone unnoticed?
Yes, the book on Solomon is on the way, but it will take some time as I am discovering it is a far more complex story than we have been taught. I’ll post a few things now and then as I work on this.
The Covenant
There are some things in life that endure, whether “old” or “new” – a covenant relationship endures “forever.” A covenant is not a contract, but something much, much deeper and we see our Maker throughout the course of human history entering into a covenant relationship with His beloved, His bride.
The words to Israel, (God’s chosen ones) were “come out from among them and be ye separate.” Solomon was wise, (yes, very) but alas, perhaps wise in the ways of the world. He knew a political alliance with Pharaoh’s daughter would bring peace to the region. Peace at any cost? Land for peace, maybe? Should we also “make a deal with the devil?” How foolish we (still) are… Are we not capable of learning from the mistakes of others? Or do we need also to put our hand on the hot stove after witnessing the burnt hand of another. Are we “in the world, but not of the world?” Are we (yes, uncomfortable) twice-born people living in a once-born world? Is there yet a narrow gate that leads unto life and a broad way that leads to destruction? And what of the choices (large and/or small) we are making daily?
“Choose you, this day, whom you will serve,” – does this apply only “then?” Or do the words of the LORD endure forever?
Thank you. Carl this reminds me of Jeremiah 6.16 I think. Speaks of returning to the ancient pathways. That would mean that we left them. There was a book written the Forgotten blessing. It begins with a beautiful word picture of seeing a stone pathway but there was a bush that have prickers in thorns and it was a great task to cut them back week’s it took. But it was worthwhile because it led to a beautiful pond or something like that. Or maybe a rock garden.?
Was this against the will of God or as God intended/permitted… I mean not 1000 years before this God brought the Israelites out of Egypt… Where they ended as a result of God’s one servant from Jacob’s tribe Joseph lured them to.
Here a servant or king commences the same process for the Israelites to partake in the advantages of Egypt if I am call it an advantage.
Or is this the power of Satan as when I read Job I find he is capable of everything God permits. Yet out of all these errors God keeps his promise to Abrasham and Jacob… Is there more in God’s chosen convent relationships than we can image.
Marriage within a sect seems an instruction from God if we read the laws and prophets to restore… From within same nation, each nation seek on their own etc.
Was Solomon’s wisdom a covenant relationship? If yes then surely it is for this reason why we should understand that a covenant is no garauntee of peace but rather of progress…
Even Job benefitted after he did what he understood from his conversation with God…
I get the big picture concept that we can only truly understand Scripture through an appreciation of the intellectual processes and cultural context active in the authors mind and time.It’s my assertion that the heart and mind of man are not actually evolving;, information and technology might be but the person-,personality and character the “being”of mankind is a closed system. Fixing our culture, changing our environment, making ourselves better people is not actually effective. It is changing the way we think, see and perceive and and act in our world that will make a difference. That can not be effectively done within our closed system. We need an outside force welcomed in to change us and the world. We need God,s heart and mind and they are available to us.. Salomon had the counsel and culture God created about him. But prior to Pentecost he did not have the active re-defining agent as available as we do today. He was stuck eating intellect fruit from the wrong tree. Independent human reason is death to the spirit. His wisdom was a gift and it was great, but his operating mode was thoroughly natural. It’s my contention that we must look afresh we must learn to think entirely differently. I haves spent a lot of time thinking about thinking, my musing is here.. Link Removed
Are you suggesting that until the Messiah came men could not think clearly about their lives, God’s demands or the response of obedience? You seem to imply that Pentecost changed the epistemological capacity of human beings. For everyone or just for those who now believe Yeshua is the Messiah? Did the Fall entail noetic depravity? Was Abraham’s faith crippled because the Messiah was delayed by a few thousand years? And if you really think that men cannot discover the truth unless they experience the Pentecost outpouring, then that means that virtually ALL of the authors of the Tanakh provide us with suspect statements, only capable of being truly understood AFTER Yeshua, and only for those who have experienced the Pentecost impact. If this is true, then we might as well give up trying to understand anything at all and simply wait for the Spirit to be poured out on us.
No friend the capacity of human beings has never changed. It’s the availability of the mitigation, the Holy Spirit the Rauch Ha Kodesh. It’s my understanding that prior to Pentecost the Spirit was imparted selectively by God, whom “sent his spirit” . At the crucifixion the “curtain in the temple was torn asunder from top to bottom” That implies to me that the Holy Spirit rushed out of the Holy of Hollies into the world. As Messiah said “it is good that I go for when I go I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.” That implies to me that the game changer of the cross was the release into the natural realm- into the closed system of earth and the heart and mid of man the availability of the Spiritual Realm that is “The kingdom of God” was made accessible, The door was opened to those who believe and trust. How else could we do as Christ suggested we could “more than I have done you can do, for I go to the father”.
Salomon is a great example of the limitations of the Natural man without the mitigation of the holy spirits presence . He was relying on wisdom, understanding and yes the blessings of God without submitting your every thought, word and deed to the Spirit for guidance. He found his own way to end in vanity….
Well, Mark, with all due respect, people today still seem to find no impediment to their attempts to rely upon that “wisdom, understanding and yes the blessings of God without submitting your every thought, word and deed to the Spirit for guidance” even post cross. We in the world still, like Skip says, play the “power, wealth, prestige and – yes – sex -” cards in lieu of cooperating with what heaven has so graciously provided. We make the choices of Solomon. Only when they fail , as a rule do we ‘learn’ (experience) to seriously consider heaven’s offer.
How are we any different than Solomon? Difference of scale, is all. Wanna see something amusing? Try watching someone with severely limited choice (power), resources (wealth), and surrounding people willing to provide up front favor (prestige), not to mention no sex appeal to speak of, attempt to use all the above to get what they want. Wait: that would be all of us at some point. Been there, done that, can draw you a map for free.
Agreed wise sister, we are no different. But I still hold that as Messiah said “the kingdom of God is at hand”. We must choose however to inhabit it and at least one of the things we need to exchange to enter in is our pride and vanity…
Messiah came to fulfill the law and the Prophets. Solomon lived before that fulfillment, had the truth available but was limited by his own capacity to obey, discern or understand. After Christ the game was different. Solomon had the Torah, and the Prophets but not the readily available spirit, so his kingship failed as did the nation of Israel who like Adam and Eave before chose to eat of the tree I call independent human reason, or there own understanding. This rather than submitting to God, eating of the tree of life that is Messiah…, Vanity of Vanity all is vanity and striving after the wind.. …
I don’t think that is true. I second what Skip said, but I wonder if you got what he was trying to say. There are a ton of references to the Spirit in the OT, and what I think Skip was trying to ask was, what spirit DID YHVH put in folks then? Grace was always there, too (had to get that in). The Spirit poured out at Pentecost was not a new THING. Instead, it was a new purpose, or, function, for it enabled Yeshua to be present with all the Body at once. While He was here, He was still LOCAL. It is the promised Spirit of Yeshua that enables the Body to function in harmony, as He is the Head of it through that Spirit. What changed was not the gift of the Holy Spirit; what changed was the addition of the Son. I would like to submit that somehow it was this, and not the Spirit per se, that was the change that changed everything.
Granted the presence of the Spirit is consistent throughout the Scriptures. I read at the dawn of time that Spirit “hovered over the waters”. And we are informed in Ephesians 2:15. Messiah came to do away with the ” enmity” in inherent in us to the Torah. this is often miss quoted to say he came to do away with the Torah but that is another axe to grind. The removal of the inherent “enmity” I think applies to the Spirit as well. And this is perhaps a clearer and more scriptural definition of the game changer. It is now our ability to agree with and access the Spirit and be obedient to the Torah that has been some how amplified since the cross. Not to rattle an old cage but something in me still holds that Messiah had more juice than your average bloke, and imparted an access to that juice that had not been previously present. All things are summed up in Messiah. And yet we have this wonder and mystery of Godliness that is reflected in the “Righteous” Solomon clearly but not perfectly one of them.
Hi Laurita,
Some questions… Prior to Yeshua the holy spirit was given to a few in holy separation. After Yeshua the requirement remained the same, must be separated, no new law. What was the difference?
How did 3000 be save and moved on one day when before this all just waited patiently for the divine intervention that would save…
We may be missing something and that something is what Yeshua started. The redemption process that no high priest, king or prophet before could achieve.
That tells me that something in the grace changed, something in the way YHVH was dealing with mankind change dramatically.
What was this as all Solomon’s wisdom could not even bring this about…
Salvation is as easy as accepting God’s will and doing it, nothing more nothing less, yet it is easier to still plead but the woman you gave me she gave me to eat. No not your gender but the preacher, rabbi etc I chose to listen to instead of as Skip pointed out test the prophet and find out the truth do not just follow.
All this became possible through the act of Yeshua… Why? What did Yeshua do? What did he teach?
Not what those after him try to convince others he said or meant. How can they deduct that when even Yeshua declared only those that the father calls he, that is salvation will be made clear or visible to.
Solomon did not fail he created the record of how useless it is to solely relay on wisdom and human traditions… Politics, the old fashion why of doing things means nothing in God’s eyes.
Skip says read as intended not as we think it should be…
Peace through Christ
Hello Seeker to go to a bigger picture if Pentecost was the first giving of the. Spirit other than the exceptions. I’ve understood that the letter of the law kills. Book of the law. But the spirit of the letter of the law gives life. Book of the Covenant. These two make all the difference since the Covenant was given at Sinai. Legalism versus faith from hearing the word of God. 2nd Timothy 3:16 all scripture is. God breathed. What scripture was there at that time?
We need to get back to spiritualising Solomon.
Just thinking if the word was written before Sinai that is where hearing begins
Salvation has not changed. From the Garden on, the provision has been the SAME. The rituals taught faith in the coming Deliverer; they did not actually provide salvation, of course, but that is not the same as saying that there was no salvation available! They looked forward in faith, yes, but it is no different for us except we look back to that same Saviour in that same faith. The visible manifestation of our salvation (life, death and resurrection) did not change the mechanics of it from our end; they just completed that portion of it FROM HEAVEN’S END. The manifestation just showed us WHAT and WHO has saved; but, if you think about it, from our standpoint, at least, our salvation is STILL not complete (even though the declaration rang out from heaven’s end that it’s part of the job was done), for that will only happen at the end of the age and the resurrection of the rest of us. We stand, in that sense, with the first Adam, as well as with the apostles, and look to that finish. BUT, that is from our perspective. I think we get confused when we go trying to look at things from our perspective one minute (am I saved, and what did/does it) and the next try to figure out if we have been saved from heaven’s viewpoint (did God save me at the cross, or at the resurrection, or even at the foundations of the world?).
Saved by grace has never changed. Heaven has been mighty busy on its end, but we have always needed that yoking with it by means of that Spirit from day one, and it has always been available. The Christians did not get any ‘new’ salvation routes, either; they just got introduced to Who they were partners with.
Pentecost was about a commission, by the way; not an essential change in status with heaven. Who God calls He has always equipped. That equipment (Spirit) matched that particular calling (and we are promised that equipping for our calling today, too.) Noah, Elijah, Isaiah and the original 300 (Gideon’s crew) got called, too, but I don’t think they did what they did in their own strength either. We have never been asked to do that. We got in trouble the first time around (and still do) when we think that we have EVER had to accomplish righteousness without that enabling Spirit (power).
Thankyou Skip you explain this simply in the context of the Biblical Hebrew culture that I understand. Solomon was only human the marriages were political , love may come later maybe.?
Well known practices that do not line up with Torah (do not marry pagan) get a pass? Because they are common practices?
Please, let it be that i’m misreading and misunderstanding what you are saying here.
How many places in the OT can one think of, off the top of their head, where pagan ANYTHING was expressly forbidden.
Understanding brings no goodwill here, Pauls verbiage may have differed, but YHVH’s was clear. Don’t marry pagan. Period.