1 Kings 11:3-4

BHS suggests a few minor changes in verse 3, one in recognition of a variant in the LXX. The same goes for verse 4, where "alit" is a Latin abbreviation for aliter, "otherwise," since the LXX calls his wives "the strange women" (γυναῖκες αἱ ἀλλότριαι).



MASORAH:

 "princess" occurs in this form just twice, here and Esther 1:18 (Mm 1942).

the hifil vav-consecutive imperfect meaning "and they turned away" occurs four times. Mm 1563 lists the four as 1 Sam 8:3; 2 Sam 16:22; 1 Kings 11:3 and Isaiah 29:21. A fifth, also in 1 Sam 8:3, has a different vowel pointing but is also listed as "and once..." in the Mm note.

"and there was not" in verse 4 occurs 25 times. There is no corresponding Mm list (there usually isn't for larger numbers), but we may as well count them: Three in the Pentateuch (Lev 13:32; Num 20:2; 33:14), eleven in the Former Prophets (Josh 5:1; 5:12; 8:20; 10:14; 2 Sam 19:44; 1 Kings 10:5; 11:4; 15:3; 2 Kings 3:9; 4:41 and 25:3), three in the Latter Prophets (Isaiah 10:14; Jer 52:6; Ezek 19:14); and eight in the Writings and (1 Chron 2:34; 23:17; 24:28; 2 Chron 9:4; 9:9; Lam 2:22; and twice in Daniel 8:7).

Finally, there is a note that the name of David in verse 4 is also spelled out milra' or fully (with the vowel-letter yod), which happens less often than the shorter spelling, but the Mp note is "five times," which is wrong by about two hundred and fifty occurrences. It isn't even right if we expand it out to "David his father," which occurs in this form about ten times, most of them in 2 Chronicles. We can whittle it down to five times if we pretend the note says something like "the phrase 'David his father' occurs five times in which 'David' is written out fully (milra') and 'his father' is accented with a major break, i.e. atnach or silluq." Those would be 1 Kings 11:4; 2 Chron 2:16; 9:31; 29:2; 34:2 and 34:3. But I don't think that's really the spirit of the note, which really eludes me at this time.

Let's get to the exegesis:

1 KINGS 11:3

3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.

(NIV "of royal birth") is the plural of "princess," the Hebrew word sarah. This is the same as the name of Abraham's wife. These marriages included a Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings 3:1).

 "concubines" is a common enough word in the Bible, often appearing with and distinct from "wives." In Solomon's case, the "wives" were specifically the noblewomen, whereas the concubines were not. We might infer that this was the primary distinction between the two groups, at least in this context, although not necessarily in other contexts such as the pairing of "wives and concubines" in reference to David (2 Samuel 5:13). The concubines might actually have included the Ammonite Naamah, mother of Rehobaom (2 Kings 14:21 and 14:31), unless she was the daughter of an Ammonite king.

There is no reason at all to take these numbers at anything other than face value. They might possibly be round numbers, "about" seven hundred and "about" three hundred, but there is no reason to adopt any other meaning here.

Solomon exhibits two primary sins here; verse 3 describes one and verse 4 the other. The first sin is polygamy. God's intention is that a marriage will consist of a man and woman (Genesis 2:24), and although there are examples of polygamy in the Bible, even among the great Patriarchs like Abraham and Israel himself, these marriages are neither commanded nor condoned by God. Jesus himself specifically says that if a man so much as looks with lust at a woman other than his wife, he is guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). Jesus also pointedly uses the numeral "two" when he refers to the members in a marriage (Matthew 19:5). Note that the command for a pastor or deacon to be "the husband of only one wife" (1 Tim. 3:2; 3:12; Titus 1:6) are meant to show an exemplary life that cannot be accused of any sin--including the sins of polygamy or adultery.

Solomon would have been unable, even with all his great wealth, resources and evident energy, to have been a good husband to each of these wives. Just taking the aspect of sexual love, which is by no means the only mark of a marriage, if we suppose that Solomon spent the night with a different wife each and every night of his life, that would mean that each wife would expect to sleep with her husband about once every three years. Solomon reigned forty years (1 Kings 11:42); that's a dozen or fourteen times that most of those women could have hoped to have shared their husband's bed, and it was probably less.

But there is too often an argument that he could not possibly have gotten to know all of those women. The next verse shows us that in fact he got to know so many of them so well that they were able to turn his heart away from his Savior.

1 KINGS 11:4

4 As Solomon grew old, 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 opening phrase is literally "In the time of the old age of Solomon." What follows didn't happen overnight; Solomon didn't go to bed one night faithful to the Lord and wake up the next morning an apostate pagan. His sin crept over him through little compromises, little by little. Perhaps a wife who worshiped the LORD wanted her own private shrine, a high place. It wasn't something the Lord liked, but until the Temple was finished, she needed to worship someplace. Okay. But then another wife, someone like Naamah the Ammonite, wanted a shrine for her god, Molech. "Why does she get one and I don't?" As soon as that question was even asked, there was no turning back. All right, you can all get your shrines. Solomon could have insisted that each of them become Jewesses, but perhaps some of them were permitted to retain their childhood beliefs because it was in their treaty/marriage contracts. So up went the Asherah poles, dedicated to Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians, in groves and forests of obscene totem-like poles with female figures carved into them. Up went the altars to Molech of the Ammonites and to Chemosh of the Moabites and perhaps more.

And as if that wasn't enough, it went even further. Why do you go to church with your Hebrew wife but you don't go to the Molech sacrifice with me? All the infighting and backbiting and pigsticking of the harem would come into play, as well as letters from Solomon's thousand fathers-in-law. "If you honor our treaty, O King, then why do you dishonor my daughter your wife by failing to give worship to Milcom her god? At least you should go through the motions, so that honor is satisfied, wise king."

And if that wasn't enough, Solomon went to the pagan shrines with his pagan wives, and watched the sincerity of their pagan prayers, and perhaps saw some of the devil's own miracles. Her sacrifice to Baal made it rain last month! And after we made love under the Asherah pole, she became pregnant! Maybe there is a wider view I should be taking of religion. Maybe there is nothing special about Yahweh worship. Maybe I could be more inclusive for my fifty-score significant others. In time, his wives turned his heart "after other gods."

 is a tragic phrase. In the middle stands the divine title Elohim, but it doesn't mean the true god. It's surrounded by those foreign words, like doors leading out of a familiar house into an unfamiliar, barren wasteland, "after gods--others." Don't go out there! But he's already gone.

Students of the Bible notice something profound in Solomon's three great books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. In his Song of Songs--probably the first of the three to be completed--Solomon writes like a fairly young man about love. He still holds onto his faith, even though its a little hidden. God's name doesn't seem to show up in the poetry, unless the phrase: "by the gazelles and the does [female deer] of the field" is really something like, "by the angels and the powers of the Almighty (Shaddai)" (more about that another time; Song of Solomon 3:5). But Solomon seems to be a faithful believer in the Song. Then in Proverbs, in the middle years of his kingship, are things getting sketchy? He's gathering a lot of wisdom, but are things with his wives getting out of hand? "Better to live on the corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife" appears not once, but twice in the Proverbs (21:9 and 25:24) and it has a stunning parallel in "Better to live in a desert that with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife" (21:19). "A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping" (19:13) or even "a constant dripping on a rainy day" (27:15). That's five -- and even if only five of Solomon's thousand brides were trouble, that's four times the trouble any husband should have. But in Ecclesiastes, does he confess his sin and turn back to the Lord? It would seem so. But even so, he is not and never shall be the ideal model of a husband.

But there is something else that must be said about Solomon. The first ten chapters of 1 Kings paint Solomon as a successful, wise, wealthy and ingenious king and administrator. But these things did not bring him into sin. Success and wealth are not sinful in themselves. True, the love of money (not money itself) is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). But Solomon's sin began with polygamy, and it soured and deteriorated into syncretism and idolatry. These are first commandment sins.

And we're guilty of them, too. We sin according to our station, according to our means. I could never afford to have more than one wife, let alone ever convince my wife to permit somebody else in, and I have to say that I wouldn't want a second wife. But I have other sins. We all have temptations that are common to our age, to our culture, to our circumstances. Those sins aren't "natural" except that they're part of our sinful human nature, which was never God's plan. But Solomon's sins are no worse than mine, nor are they better than Napoleon's. All three of us, Bonaparte, Solomon and I, stand condemned before God; guilty of our sins. The difference between the three of us is that Bonaparte rejected God, Solomon probably turned back to God, and I know know my Savior God. I trust in him, not in myself. I'm willing to say as a matter of my professional opinion as a Pastor and a Biblical exegete that I think Solomon repented of his sins and trusted in the Savior who would be his own descendant, Jesus Christ.

And I bring it up because the only hope any one of us has is in Jesus. There is no one else to whom we can turn. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name," said John and Peter, "under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Jesus is it. And Jesus is ours.