1 Kings 11:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines This was multiplying them prodigiously indeed, and pouring contempt on the divine prohibition in the most notorious manner. David had multiplied wives too, although to no such extent as this; but probably the bad example which he had set in this particular, had encouraged Solomon to think it, if not lawful, yet a lesser evil than it really was. One ill act of a good man may do more mischief than twenty of a wicked man. “Without knowing the customs of the princes of the East,” says Dr. Dodd, “their pomp and sumptuousness of living, one might be tempted to wonder of what possible use was this milliad of wives and concubines. But as Solomon was between forty and fifty years old before he ran into this excess, we cannot but think that he kept this multitude of women more for state than otherwise. Darius Codomanus was wont to carry along with him in his camp no less than three hundred and fifty concubines in time of war; nor was his queen offended at it, for the women used to reverence and adore her, as if she had been a goddess. Father Le Compte, in his history of China, tells us that the emperor has a vast number of wives, chosen out of the prime beauties of the country, many of which he never so much as saw in his whole life: and, therefore, it is not improbable that Solomon, as he found his riches increase, might enlarge his expenses, and endeavour to surpass all the princes of his time in this, as well as in all other kinds of pomp and magnificence.” He was guilty, however, of a flagrant violation of the divine law.