1 Kings 11:42,43 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The time that Solomon reigned was forty years His reign was as long as his father's, but not his life: sin shortened his days. And Solomon slept with his fathers This expression is promiscuously used concerning good and bad, and signifies only, that they died as their fathers did. And was buried in the city of David his father Thus concludes the history of this great man; without any the least mention of his repentance, or of his bringing forth any of the proper fruits of repentance, such as pulling down the high places he had built for the worship of idols, and abandoning his idolatrous wives and concubines. Many Jews and Christians, however, think it extremely probable that he was awakened to a sense of his sin and misery by means of the message which God sent him, as recorded 1 Kings 11:11; and that he humbled himself before him, and became a true penitent from that time. They even judge that this is put out of dispute by the book of Ecclesiastes, written after his fall, as, they say, is evident, not only from the unanimous testimony of the Hebrew writers, but also from the whole strain of that book, which was manifestly composed long after he had finished all his works, and after he had liberally drunk of all sorts of sensual pleasures, and sadly experienced the bitter effects of the love of women. Now in this book he appears greatly to lament his own folly and madness, 1 Kings 7:25-28; 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, chap. 1 Kings 11:9-10, and 1 Kings 12:13-14. They think it probable, therefore, that as David wrote Psalms 51., so Solomon wrote this book, as a public testimony and profession of his repentance. On the other hand, many are of opinion, that the silence of the divine historian on this subject is an insuperable objection to all this, and that if he had truly repented, so considerable a circumstance of his life would not have been omitted, and that we should, at least, have been informed of his abolishing all the monuments of his idolatry, and those of his wives and concubines. Perhaps, as Dr. Dodd observes, “this is one of those questions which will for ever be a field of controversy, as we have no certain guide from the Scripture to direct us.” We may, however, safely conclude, that if Solomon did repent, yet as the sacred writer has not recorded that he did, but suffered the important circumstance to remain doubtful, he intended to leave a blot upon his memory, that all posterity might have before their eyes an awful example of human weakness, even in a man of the greatest endowments; and might learn thereby to watch and pray lest they should enter into temptation; and to beware of the beginnings and infatuations of vice, since even Solomon was not secure against its delusions; and, once unhappily immersed in it, perhaps, was never disengaged from it.