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

Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh As being a powerful neighbour. And took Pharaoh's daughter To wife, which was not unlawful, if she was first instructed in, and made a proselyte to, the Jewish religion, as, in all probability, she was. For Solomon was not yet fallen from God, but loved the Lord, and walked in the statutes of David, (1 Kings 3:3,) and therefore would not have married a gross idolater, which would have been directly contrary to God's law, and most pernicious in its consequences. It is true he afterward loved many strange women, and the wives he married alienated his heart from Jehovah, and drew him in to worship strange gods: but the gods of the Egyptians are not reckoned among them, nor does it appear that Pharaoh's daughter was one of the wives whose example or conversation had such a pernicious influence. On the contrary, it is likely she was a worshipper of the true God, and that Solomon's taking her to wife was designed by God to be a type of Christ calling his church to himself and to the true religion, not only from among the Jews, but even out of the Gentile world. This, it is thought, plainly appears from the forty-fifth Psalm, and the book of Canticles. And brought her into the city of David Into David's palace there. Until he had made an end of building the house of the Lord The temple designed for the worship and honour of God. And the wall of Jerusalem round about Which, though in some sort built by David, yet Solomon is here said to build, either because he made it higher and stronger, in which sense Nebuchadnezzar is said to have built Babylon, (Daniel 4:30,) or because he built another wall besides the former, for after this time Jerusalem was encompassed with more walls than one.