CONTENTS
This chapter opens with the relation of some of the first events which took place in the beginning of Solomon's reign. His marriage with Pharoah's daughter. God's appearance to him in a dream. His choice. And the chapter concludes with an account of his sound judgment, in deciding a matter of controversy between two harlots.
(1) В¶ And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.
This marriage with a stranger to the house of Israel, appears to have been a very strange event: and yet we do not find it reprobated. Some have thought that before the marriage took place, she was proselyted to the true religion. Be this as it may, from the wonderful book which he wrote upon this occasion, (as is said) the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, we cannot but hope that the hand of the Lord was in it. And it is remarkable, and well worthy the Reader's attention, that the strange gods, which it is said in the after period of his life his idolatrous wives and concubines led him to, are not said to have come from Egypt. See 1 Kings 11:1-5. And it is yet worthy of further remark by the Reader, that the prophet Isaiah speaketh of Egypt as the third with Israel, and the Lord of hosts shall bless them together, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of mine hands, and Israel mine inheritance. See Isaiah 19:24-25. But may we not go yet one step further on this subject, and observe, that as Solomon was an eminent type of Jesus, may not this marriage with Pharaoh's daughter be considered as a figure of Christ's union with the Gentile church?