THE DECLINE OF THE HEBREW EMPIRE
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 11:1. But King Solomon loved many strange women—If importations of foreign luxuries and indulgences into his court (see previous chapter) were occasions of peril to Solomon, tending to corrupt his heart from simple fidelity to Jehovah, far more so this creation of a foreign harem. Among the ancient Hebrews polygamy was permitted; and the number of a man’s wives was a standard of his wealth and dignity. Solomon emulated this dangerous and degrading custom; and, being unrivalled in the lavishment of wealth, he seems to have resolved upon excelling in this department of Oriental indulgence, thereby to assert his state magnificence. Together with the daughter of Pharaoh—It is not implied that his marriage with Pharaoh’s daughter was wrong, but his adding others. Contrary to the law of the Lord (Deuteronomy 17:17) he took, “together with the daughter of Pharaoh, many strange wives.”
1 Kings 11:3. Seven hundred wives, princesses—So great a number from noblest princely houses of foreign nations suggests the splendour of his court. It was a vanity, and fraught with greatest snares.
1 Kings 11:4. Solomon’s old age—He was probably not over fifty.
1 Kings 11:5. Went after Ashtoreth—Lange thinks he did not himself become an idolater, but allowed every form of idolatry his wives desired; yet, though he offered no sacrifice on the altars he reared, to rear them was equivalent to sacrificing, equally offensive to Jehovah. Ashtoreth, Astarte, the highest feminine deity of the Sidonians; Milcom, Molech; Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7), the war and fire-god of the Moabites.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 11:1-8
THE FALL OF SOLOMON, AND ITS LESSONS
Everything about Solomon was on a scale of unparalleled greatness. He was great in his descent—the offspring of the renowned David. He was great as a sovereign, raising the kingdom of the Hebrews, which was inaugurated by Saul, and enlarged and consolidated by David, to the highest pitch of imperial greatness and external magnificence it ever attained. He was great in intellectual endowment—“He was wiser than all men, and his fame was in all nations round about.” He was great in Divine benedictions—“For the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed on him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him” (1 Chronicles 29:25). And his greatness was not less conspicuous in his sad and terrible fall. The whole career of Solomon is a succession of surprises and mysteries. As soon as he took up the reins of government he gave evidence of the greatness of his powers. The nation felt itself in the grasp of a master, and became pliant and obedient in his hand. And yet, with all the outward show of his consummate abilities and gigantic enterprizes, we have but few details of his personal life. His works impress and delight us: his personality is vague, and only mystifies us. As you have seen on occasions of public rejoicing, among other illuminations, some gigantic figure lit up and sparkling in brilliant outline, while the interspaces of the figure are dark, vacant, and unintelligible: so was it with Solomon. His imposing and majestic figure occupied a large space in the history of the Jewish Kingdom and in the history of the world, and shed the lustre of its imperial glory over all nations and through all succeeding ages; but the minute personal features of that stately form fade away into the darkness—are, in fact, for the most part invisible. The splendour of Solomon’s reign was like a glare of sunshine resting on the fertile plains, teeming with life and efflorescent with beauty. While the light remains, the scene is gay, brilliant, captivating; but, all unseen and unsuspected, the poisonous miasma is loading the air, and by-and-by will spread sorrow and disaster in its course. Consider—
I. The causes which contributed to the downfall of the great Hebrew monarch. 1. The intoxication of intellectual pride. We have seen how he was gifted with a keen and comprehensive intellect, and was addicted from his earliest youth to the most profound studies. His proverbs were the condensation of the choicest maxims of moral and political science, and have enriched the literature of the world; his songs bear evidence of a lofty, poetic genius; and his discourses and treatises on natural history embraced the most important and most minute facts of the science. It is appalling to think of the powerful ascendency these high qualities must have given him over the minds of others. No wonder the nations crowded around such a prodigy of wisdom (chap. 1 Kings 4:30-34); and who could inhale the incense of adulation that daily filled his court without being intoxicated with vain thoughts? It cannot, therefore, surprise us that, puffed up with the flattery of courtiers and the applauses of the multitude, Solomon began to think too highly of himself, and to say: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent” (Isaiah 10:13). His wisdom having thus become his idol, he persuades himself that it will enable him to solve all mysteries, and to rectify all disorders, and thus to render him the master both of his own destiny and of the destinies of the people—nay, of the whole world. We can imagine how such a notion would captivate a generous, great, and aspiring mind. He sees in the state of society, and in the condition of individual men, evils which he would fain remove, and wrongs which he would fain redress. Many are suffering from disease, many are pining in poverty, many groaning beneath the iron yoke of injustice and oppression. Good men are often treated with neglect, or covered with obloquy, while wicked men are as often high in place and power. Why is all this? What is the source and explanation of these painful anomalies? Cannot I, who have searched out so many deep things, fathom this secret too? Shall it not be the privilege and the prerogative of Solomon the Wise to inaugurate a new and better condition of things?”—R. Buchanan. He thus sought to arrogate to himself a power which no created intelligence is privileged to possess. His condition of mind is the explanation of many sad and painful backslidings that followed.
2. The system of polygamy, which he encourage to an unprecedented extent, left its debasing curse on Solomon and on his family for generations (1 Kings 11:1-3). The harem of an Eastern monarch is even at the present day looked upon as a sort of state necessity, and the king’s rank and greatness are estimated according to its extent. He multiplies his wives according to his wealth and power, though many of them he never sees at all. Darius Codomannus is said to have taken three hundred and sixty concubines in his camp when he marched against Alexander. So Solomon, wishing to surpass all other kings in the fame of greatness, filled his harem with a thousand women. This was an enormity. In the simplest view, the sexes being nearly equal, it deprived a thousand men of wives that one man might have 999 more than he required. Such a system brought with it the inevitable evils of the oriental seraglio. Licentiousness taints the intellect, loosens the bonds of morality, and debases the whole man.
3. The estrangement of heart from Jehovah (1 Kings 11:4-6). Solomon did not openly or wholly apostatise. He continued his attendance on the worship of Jehovah, and punctually made his offerings three times a year in the temple. But his heart was not perfect with God. Many causes had concurred to weaken the religious earnestness of his younger days—as the corrupting influence of wealth and luxury, the canker of sensualism, an increasing worldliness, leading him to adopt more and more a worldly policy, and, perhaps, a growing latitudinarianism arising from contact with all the manifold forms of human opinion (see Speaker’s Comm.). A most significant sign of religious decay was the almost total absence of prophets during Solomon’s brilliant career. The history of the prophets is the most remarkable and fascinating of any history in the Scriptures. They enter on their career as if thrust forth by some unseen hand: they utter their message as if impelled by some mysterious and irresistible force. Receiving their commission from neither king nor people, they are perfectly independent of both. No amount of violence or suffering could silence their faithful utterances, or retard the accomplishment of their mission. And when their work was done, and their testimony fearlessly borne, like flaming comets, they vanished into the space from which they seemed at first to emerge. The “conspicuous absence” of these faithful messengers indicated the mournful state of piety amid the external splendours of the empire.
4. The public sanction and practice of idolatry (1 Kings 11:7-8). Heathen temples were built on the southern heights of Olivet in the very sight of the Holy Temple; and from the abominable rites that were practised there, a name of infamy was given to the whole mountain. It was called—and still bears the name of—the Mount of Offence. This flagrant idolatry roused the displeasure of Jehovah; and the consequent disruption of the kingdom was plainly foretold (1 Kings 11:9-13). “He thus became the author of a syncretism which sought to blend together the worship of Jehovah and the worship of idols—a syncretism which possessed fatal attractions for the Jewish nation. Finally, he appears himself to have frequented the idol-temples, and to have taken part in those fearful impurities which constituted the worst horror of the idolatrous systems, thus practically apostatising, though theoretically he never ceased to hold that Jehovah was the true God.”
5. The despotic character of his government. Commerce, to promote the prosperity of a nation, must be national and not regal. But the commerce of Israel, in Solomon’s days, was in all respects a monopoly of the crown. The excessive demands upon the people for sustaining the ever-growing magnificence of the empire became unbearable, and a spirit of discontent spread throughout the nation which ultimately broke out into open and successful rebellion. The structure of the empire was shattered by the weight of its own opulence and greatness.
II. The ultimate fate of Solomon. It was a much contested point among the Fathers of the early Church as to whether Solomon was among the saved or the lost; and both opinions were pretty equally sustained by eminent names in theology. The question was so frequently debated, and seemed so evenly balanced, that in a series of frescoes on the walls of a celebrated church on the Continent, Solomon is represented at the General Resurrection as looking doubtfully to the right and to the left, as if uncertain in which side he would find his destined lot. We incline to the merciful view, and feel supported by two considerations:—
(1). Six hundred years after Solomon had been resting in the grave, and when posterity could pronounce a calm and dispassionate verdict, Nehemiah gave a summary of the character of the great Hebrew king, in which he recognized him as “the beloved of his God” (Nehemiah 13:26, compared with 2 Samuel 7:14).
(2). Add to this the generally-admitted fact that the book of Ecclesiastes contains the utterances of Solomon at the close of his earthly career; and, in the concluding words of that book, do we not detect a wandering, sinning spirit coming to a halt, and an assured resting-place, as he exclaims:—“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments!”
III. The lessons suggested by Solomon’s life.
1. That worldly greatness has its peculiar perils. Solomon began well. He loved God, and strove to walk in all the ways of David his father; but as he advanced in wealth, and his mind expanded into the vast fields of intellectual research, the simplicity of his trust in God was destroyed, his spiritual fervour was chilled, and religious decline began. His exalted regal position and high mental endowments raised him into a lofty region, in which few but himself could enter; and there were none round about him who had the fidelity or the courage to warn him of his danger, even if they themselves perceived that danger. He became the victim of his own imperious self-sufficiency—the weight of his own aggrandisement crushed him to the dust! Wealth, prosperity, promotion, will ever lift men into the midst of a thousand threatening dangers; and the higher the pinnacle to which they are elevated, the more imminent their peril, and the more awfully calamitous their fall.
2. That in the greatest characters there is a mingling of good and evil. As Bacon is, in English history, “the wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind.” so is Solomon in Jewish and in sacred history. Every part of his splendour had its dark side. “The web of our life,” says Shakespeare, “is of mingled yarn—bad and good together.” It is important to recognize this fact in forming a just estimate of human character. Solomon is “the chief example in Sacred History of what meets us often in common history—the union of genius and crime. The record of his career sanctions our use of the intellectual power even of the weakest or the wickedest of mankind. As Solomon’s fall is not overlooked in consideration of his power and glory, so neither because he fell does he cease to be called the wisest of men, nor is his wisdom shut out from the Sacred Volume.”—Stanley.
3. That worldly prosperity is powerless to satisfy the deepest needs of the soul. All the great gifts of the world were possessed by Solomon in an unexampled degree. His riches were fabulous, and came from afar—the inexhaustible mines of the Eastern and Western worlds replenished his treasury with an unfailing supply. He wielded the most absolute authority. Whatever pleasure could delight the eye or gratify the taste was at his command. He was a philosopher, a poet, an accomplished scientist, and penetrated to the depths of all human wisdom—even to exhaustion and satiety. And yet there was nothing in all these to make him happy. Turning from all his former delights with unutterable surfeiting and loathing, he raises the sad, melancholy lamentation—“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” All that worldly good can do for us is—to show us its own emptiness: it raises our hopes with delusive promises, and dashes them to atoms with bitter disappointments. The flowers which it sprinkles around our path barely hide the charnel house in which our bones will soon have to rot!
4. That the success of the work of God does not depend upon external display. Solomon appears upon the scene like a mighty magician who, with one stroke of his wand, calls into existence an enchanting spectacle of royal splendour—the towering palace, the shining throne, the courtly attendants in gorgeous apparel, the military with glittering weapons and prancing chargers, the exuberant riches of a prosperous commerce, and all the external evidences of a great and powerful nation—himself the most conspicuous figure in the gay and animated throng; and, before the eye has got well accustomed to the dazzling pageant, both magician and his marvellous creation gradually melt away into the surrounding mysteries. But, all the time, the ulterior purpose of God in raising up the Jewish nation, and through it endowing the world with unspeakable blessing, marched grandly and silently on its way. Through the changing fortunes of succeeding dynasties—through the decline and final extinction of the kingdom—through the disasters, sufferings, and desolations of the long captivities, unto the coming of the Son of God, the gracious purpose slowly ripened, and gave promise of a glorious fruitage. The moral impress on the world of the Saviour’s advent was made utterly independent and in defiance of external pomp. And still the work of God goes on, often silently, often in obscurity and suffering, but always triumphantly!
HIGH INTELLECTUAL ENDOWMENTS PERILOUS
I. Because they are liable to be corrupted by the seductions of sensuality (1 Kings 11:1-3). Mental power is no safeguard against the grossest sins. Superior knowledge did not protect Adam from the blandishments of Eve. “If one woman undid all mankind, what marvel is it if many women undid one. To them did Solomon join in love, who can marvel if they disjoined his heart from God? Satan hath found this bait to take so well, that he never changed it since he crept into Paradise. How many have we known whose heads have been broken with their own rib?”
II. Because they may breed an undue consciousness of personal superiority. It is a lovely sight to see wisdom combined with humility, a giant intellect in union with a childlike simplicity of character. It is a thrilling but dangerous moment when the mind becomes conscious of its true power; the danger is increased when it discovers its superiority to others. The dim-sighted wanderer, stumbling with uncertain foothold on the sides of precipitous crags, is not in greater peril. A moment like that came to Mahomet, and thenceforth the noble method of moral suas on gave place to the shorter and more imperious argument of the sword. A moment like that came to Napoleon Bonaparte, and his career thenceforword was a lurid, bloody tragedy.
III. Because they are intolerant of advice and admonition. No one single mind possesses all the truth on any subject. Different shades of the same truth alter the complexion of the whole, and may influence personal action in an opposite direction. It is therefore an unspeakable advantage to be surrounded by those from whom we can take council. The wise man will learn something even from an enemy. To be impatient of advice and indifferent to warning is to be exposed to danger and disaster. It is like rushing into conflict without sword and shield; or fording the turbulent torrent, whilst despising the use of boat or raft. It is one of the misfortunes of the intellectual genius that so many regard him as above the necessity of help from others. Few have the courage to offer him advice; fewer still the fidelity to warn.
IV. Because they are apt to encourage a proud self-sufficiency. Intellectual greatness propounds to itself the sublimest tasks. It “soars into the heavens, penetrates the earth, penetrates itself, questions the past, anticipates the future, and seeks to find in every region of the universe types and interpreters of its own deep mysteries and glorious inspirations” (Ecclesiastes 1:13). No wonder, with such themes revolving in the mind, it should be in danger of losing its balance; and that it should proudly arrogate to itself the credit of all success and discovery. Pride of intellect is the most dangerous form of all pride. “It is a vice,” says the judicious Hooker, “which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men, that if we were to strip ourselves of all faults, one by one, we should un loubtedly find it the very last and hardest to put off. In the world many things are the cause of much evil; but pride of all.”
Deep is the sea and deep is hell; but pride mineth deeper:
It is coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundations of the soul.
If thou expose it in thy motives and track it in thy springs of thought,
Complacent in its own detection, it will seem indignant virtue.
Smoothly it will gratulate thy skill, O subtle anatomist of self!
And spurns its very being, while it nestleth the deeper in thy bosom.
Tupper.
V. Because they may disparage the deepest religious sentiments (1 Kings 11:4-6). The colossal intellectualism of Solomon did not protect the purity and genuineness of the religion of his youth. His “heart was turned away it was not perfect with the Lord his God.” Not that he ceased to believe in Jehovah as the only true God: he could not so far insult and stultify his intellectual consciousness. But his religious fervour was abated, and his dearest religious convictions dishonoured. The sensual over-shadowed the intellectual; and the intellectual, thus eclipsed, depreciated the religious. And there is a school of thinkers to-day who, in their haste to reconcile difficulties, advance the theory of one theology for the intellect, and another for the feelings. Their theory is, there are two modes of apprehending and presenting truth; the one by the logical consciousness that it may be understood; the other by the intuitional consciousness that it may be felt. These two modes may often conflict, so that what is true in the one may be false in the other, reminding one of the old dictum, “What is true in religion is false in philosophy.” The danger of this theory is evident in its enabling a man to profess his faith in doctrines which he does not believe. If asked, Do you believe that Christ satisfied the justice of God?—he can say Yes, for it is true to his feelings: and he can say, No, because it is false to his intellect. In all true religious experience the head and the heart are in harmony.
VI. Because they render failure the more ignominious and unbearable. The degradation of Nebuchadnezzar was all the more conspicuous because of the loftiness of his vauntings. The humiliation and suffering of the stately dames of Jersualem were all the more noticeable in contrast with their mincing gait, their stretched-out necks, and tinkling ornaments. So the fall of Solomon was the more calamitous because of his rare and vast endowments and high exaltation. The locomotive which slips from the metals when at full speed works all the greater devastation and ruin because of the ponderous power which pulses in its capacious breast. The nature which is capable of the highest ecstasy is susceptible of the deeper woe and misery.
LESSONS:—
1. Intellectual gifts involve corresponding responsibility.
2. It is better to be wiss than to be clever.
3. To be truly good is to be truly great.
SOLOMON’S RESTRORATION
(Compared with Nehemiah 13:26).
The deep interest of biography consists in this—that it is in some measure the description to us of our own inner history. You cannot unveil the secrets of another heart without at the same time finding something to correspond with, and perchance explain, the mysteries of your own. It is for this reason that Solomon’s life is full of painful interest. Far removed as he is, in some respects, above our sympathies, in others he peculiarly commands them. He was a monarch, and none of us know the sensations which belong to Rule. He was proclaimed by God to be among the wisest of mankind, and few of us can even conceive the atmosphere in which such a gifted spirit moves, original, enquiring, comprehending, one to whom Nature has made her secret open. He lived in the infancy of the world’s society, and we live in its refined and civilized manhood. And yet, when we have turned away, wearied, from all those subjects in which the mind of Solomon expatiated, and try to look inwards at the man, straightway we find ourselves at home. Just as in our own trifling, petty history, so we find in him, life with the same unabated, mysterious interest; the dust and confusion of a battle, sublime longings and low weaknesses, perplexity, struggle; and then the grave closing over all this, and leaving us to marvel in obscurity and silence over the strange destinies of man. The career of Solomon is a problem which has perplexed many, and is by no means an easy one to solve. He belongs to the peculiar class of those who begin well, and then have the brightness of their lives obscured at last. His morning sun rose beautifully, it sank in the evening, clouded, and dark with earthly exhalations, too dark to prophesy with certainty how it should rise on the morrow. Solomon’s life was not what religious existence ought to be. The Life of God in the soul of man ought to be a thing of perpetual development; it ought to be more bright, and its pulsations more vigorous every year. Such certainly, at least to all appearance, Solomon’s was not. It was excellence, at all events, marred with inconsistency.
I. The wanderings of an erring spirit. “Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things?”
1. This is the first point to dwell on—the wanderings of a frail and erring human spirit from the right way.
1. That which lay at the bottom of all Solomon’s transgressions was his intimate partnership with foreigners. “Did not Solomon sin by these things?” That is, if we look to the context, marriage with foreign wives. Exclusiveness was the principle on which Judaism was built. The Israelites were not to mix with the nations, they were not to marry with them: they were not to join with them in religious fellowship or commercial partnership. And it was this principle which Solomon transgressed. He married a princess of Egypt. He connected himself with wives from idolatrous countries—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites. Sidonians, Hittites. And then Nehemiah’s argument, built on the eternal truth that friendship with the world is enmity with God, is this—“Did not Solomon sin by these things?” That Jewish law shadowed out an everlasting truth. God’s people are an exclusive nation; God’s Church is for ever separated from the world. When a religious person begins to feel an inclination for intimate communion with the world, and begins to break down that barrier which is the line of safety, the first step is made of a series of long, dark wanderings from God. The world changes its complexion in every age. Solomon’s world was the nations of idolatry lying round Israel. Our world is not that. The sons of our world are not idolaters, they are not profligate, they are, it may be, among the most fascinating of mankind. Their society is more pleasing, more lively, more diversified in information than religious society. No marvel if a young and ardent heart feels the spell of the fascination. No wonder if it feels a relief in turning away from the dulness and the monotony of home life to the sparkling brilliancy of the world’s society. No marvel if Solomon felt the superior charms of the accomplished Egyptian and the wealthy Syrian. His Jewish countrymen and countrywomen were but homely in comparison. It is almost natural, almost intelligible—a temptation which we feel ourselves every day. The brilliant, dazzling, accomplished world—what Christian with a mind polished like Solomon’s does not own its charms? And yet now, pause. Is it in wise Egypt that our highest blessedness lies? Is it in busy, restless Sidon? Is it in luxurious Moab? No. The Christian must leave the world alone. His blessedness lies in quiet work with the Israel of God. His home is in that deep, unruffled tranquillity which belongs to those who are trying to know Christ. And when a Christian will not learn this; when he will not understand that in calmness, and home, and work, and love, his soul must find its peace; when he will try keener and more exciting pleasures; when he says, I must taste what life is while I am young, its feverishness, its strange, delirious, maddening intoxication, he has just taken Solomon’s first step, and he must take the whole of Solomon’s after and most bitter experience along with it.
2. The second step of Solomon’s wandering was the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. And a man like Solomon cannot do anything by halves. What he did, he did thoroughly. No man ever more heartily and systematically gave himself up to the pursuit. If he once made up his mind that pleasure was his aim, then for pleasure he lived. There are some men who are prudent in their epicureanism. They put gaiety aside when they begin to get palled with it, and then return to it moderately again. Men like Solomon cannot do that. No earnest man can. No! if blessedness lies in pleasure, he will drink the cup to the dregs. We have none of the cool, cautious sipping of enjoyment here. We have none of the feeble, languid attempts to enjoy the world which make men venture ankle-deep into dissipation, and only long for courage to go a little further. It is the earnestness of an impassioned man, a man who has quitted God, and thrown himself, heart and soul, upon everything that he tries, and says he will try it fairly, and to the full. There is a moral to be learnt from the wildest worldliness. When we look on the madness of life, and are marvelling at the terrible career of dissipation, let there be no contempt felt. It is an immortal spirit marring itself. It is an infinite soul, which nothing short of the Infinite can satisfy, plunging down to ruin and disappointment. Men of pleasure! whose hearts are as capable of an eternal blessedness as a Christian’s, that is the terrible meaning and moral of your dissipation. God in Christ is your only Eden, and out of Christ you can have nothing but the restlessness of Cain; you are blindly pursuing your destiny. That unquenched impetuosity within you might have led you up to God. You have chosen instead that your heart shall try to satisfy itself upon husks.
3. There was another form of Solomon’s worldliness. It was not worldliness in pleasure, but worldiness in occupation. He had entered deeply in commercial speculations. He had alternate fears and hopes about the return of his merchant ships on their perilous three-years’ voyage to India and to Spain. He had his mind occupied with plans for building. The architecture of the temple, his own palace, the forts and towns of his now magnificent empire—all this filled for a time his soul. He had begun a system of national debt and ruinous taxation. He had become a slaveholder and a despot, who was compelled to keep his people down by armed force. Much of this was not wrong; but all of it was dangerous. It is a strange thing how business dulls the sharpness of the spiritual affections. It is strange how the harass of perpetual occupation shuts God out. It is strange how much mingling with the world, politics, and those things which belong to advancing civilization, things which are very often in the way of our duty, deaden the sense of right and wrong. Let Christians be on their guard by double prayerfulness when duty makes them men of business, or calls them to posts of worldly activity.
4. It was the climax of Solomon’s transgression that he suffered the establishment of idolatry in his dominions. There are writers who have said that in this matter Solomon was in advance of his age—enlightened beyond the narrowness of Judaism, and that this permission of idolatry was the earliest exhibition of that spirit which in modern times we call religious toleration. But Solomon went far beyond toleration. The truth seems to be, Solomon was getting indifferent about religion. He had got into light and worldly society, and the libertinism of his associations was beginning to make its impressions upon him. He was beginning to ask, “Is not one religion as good as another, so long as each man believes his own in earnest?” He began to feel there is a great deal to be said for these different religions. After all, there is nothing certain; and why forbid men the quiet enjoyment of their own opinion? And so he became what men call liberal, and he took idolatry under his patronage. There are few signs in a soul’s state more alarming than that of religious indifference—that is, the spirit of thinking all religions equally true; the real meaning of which is, that all religions are equally false.
II. Consider God’s loving guidance of Solomon in all his apostacy. “There was no king like unto him who was beloved of his God.”
1. In the darkest, wildest wanderings, a man to whom God has shown his love in Christ is conscious still of the better way. In the very gloom of his remorse, there is an instinctive turning back to God. According to Scripture phraseology, Solomon had a great heart; and therefore it was that, for such an one, the discipline which was to lead him back to God must needs be terrible. “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men.” That was God’s covenant, and with tremendous fidelity was it kept. You look to the life of Solomon, and there are no outward reverses there to speak of. His reign was the type of the reign of the power of peace. No war, no national disaster, interrupted the even flow of the current of his days. No loss of a childlike David’s, pouring cold desolation into his soul; no pestilences or famines. Prosperity and riches, and the internal development of the nation’s life—that was the reign of Solomon. And yet, with all this, was Solomon happy? Has God no arrows winged in heaven for the heart, except those which come in the shape of outward calamity? Is there no way that God has of making the heart grey and old before its time, without sending bereavement, or loss, or sickness? Has the Eternal Justice no mode of withering and drying up the inner springs of happiness, while all is green, and wild, and fresh outwardly? Look to the history of Solomon for the answer.
2. One way in which his aberration from God treasured up for him chastisement was by that weariness of existence which breathes through the whole book of Ecclesiastes. That book bears internal evidence of having been written after repentance and victory. It is the experience of a career of pleasure, and the tone which vibrates through the whole is disgust with the world, and mankind, and life and self. I hold that book to be inspired. It is not written as a wise and calm Christian would write, but as a heart would write which was fevered with disappointment, jaded with passionate attempts in the pursuit of blessedness, and forced to God as the last resource. That saddest book in all the Bible stands before you as the beacon and the warning from a God who loves you, and would spare you bitterness if He could. Follow inclination now, put no restraint on feeling, say that there is time enough to be religious by-and-by, forget that now is the time to take Christ’s yoke upon yon, and learn gradually and peacefully that serene control of heart which must be learnt at last by a painful wrench—forget all that, and say that you trust in God’s love and mercy to bring all right, and then that book of Ecclesiastes is your history. The penalty that you pay for a youth of pleasure is—if you have anything good in you—an old age of weariness and remorseful dissatisfaction.
3. Another part of Solomon’s chastisement was doubt. Once more turn to the book of Ecclesiastes: “All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not.” In this observe the querulous complaint of a man who has ceased to feel that God is the Ruler of this world. A blind chance, or a dark destiny, seems to rule all earthly things. And that is the penalty of leaving God’s narrow path for sin’s wider and more flowery one. You lose your way, you get perplexed, doubt takes possession of your soul. And there is no suffering more severe than doubt. There is a loss of aim, and you know not what you have to live for; life has lost its meaning and its infinite significance. There is a hollowness at the heart of your existence; there is a feeling of weakness and a discontented loss of self-respect. God has hidden his face from you because you have been trying to do without Him, or to serve Him with a divided heart.
4. Lastly, we have to remark that the love of God brought Solomon through all this to spiritual manhood. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” In this we have the evidence of his victory. Doubt, and imprisonment, and worldliness have passed away, and clear activity, belief, freedom, have taken their place. It was a terrible discipline, but God had made that discipline successful. Solomon struggled manfully to the end. The details of his life were dark, but the life itself was earnest; and after many a fall, repentance, with unconquerable purpose, began afresh. And so he struggled on, often baffled, often down, but never finally subdued; and still with tears and indomitable trust returning to the conflict again. And so, when we come to the end of his last earthly work, we find the sour smoke, which had so long been smouldering in his heart, and choking his existence, changed into bright, clear flame. He has found the secret out at last, and it has filled his whole soul with blessedness. God is man’s happiness. “Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.”
LESSONS.—
1. There is a way—let us not shrink from saying it—in which sin may he made to minister to holiness. “To whomsoever much is forgiven, the same loveth much.” There was an everlasting truth in what our Messiah said to the moral Pharisees: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” Now, these are Christ’s words, and we will not fear to boldly state the same truth. Past sin may be made the stepping-stone to heaven. Let a man abuse that if he will by saying: “Then it is best to sin.” A man may make the doctrine absurd, even shocking, by that inference, but it is true for all that. God can take even your sin, and make it work to your soul’s sanctification. He can let you down into such an abyss of self-loathing and disgust, such life weariness, and doubt, and misery, and disappointment, that if He ever raises you again by the invigorating experience of the love of Christ, you will rise stronger from your very fall. But forget not this: if ever a great sinner becomes a great saint, it will be through agonies which none but those who have sinned know.
2. I speak to those among you who know something about what the world is worth, who have tasted its fruits, and found them like the Dead Sea apples—hollowness and ashes. By those foretastes of coming misery which God has already given you, those lonely feelings of utter wretchedness and disappointment when you have returned home palled and satiated from the gaudy entertainment, and the truth has pressed itself icy cold upon your heart, “Vanity of vanities”—is this worth living for? By all that be warned. Be true to your convictions; be honest with yourselves; be manly in working out your doubts, as Solomon was. Greatness, goodness, blessedness lie not in the life that you are leading now, they lie in quite a different path; they lie in a life hid with Christ in God.
3. Learn from this subject the covenant love of God. There is such a thing as love which rebellion cannot weary, which ingratitude cannot cool. It is the love of God to those whom He has redeemed in Christ. “Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin? and yet there was no king like him who was beloved of his God.” Let that be to us a truth not to teach carelessness, but thankfulness.—Condensed from F. W. Robertson.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 11:1-8. We come now to that strange, dark period in Solomon’s career, so strangely dark, and, in contrast with his earlier piety and glory, so deeply sad, that even the author of Chronicles passes it over in silence, and some modern critics pronounce it incredible and psychologically impossible. We find Jewish pride on the one hand, and German rationalism on the other, uniting to deny or else explain away the literal truth of the history. But there the record stands, and will stand, in unpleasant but simple naked truth, whose obvious meaning none can doubt, holding up to the world a most impressive lesson of human frailty, and showing the terrible danger to spiritual life of the vain pomp and glory of the world (1 Corinthians 10:12). In the earlier part of his reign Solomon was rich towards God; but later he multiplied to himself gold and silver, horses and chariots, wives and concubines. In seeking to surpass the magnificence and glory of the kings of the nations, he fell even lower than they all; for better are they who never knew the way of truth, than he who, having been blessed with superior light from God, turns away and runs headlong into a foul idolatry. Solomon’s fall was no sudden apostasy, and doubtless many a deep and wearing heart-struggle did he pass through ere the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, finally gained over him the mastery. We infer from the warnings against transgression contained in the Divine communication of chap 1 Kings 9:6, that already the Lord saw in him tendencies that threatened danger; and we suppose that these tendencies grew stronger and stronger until they resulted in the dark and fatal apostasy which this chapter unfolds to us. (Compare Nehemiah 13:26).—Whedon.
Here we see plainly how a godly man may gradually fall into sin. He first allows himself too much liberty. He ventures into danger, and then perishes therein. He who scorns danger, who by marriage and by a wilful intrusion upon certain positions exposes himself to it, or who ever ventures in his daily course too much into the world, under the pretext of liberty; he who indulges in the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, instead of enjoying with gratitude and moderation the gifts of God, such an one becomes the slave of sin, and falls under the wrath of God. The heart is first inclined, then wanders upon evil paths, and at last does openly what is displeasing to the Lord. At first we permit in others, through complaisance, sin, which we could and should have checked, and thus we actually assist ourselves to sin. Still we preserve our appearance of wisdom and godliness, and will not have it supposed that we have entirely deserted the Lord. But he whose heart is not wholly with the Lord his God follows Him not at all; he who follows Him not wholly, follows Him not at all.
—The example given by the Bible in the case of Solomon. I. What it teaches.
1. That for the sinful human heart, a constant outward prosperity is allied to spiritual dangers (Matthew 16:26). Thus it is that trial and sorrow are often blessings for time and eternity (Hebrews 12:6-12).
2. That the most abundant knowledge, the highest education and wisdom, are no protection against moral and religious shortcomings. Wine and women make foolish the wise man. Says the proverb, no wise man commits a little folly. II. How it warns us.
1. To watch. If a Solomon can fall, a Solomon brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and walking in the ways of God, in old age, a Solomon the wisest man of his time, how necessary is it for us all to watch! Without watching, the greatest wisdom may become foolishness, and the highest spiritual condition may end in the wrath and judgments of God.
2. To pray. In the great prosperity and delight of this life, Solomon forgot prayer, which he had so well practised in earlier years (chap. 3 and 8). His wives did not elevate his heart, they debased it. Prayer alone holds watch, and is therefore most necessary in prosperity and success.—Lange.
—The vanity and insecurity of human greatness.
1. Exemplified in all ages.
2. Should moderate human ambition.
3. Should beget a constant self-vigilance.
4. Should lead man to aim at accomplishing the highest moral good.
5. Should foster complete reliance on God.
—It is sad to turn from the contemplation of the greatness of Solomon’s wisdom to the mournful reality of his end. But the thought of God flooding the soul of man must always be transcendently more grand than the life lived by man. So it was with Solomon, and so it must ever be. As perhaps chief among the causes which led to his downfall may be mentioned polygamy. Like David, he had his “burst of great heart,” but, like David also, he had his “slips in sensual mire.” A loose morality led to looseness in religion. The commandments of Jehovah, broken in regard to moral conduct, were also broken in regard to religious faith. Under the name of liberty, licence became the rule. The sweet grace of toleration, so invaluable a possession in itself, was profaned; and tolerant men, as they have often been before and since, were made half ashamed of a creed that could lead to such practices as Solomon encouraged. There arose two parties among his subjects—the one favouring his easy, tolerant sympathy of all religious beliefs, and only, probably, too willing to taste some of their sensuous fruits; the other keeping strong by the laws of their early religion, and resolutely opposed to innovations which they saw, under their very eyes, leading to such disastrous and ruinous consequences. The murmurs of discontent grew loud and frequent. The old tribal jealousies, which had been stilled for a time, showed that their fires were only smouldering. There were other agencies at work which helped to fan the flames of discontent. The burdens laid upon the Israelites and the taxes exacted from them were by no means light. We have seen how many of them were taken from their homes and pressed into service at the building of the temple. The obligations of the king were so great that he had to appoint officers over special districts to levy money for his use. It was often exacted in the spirit of the insolence of office. Manliness and independence could not long brook such treatment.—The absence of the prophetical order at the court of Solomon is very striking, and is, no doubt, a marked cause of his downfall. It might appear that in the person of Solomon the offices of king and prophet were fitly joined together; and so, for a time, they might have been, had Solomon only kept a perfect ideal before him. This he could not do; and neither the monarchy nor the prophetic office were at this time ripe for such a union. Only a perfect religion could produce a perfect prophet; and the monarchy was far from being in the position of producing a perfect king. As it was, the time soon arrived for the representatives of the old order to raise their voice on high. Thus arose Ahijah, Shemaiah, and Iddo, stung into speech by the conviction that the monarchy in Israel, by its narrow aims, was degenerating into an ascendency and violence which endangered the theocracy itself, and with it the sacred and inviolable basis of Israel’s whole existence.—(The Quiver for 1875).
1 Kings 11:1-2. This “but” is a danger-signal to warn us against—
1. Disobedience of the Divine commands.
2. Evil companionships. We are reminded of St. Paul’s solemn admonition: “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Solomon’s intercourse with these idolatrous nations led to his adopting their corrupt worship and customs. Every true Christian must be a nonconformist: “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). The service of God admits of no compromise. We cannot serve God and Mammon.
The friendship of the world is enmity against God. A distinct line of division must be drawn and maintained between the Church and the world. They are at deadly feud against each other: there can be no truce between them. “There are your foes,” said a general, as he led on his men to the attack; “kill them, or they’ll kill you.” We must not allow our hearts to be turned away from Christ to worldliness, like Demas. The world is not to be converted by unholy alliances with the enemies of God, but is to be conquered by His Word and Spirit.
1 Kings 11:1-3. The wise fool. We have seen many strange sights in our time—many horrible sights, but none so strange, none so horrible, as that of a wise man making himself a fool. Solomon did that, and he was a wise man, even the wisest of men. If the deep sagacity of Solomon, if his keen discernment, if his strong reason, if his profound knowledge of human life and character, if even his intimate acquaintance with the law and counsels of the Lord, did not preserve his name from that stamp of foolishness which we find impressed upon so many of the great names and great acts of men, who is there that can hope to stand? Not one, as of himself, but there is without us and above us a power that can exalt even the lowly to high things, and can sustain them in all true wisdom so long as they rest upon it; instead of that, the light which shines upon their path and glorifies their way, shines out of themselves and not into them. Solomon was wise; Solomon was foolish. Strange contrast and contradiction of terms! Yet it does not astonish. It may astonish angels, but not us. We are used to this kind of experience. We see men who are foolish without being wise; but we see not one who is wise without being also foolish. Foolishness, which every man certainly has in his nature; wisdom, if he has it, is a gift bestowed on him—bestowed as freely upon him as it was upon Solomon. The wisdom does not suppress or drive out the foolishness, but is a weapon, it may be a staff, or it may be a glittering sword given into his hands to fight against it, to keep it under; a weapon to be used with daily and ever-watchful vigilance, and not to rest idly in the scabbard. This was king Solomon’s fault. Having been victor in many a deadly fray, until victory became easy and habitual, he forgot that the enemy of his greatness and peace still lived—was not mortally wounded—did not even sleep. He suffered his weapon to rest until its keen edge was corroded, until it clung in rust to the scabbard, and could not be drawn forth.—Kitto.
—It was the charge of God to the kings of Israel that they should not multiply wives. Solomon had gone beyond the stakes of the law, and now is ready to lose himself amongst a thousand bedfellows. Whose lays the reins on the neck of his carnal appetite, can promise where he will rest. O Solomon! where was thy wisdom, while thine affections run away with thee into so wild a voluptuousness? What boots it thee to discourse of all things, while thou misknowest thyself? The perfections of speculation do not argue the inward power of self-government; the eye may be clear, while the hand is palsied. It is not so much to be heeded how the soul is informed, as how it is disciplined: the light of knowledge doth well, but the due order of the affections doth better. Never any mere man, since the first, knew so much as Solomon; many that have known less have had more command of themselves. A competent estate well husbanded is better than a vast patrimony neglected. There can be no safety to that soul where is not a strait curb upon our desires. If our lusts be not held under as slaves, they will rule as tyrants. Had Solomon done this, delicacy and lawless greatness had not led him into these bogs of intemperance.—Bp. Hall.
1 Kings 11:3-4. These wives and concubines were introduced to add to the splendour and gaiety of the court. The love of display is destructive of Christian simplicity. It has ruined many by a silly desire to vie with their wealthy neighbours.
1. It has weaned mens’ hearts from Christ and His people.
2. Ruined many families.
3. Swollen the list of commercial failures.
4. Drawn away its victims into wicked associations and pursuits. Fashion is the modern Moloch, whose worshippers are legion. How true is it that:
“Gold glitters most where virtue shines no more,
As stars from absent suns have leave to shine.”
David, with all his faults, never tolerated idolatry during his reign; hence he is called “The man after God’s own heart.”
1 Kings 11:1-4. Denial of the existence of marriage as a divine ordinance is the source of the greatest and weightiest evils. Solomon sinned in this wise—that, contrary to the law, he not only took to himself many wives, but foreign—i.e., heathen—wives. Not without danger is it that a man takes a wife who is not of his own religion (1 Corinthians 7:19). Lust of the eyes and the pride of life drowse the soul, and cripple the will, gradually and imperceptibly influence the heart, so that it loses all sense of holy and earnest things, and all pleasure therein, and becomes stupid and indifferent to everything divine and noble. A prince who allows himself to be advised and led by women in the affairs of his government, instead of guiding himself by the unchangeable law of God, destroys the prosperity of himself and his kingdom. Confidential intercourse and intimacy with those who know nothing of the living God and of His word, but rather resist Him—those who well know how to flatter—this is a most perilous position for a God-fearing heart (Ecclesiastes 7:27).—Lange.
1 Kings 11:1. Wasted love.—
1. Love is wasted when it is placed on an unworthy object.
2. When it is not properly concentrated—a multiplicity of interests weaken its power, as the many-pointed rock breaks up the force of the wave.
3. When it is sinful in its tendency.
4. When it weans the heart from God.
5. Is supremely ridiculous and offensive in old age.
1 Kings 11:3. Woman was first given to man for a comforter, and not for a counsellor, much less for a controller and director; and, therefore, in the first sentence against men this cause is expressed—“Because thou obeyedst the voice of thy wife.”
1 Kings 11:4. What sight on earth more sad than the disgraceful fall of an old man whose youth had been devout and promising and his manhood noble? Well did Solon, the Athenian, insist that no man should be counted blessed until he had nobly ended a happy, noble life.
—Solomon was the less to be excused because his soul had had so long communion with God and experience of His goodness; as also because his body was declining, so that his lust was the more monstrous, like as it is to behold green apples on a tree in winter. Augustine inveighed against those, and worthily, who consecrate the flower of their youth to the devil, and reserve for God the dregs of their old age. Solomon offended on the contrary part. Let every man look to what Lord he dedicateth both his youth and his age; for it sometimes falleth out that Satan preyeth upon those when old, whom he could not prevail with when young; and it is not for nothing that the heathen sages say that old age is to be feared as that which cometh not alone, but is itself a disease, and bringeth with it not a few diseases both of body and mind.—Trapp.
—Even as in youth exuberance of life and strength opens the door to temptation, so likewise does the weakness of old age; but an old grey-haired sinner is much more abominable in the sight of the Lord than a youth. The sole condition under which, amid his natural weakness, an old man can retain his spiritual strength and guard his honour, is this—that his heart is purely fixed on God. This condition failing, let a man’s whole life be influenced by the opinions of others—influenced by such opinions without sharing them, yet still without combating them, then complete wantonness will take possession of his old age.—Lange.
—The ways of youth are steep and slippery, wherein as it is easy to fall, so it is commonly relieved with pity; but the wanton inordinations of age are not more unseasonable than odious. Yet, behold, Solomon’s younger years were studious and innocent: his overhasted age was licentious and misgoverned. If any age can secure us from the danger of a spiritual fall, it is our last; and if any man’s old age might secure him, it was Solomon’s, the beloved of God, the oracle, the miracle of wisdom. The blossoms of so hopeful a Spring should have yielded a goodly and pleasant fruit in the Autumn of age. Yet, behold even Solomon’s old age vicious. There is no time wherein we can be safe while we carry this body of sin about us. Youth is impetuous, mid-age is stubborn, old age weak, all dangerous. Say not now—“The fury of my youthful flash is over, I shall henceforth find my heart calm and impregnable,” while thou seest old Solomon doating upon his concubines, yea, upon their idolatry.—Bp. Hall.
—The fall of an old tree, or of some noble old ruin, is beheld with some regret, but it occasions no rending of heart. It was their doom. Age ripened them but for their fall; and we wondered more that they stood so long, than that they fell so soon. But man is expected to ripen in moral and religious strength—to harden into rock-like fixedness as his age increases. He whom we have looked up to so long, he whose words were wise as oracles, and from whose lips we had so long gathered wisdom, he who had borne noble testimonies for the truth, he who had laboured for the glory of God, who had withstood many storms of human passion and many temptations of human glory, and in whose capacious mind are garnered up the fruits of a life’s knowledge and experience—for such a man to fall from his high place, fills the most firm of heart with dread, and makes the moral universe tremble. It is altogether terrible. It is a calamity to mankind; it is more than that: it is a shame, a wrong, and a dishonour. The righteous hide their heads; and the perverse exult:—hell laughs.—Kitto.
—Old age.
1. Is encumbered with many frailties.
2. Has its peculiar temptations.
3. Is not exempt from the possibility of great crimes.
4. Is often a pitiable contrast to the promise and opportunity of youth.
5. Should be rich in valuable experiences.
6. Is less excusable in yielding to the force of evil passions.
—“His heart was not perfect with the Lord.” The heart the central force of the religious life.
1. The reason may be convinced when the heart is untouched.
2. The truth that moves us most is that which we feel.
3. The highest feeling is the highest reason.
4. If the heart is wrong towards God, all is wrong.
5. He who is unfaithful towards God, is not to be trusted by his fellow-men.
6. The outer evidence of a perfect heart is a loving, obedient life.
1 Kings 11:5-8. Although Solomon did not himself practise idolatry, he permitted and encouraged it in others; but the receiver is as bad as the thief. That is the curse resting upon sin, that the very means by which men seek to raise themselves in the world’s estimation become the very means for their destruction. By perverted compliance and long toleration Solomon brought ruin and destruction upon himself and his people for centuries to come. All indulgence which is grounded upon indifference to truth, or founded upon lukewarmness, is not virtue, but a heavy sin before God, how much so ever it may resemble freedom and enlightenment. In a well-ordered church and state establishment, neither bigotry nor superstition should have equal rights with faith and truth. Where the gate is open to them, or where they are patronized instead of being resisted, then both people and kingdom are going to meet their ruin.—Lange.
—The evil results of an unholy alliance.
1. Idolatry was allowed.
2. It became the fashion.
3. It divided the king’s heart.
4. He patronized it.
5. State provision was made for it. We learn from this history—
1. Jehovah is a jealous God, and will tolerate no rivals.
2. The Divine commands are imperial, and must take precedence of all human laws.
3. The impossibility of harmonizing Christianity and heathenism. In ancient times this led to the worship of Baalim and other idols-deities, with their cruel orgies and barbarous rites. A later result has been the birth of Popery, which inculcates image cultus in defiance of the Divine commands, turns the simple spiritual worship of God into an elaborate heathenish ritual, proclaims the Pope infallible, and exalts the Virgin Mary to a higher dignity than the Saviour Himself. Religion demands decision, and admits of no compromise.
1 Kings 11:7-8. He that built a Temple to the living God, for himself and Israel, in Zion, built a Temple to Chemosh in the Mount of Scandal, for his mistresses of Moab, in the very face of God’s house. No hill about Jerusalem was free from a chapel of devils. Each of his dames had their puppets, their altars, their incense Because Solomon feeds them in their superstition, he draws the sin home to himself, and is branded for what he should have forbidden. Even our very permission appropriates crimes to us. We need no more guiltiness of any sin than our willing toleration. Who can but yearn and fear to see the woful wreck of so rich and goodly a vessel? O Solomon! wert thou not he whose younger years God honoured with a message and style of love; to whom God twice appeared, and in a gracious vision renewed the covenant of his favour; whom he singled out from all the generation of men to be the founder of that glorious temple which was no less clearly the type of heaven, than thou wert of Christ, the Son of the ever living God? Wert not thou that deep sea of wisdom, which God ordained to send forth rivers and fountains of all divine and human knowledge to all nations? Wert not thou one of those select secretaries, whose hand it pleased the Almighty to employ in three pieces of the Divine monuments of Sacred Scriptures? Which of us dares ever hope to aspire unto thy graces? Which of us can promise to secure ourselves from thy ruins? We fall, O God, we fall to the lowest hell, if thou prevent us not, if thou sustain us not!—Bp. Hall.
—So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!
Of all we loved and honoured, nought
Save power remains;
A fallen angel’s pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from these great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, and honour dies,
The man is dead.
Then pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward with averted gaze,
And hide the shame.—Whittier.