Chapter 11
BUT. King Solomon loved many foreign women. (I wonder if "foreign" is the same word translated for strange so many times in Proverbs? Again, I wonder if those proverbs so negative about women in Proverbs were mostly written after God told Solomon he was going to lose everything? Or maybe he just had a lot of trouble with females because he foolishly kept so stinking many of them around!) Some of these women were not only foreign, they were from nations that God had forbidden Israel to intermarry with. For the very reason that Solomon succumbed to! To be so wise, he must have stubbornly, rebelliously, gone ahead on. He ignored the consequences.)
They turned his heart from God. This verse spells it out in so many words:
4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. [1Ki 11:4 ESV]
Even the wisest of all lost his zeal for God because of his desire to please his wives, to keep them happy.
He "went after" Ashtoreth of the Sidonians, Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites, and built a high place for Chemosh of the Moabites, and for Molech of Ammon. He helped all his foreign wives worship their own gods.
2021 - That high place for those abominable idols was built "on the mountain east of Jerusalem". This about has to be the Mount of Olives. What horror for those things to have been overlooking the city, visible from most of the city. The sun came up behind them, the sun lit them up as it went down in the west. They would have drawn all eyes to them, and they were built on a higher hill than the Temple. No wonder God was so angry.
God is angry and promises to give Solomon's kingdom to his servant - but not until after Solomon's son is King. Perhaps this is where some of the things in Ecclesiastes come from - like accumulating wealth only for whomever inherits it. Nothing you build stays with you. The punishment from God is a divided kingdom. Not because the nation has rebelled, but because the King rebelled. The punishment must have been devastating for someone as wise as Solomon. The longer he lived, the worse that punishment would have been.
2021 - Solomon is the one who sinned. Yet it is not Solomon who will suffer for this. The kingdom is not yanked away from Solomon, it is yanked away from his son. Solomon's posterity suffers though Solomon himself does not. And this was for the sake of David his father. God loved David so much that he did not punish the sin of David's son directly. The good that David did accrued to his son - to the next generation. But when that next generation sinned, that King's son - Solomon's son - bore the punishment. We see this many times in the Bible. Hezekiah comes to mind. God tells Hezekiah that bad things are coming - after he is dead. It is Hezekiah's son that is hit with the direct punishment. Why is this? How can this principle be stated? How is this fair? It must be, since it is God who repeatedly applies this principle, but how are we to understand it? Does it only apply to kings? This principle is repeated by the prophet Ahijah in vs. 34 of this chapter.
God raises up enemies where before even Solomon's enemies were at peace with him. Hadad, who survived when Joab killed every male in Edom. Also Rezon, who was a raider. He "abhorred" Israel. (2021 - Was this the place where David did the three lines and killed two of the lines and spared the third? MSB says the story referenced is in 2Sam 8:13, 14, and 1Chr 18:12, 13. This is not about the three lines. There is in fact not very much information about these events.)
Last, Solomon's servant Jeroboam rebels. A servant who becomes a King. The prophet Ahijah foretells it. And there is that passage in Ecc where Solomon says it is awful when servants become kings and nobles become slaves. Likely this is what he was talking about - or at least the prophecy of this was on his mind.
Jeroboam is promised an enduring kingdom if he will serve God only. A house like that promised to David. (2021 - This is pretty amazing. Why would God make such a promise to a slave out of nowhere, coming to power only because of the rebellion of the true King?) Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam, but he flees to Egypt. A common place of refuge it seems.
Solomon dies. His son Rehoboam reigns in his place.
2025 - For all his wisdom, Solomon does not appear to have found a way to extend his life. Perhaps that is always and only in God's hands. Or perhaps, seeing Solomon's conclusion in Ecclesiastes that all is vanity, his wisdom told him that longer life just meant more vanity, more sadness, more regret, and so he preferred NOT to live longer.