Solomon
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Solomon ruled faithfully over God’s kingdom. (1 Kings 3, 6)
At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask. What should I give you?”
And Solomon replied, “You have shown great and faithful love to your servant, my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, righteousness, and integrity. You have continued this great and faithful love for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today.
“Lord my God, you have now made your servant king in my father David’s place. Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership. Your servant is among your people you have chosen, a people too many to be numbered or counted. So give your servant a receptive heart to judge your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of yours?”
Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this. So God said to him, “Because you have requested this and did not ask for long life or riches for yourself, or the death of your enemies, but you asked discernment for yourself to administer justice, I will therefore do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before and never will be again. In addition, I will give you what you did not ask for: both riches and honor, so that no king will be your equal during your entire life. If you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands just as your father David did, I will give you a long life.”
And the king said, “Cut the living boy in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”
But the other one said, “He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two!”
The king responded, “Give the living baby to the first woman, and don’t kill him. She is his mother.” All Israel heard about the judgment the king had given, and they stood in awe of the king because they saw that God’s wisdom was in him to carry out justice.
Solomon began to build the temple for the Lord in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month. The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. The portico in front of the temple sanctuary was thirty feet long extending across the temple’s width, and fifteen feet deep in front of the temple. He also made windows with beveled frames for the temple.
Solomon also built up his own kingdom. (1 Kings 3:1, 4:1-34, 7:1-8, 10:14-29)
Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter. Solomon brought her to the city of David until he finished building his palace, the Lord’s temple, and the wall surrounding Jerusalem.
King Solomon reigned over all Israel, and these were his officials:
Azariah son of Zadok, priest;
Elihoreph and Ahijah the sons of Shisha, secretaries;
Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud, court historian;
Benaiah son of Jehoiada, in charge of the army;
Zadok and Abiathar, priests;
Azariah son of Nathan, in charge of the deputies;
Zabud son of Nathan, a priest and adviser to the king;
Ahishar, in charge of the palace;
and Adoniram son of Abda, in charge of forced labor.
Solomon had twelve deputies for all Israel. They provided food for the king and his household; each one made provision for one month out of the year. These were their names:
Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;
Ben-deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan;
Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (he had Socoh and the whole land of Hepher);
Ben-abinadab, in all Naphath-dor (Taphath daughter of Solomon was his wife);
Baana son of Ahilud, in Taanach, Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the other side of Jokmeam;
Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (he had the villages of Jair son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars);
Ahinadab son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;
Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he also had married a daughter of Solomon—Basemath);
Baana son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth;
Jehoshaphat son of Paruah, in Issachar;
Shimei son of Ela, in Benjamin;
Geber son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of King Sihon of the Amorites and of King Og of Bashan.
There was one deputy in the land of Judah.
Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing. Solomon ruled all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. They offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
Solomon’s provisions for one day were 180 bushels of fine flour and 360 bushels of meal, ten fattened cattle, twenty range cattle, and a hundred sheep and goats, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and pen-fed poultry, for he had dominion over everything west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza and over all the kings west of the Euphrates. He had peace on all his surrounding borders. Throughout Solomon’s reign, Judah and Israel lived in safety from Dan to Beer-sheba, each person under his own vine and his own fig tree. Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. Each of those deputies for a month in turn provided food for King Solomon and for everyone who came to King Solomon’s table. They neglected nothing. Each man brought the barley and the straw for the chariot teams and the other horses to the required place according to his assignment.
God gave Solomon wisdom, very great insight, and understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone—wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, sons of Mahol. His reputation extended to all the surrounding nations.
Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005. He spoke about trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall. He also spoke about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. Emissaries of all peoples, sent by every king on earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom.
Solomon completed his entire palace complex after thirteen years of construction. He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was one hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high on four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams on top of the pillars. It was paneled above with cedar at the top of the chambers that rested on forty-five pillars, fifteen per row. There were three rows of window frames, facing each other in three tiers. All the doors and doorposts had rectangular frames, the openings facing each other in three tiers. He made the hall of pillars seventy-five feet long and forty-five feet wide. A portico was in front of the pillars, and a canopy with pillars was in front of them. He made the Hall of the Throne where he would judge—the Hall of Judgment. It was paneled with cedar from the floor to the rafters. Solomon’s own palace where he would live, in the other courtyard behind the hall, was of similar construction. And he made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, his wife.
The weight of gold that came to Solomon annually was twenty-five tons, besides what came from merchants, traders’ merchandise, and all the Arabian kings and governors of the land.
King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; fifteen pounds of gold went into each shield. He made three hundred small shields of hammered gold; nearly four pounds of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.
The king also made a large ivory throne and overlaid it with fine gold. The throne had six steps; there was a rounded top at the back of the throne, armrests on either side of the seat, and two lions standing beside the armrests. Twelve lions were standing there on the six steps, one at each end. Nothing like it had ever been made in any other kingdom.
All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were gold, and all the utensils of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver, since it was considered as nothing in Solomon’s time, for the king had ships of Tarshish at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the world in riches and in wisdom. The whole world wanted an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart. Every man would bring his annual tribute: items of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, and horses and mules.
Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen and stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as abundant as sycamore in the Judean foothills. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and Kue. The king’s traders bought them from Kue at the going price. A chariot was imported from Egypt for fifteen pounds of silver, and a horse for four pounds. In the same way, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram through their agents.
God honored and rewarded Solomon’s efforts, but he expected continued faithfulness. (1 Kings 8:10-13, 9:1-9)
When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the Lord’s temple, and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
Then Solomon said:
The Lord said that he would dwell in total darkness.
I have indeed built an exalted temple for you,
a place for your dwelling forever.
When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him:
I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.
As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.
If you or your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commands—my statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and bow in worship to them, I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for my name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples. Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will scoff. They will say, “Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?” Then they will say, “Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They held on to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.”
When Solomon was forced to choose, he clung to his own kingdom instead of God’s. (1 Kings 11:1-8)
King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, and they must not intermarry with you, because they will turn your heart away to follow their gods.” To these women Solomon was deeply attached in love. He had seven hundred wives who were princesses and three hundred who were concubines, and they turned his heart away.
When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and unlike his father David, he did not remain loyal to the Lord.
At that time, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abhorrent idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites, on the hill across from Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who were burning incense and offering sacrifices to their gods.
God withdrew his support for Solomon’s kingdom, and it began to crumble around him. (1 Kings 11:9-26)
The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. He had commanded him about this, so that he would not follow other gods, but Solomon did not do what the Lord had commanded.
Then the Lord said to Solomon, “Since you have done this and did not keep my covenant and my statutes, which I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. However, I will not do it during your lifetime for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of your son’s hand. Yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem that I chose.”
So the Lord raised up Hadad the Edomite as an enemy against Solomon. He was of the royal family in Edom. Earlier, when David was in Edom, Joab, the commander of the army, had gone to bury the dead and had struck down every male in Edom. For Joab and all Israel had remained there six months, until he had killed every male in Edom. Hadad fled to Egypt, along with some Edomites from his father’s servants. At the time Hadad was a small boy. Hadad and his men set out from Midian and went to Paran. They took men with them from Paran and went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house, ordered that he be given food, and gave him land. Pharaoh liked Hadad so much that he gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes. Tahpenes’s sister gave birth to Hadad’s son Genubath. Tahpenes herself weaned him in Pharaoh’s palace, and Genubath lived there along with Pharaoh’s sons.
When Hadad heard in Egypt that David rested with his ancestors and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me leave, so I may go to my own country.”
But Pharaoh asked him, “What do you lack here with me for you to want to go back to your own country?”
“Nothing,” he replied, “but please let me leave.”
God raised up Rezon son of Eliada as an enemy against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master King Hadadezer of Zobah and gathered men to himself. He became leader of a raiding party when David killed the Zobaites. He went to Damascus, lived there, and became king in Damascus. Rezon was Israel’s enemy throughout Solomon’s reign, adding to the trouble Hadad had caused. He reigned over Aram and loathed Israel.
Now Solomon’s servant, Jeroboam son of Nebat, was an Ephraimite from Zeredah. His widowed mother’s name was Zeruah. Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon,
The Kingdom of Heaven
The Kingdom of Heaven
When you build God’s kingdom and our own, you will eventually have to choose. (Matthew 6:24, 19:21-24)
“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
“If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard that, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is the only kingdom that truly lasts. (Matthew 6:19-21)
“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”
The Kingdom of Heaven is worth every sacrifice. (Matthew 13:44-46)
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.