The peacemaker (1 Kings 3:1a)

Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh’s daughter; then he brought her to the City of David...

When Solomon ascended the throne, the people of Israel soon learned that he was not another David. He was a scholar, not a soldier, a man more interested in erecting buildings than fighting battles. David enjoyed the simple life of a shepherd, but Solomon chose to live in luxury.

I. The kingdom was at peace with its neighbors.

A. Solomon’s name comes from the Hebrew word shalom which means “peace”

His father, David, had risked his life on the battlefield to defeat enemy nations and claim their lands for Israel, but Solomon took a different approach to international diplomacy. He made treaties with other rulers by marrying their daughters, which helps to explain why he had seven hundred wives who were princesses, as well as three hundred concubines.

It appears that Solomon entered into treaty arrangements with every petty ruler who had a marriageable daughter! Yet Moses in the law warned the Jewish kings not to multiply wives (Deut. 17:14–17).

B. Solomon’s first bride after he became king.

His first bride after he became king was the daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt, Israel’s old enemy. This alliance indicates that Egypt had slipped much lower on the international scene and that Israel was now much higher, because Egyptian rulers didn’t give their daughters in marriage to the rulers of other nations.

It’s significant that Solomon didn’t put his Egyptian wife into the royal palace where David had lived, because it was near the Ark of the Covenant, but housed her in another place until her own palace was completed. He spent seven years building the temple of God but thirteen years building his own palace.

II. Before Solomon, Israel’s government was fairly informal.

A. Saul and David’s kingdoms were focus on waging war.

Solomon was determined to accomplish normal peacetime goals, such as trading and building. Thus, he divided Israel into twelve districts, each of which was ruled by a governor. The governors collected taxes in their districts that went to support a central government.

Solomon’s complex system of treaties cut at the very heart of Israel’s unique position as the people of God among the nations of the world. They were God’s holy people, a chosen people among whom the Lord himself dwelt. God had made no covenants with the Gentile nations, nor had He given them His Word, His sanctuary, or His holy priesthood. God said to the Jews, “I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from other people.”

B. Solomon’s court needed vast sums to support its many interests.

Besides the king, his harem, and his officials, there were chariot horses and regular army horses to feed. Too, the nation’s population grew, which necessitated further administrative costs.

Since funds could not be gained through warfare, taxes and trade had to provide all the government’s income. Only an extraordinarily wise king could fund all these various interests, and even this type of ruler could not do so for an indefinite period of time.

III. The kingdom of Israel prospered only as she trusted God and obeyed the terms of His covenant.

A. The Lord placed Israel among the Gentile nations to be a witness to them of the true and living God.

If Israel had continued to be faithful to the terms of God’s covenant, the Lord would have blessed them and used them as an “object lesson” to the pagan nations around them. Instead, Israel imitated the Gentiles, worshiped their idols, and abandoned their witness to the true God.

For that reason, God had to chasten them and then send them into captivity in Babylon. God wanted Israel to be the “head” of the nations, but because of her compromise, she became the “tail”. Solomon may have thought he was making political progress by bringing Israel into the family of nations, but the consequence was really spiritual regress. Solomon also entered into lucrative trade agreements with other nations (10:1–15, 22), and the nation prospered; but the price he paid was too high.

B. God wanted to bless Israel

If they were true to the Lord, He promised to give them all they needed, to protect them from their enemies, and to bless their labors. But from the very beginning of the Jewish monarchy, Israel’s leaders made it clear that they wanted to be “like the other nations” and Solomon led them closer to that goal.

Ultimately, Solomon married many pagan wives and began to worship their false gods, and the Lord had to chasten him.