1 Kings 11:41-43 “Solomon Is Dead, Long Live Solomon”
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1 Kings 11:41-43 “Solomon is Dead, Long Live Solomon” 1 Kings 11:40 Solomon therefore sought to kill Jeroboam. But Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. • So Solomon, who starts as a very wise ruler ends his career becoming a Saul – a selfish man bent on destroying the man God has given the throne to. • Solomon would not survive to see the outcome of his selfishness – most do not. Fleeing to Egypt: Shishak, king of Egypt [Shishak is beyond doubt the Sheshonk I. of the monuments, and is the first of the Pharaohs who can be identified with certainty (see Dict. Bib. iii. p. 1288). • The date of his accession appears to be somewhere between 988 and 980 B.C. • His reception of Jeroboam almost proves that there has been a change of dynasty, and that the new Pharaoh was no friend to Solomon], and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. [Compare again Matt. 2:15.] 1 41 As for the other events of Solomon’s reign—all he did and the wisdom he displayed — are they not written in the book of the annals of Solomon? • CALMET supposes him to have been 18 years old when he came to the throne, and 58 when he died, ch. 2:11. 2 2 Chronicles 9:29–30 29 Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat? 30 Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. 42 Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. • The number forty was the traditional number used to refer to one generation. • The number forty is often used in the Old Testament as a round number to indicate a long period of time rather than a precise number of years. o Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years (Deut 2:7; Josh 5:6). o Othniel (Jdg 3:11), o Gideon (Jdg 8:28), o Eli (1 Sam 4:18), o Saul (Acts 13:21), o David (2 Sam 5:4; 1 Kgs 2:11), and 1 H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., 1 Kings, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 238. 2 B. Blayney, Thomas Scott, and R.A. Torrey with John Canne, Browne, The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009), 242. 1 Kings 11:41-43 Solomon’s Death 1 o Joash (2 Kgs 12:1) are all said to have ruled for forty years. o The Philistines ruled Israel for forty years (Jdg 13:1), and o God promised to punish Egypt for forty years (Ezek 29:11–12). 3 • Generation of 40 years? Matthew 24:33–35 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. 43 Then he rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king. • Only three children are mentioned in Scripture from his 1000 wives and concubines o It is interesting that Psalm 127 is attributed to Solomon – and his thought is that many children are a reward from the Lord. Psalm 127 A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon. 1 Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. 2 It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep. 3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate. • One son – and he the product of paganism – the first Pagan King of Israel. 1 Kings 14:21 And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. He reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. • 2 Daughters: 1 Kings 4:11 Ben-Abinadab, in all the regions of Dor; he had Taphath the daughter of Solomon as wife; 1 Kings 4:15 Ahimaaz, in Naphtali; he also took Basemath the daughter of Solomon as wife; 3 Donald Slager, “Preface,” in A Handbook on 1 & 2 Kings, ed. Paul Clarke et al., vol. 1–2, United Bible Societies’ Handbooks (New York: United Bible Societies, 2008), 387. Rehoboam, King of Judah (931-914 BC) Ecclesiastes 2:17–23 17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. 18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man (Rehoboam) who will come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. 21 For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? 23 For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. Rehoboam really thought he was wiser and mightier than his father: Long may Solomon live: • Philosophers in Israel always love to rest upon him and his name, and the halls in the court of the temple, where scholars collected around a teacher of wisdom, were commonly named after Solomon. So again, in the days of the second Jerusalem, the attempt was made with ever increasing boldness to compose books of wisdom under the name or, at all events, under the fame of this great king; and some of the most beautiful of this class have been preserved entire in our Hebrew or Greek Bibles down to the present time. The most universal knowledge of all mysteries, of all worlds and ages and cycles, was then ascribed to him, as we see already in the second century B.C. in the book 1 Kings 11:41-43 Solomon’s Death 3 of Wisdom composed under his name.—It naturally resulted in the latest ages that his name was abused by those who regarded magic and the invocation of demons as wisdom, especially as the wonderful power and glory of this king seemed only explicable by the supposition that they were the result of magic. Even Josephus looked upon a book of magic of this kind as a genuine work of Solomon’s, and he presents some extracts from it which make us little regret its loss. • Such Jewish works of the latest age became a source for Christian writers, especially of the Gnostic schools, and again with renovated zeal Mohammed and his followers drew from them their airy fancies respecting Sulaiman’s magic powers. (See a narrative put together from passages in the Koran and other places in Weil’s Biblischen Legenden der Muselmänner, p. 225–279; cf. Tabari’s Chronicle i. p. 56, Dub.; Jalâl-eldîn’s History of Jerusalem (Reynolds’ Transl. Lond. 1846), pp. 32 sqq., 44 sqq., &c.) • In particular he was represented as possessed of a magic ring, on which the mysterious name of five letters (the Hebrew word for God, Sabaôth) was engraved, and with which he exercised the widest and most marvelous jurisdiction over the spirits. • With the gradual infusion of heathen symbols, names, and fables, the king who had been famous for his knowledge of all kinds of animals and plants, was credited with the power of conversing with birds, beasts, and plants in their own languages, a story resembling those told of heathen sages. (As of Melampus, see Diodor. Sic. Hist. i. 98; of Pythagoras, see Jamblichus, Vit. Pythag. c. xiii. (60–63).) • The representations of the extent of his kingdom were naturally exaggerated in the same way. (Cf. Sibyll. iii. 167–170) — The Ethiopian-Christian kings boasted that they were descended from him,5 and the Gothic sovereigns in Spain asserted that they possessed his golden table. 4 4 Heinrich Ewald, The History of Israel: The Rise and Splendour of the Hebrew Monarchy, ed. J. Estlin Carpenter, Second Edition, vol. 3 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1878), 318–319. .