The Story of King Solomon

The Story of Solomon

1 Kings 1:1-11

Without question, the greatest story in the Bible of someone who sought after the knowledge and wisdom of God and actually received it was King Solomon. God made King Solomon the smartest man to ever live, smarter than any man before him and any man after him. What happened to this man was just about beyond belief.

King David, Solomon’s father, was old and stricken in his years. His life was about to come to an end. One of David's many sons, Adonijah, decided he wanted to be king. Adonijah was not a good man. He tried to steal the throne, knowing David was too weak to resist him. But God had other plans!

King David had never rebuked Adonijah for his bad ways and he grew up spoiled with no respect whatsoever for his father or his position.  Adonijah was very handsome and use to getting his own way, he put himself forward and said, “I will be king.”

He talked to Joab the general of David's army and Abiathar the high priest and they agreed to support him. One day he held a great feast and invited all of his brothers except Solomon, whom David had said would be the next king.

When Nathan the prophet heard about it, he went to Solomon's mother, Bathsheba and said, "Have you heard that Adonijah has made himself king without David our lord knowing anything about it? Go now and go into king David and tell him." So Bathsheba went to David and said, "My lord, you swore by the Lord thy God to me, saying that Solomon your son shall rein after you and shall sit upon your throne, and without your knowledge Adonijah has made himself king. When you die he will kill Solomon and me.”

Nathan the prophet came in while she was still talking and told David the same thing. So David said to Bathsheba, "Today I will make Solomon king as I swore to you that I would." Then Bathsheba bowed her face to the ground, showing reverence to the king, and said, “Let my lord king David live for ever.”

So he called Nathan the prophet, Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the captain of his body guard to him, and said, “Take your lord’s servants with you and have my son Solomon to mount and ride upon my own mule, and take him down to Gihon. There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel.” They did this and many people gathered and shouted, "Long live King Solomon!" And all the people followed him back to the palace, playing pipes and rejoicing so greatly that the ground shook with the sound.

When the people at Adonijah's feast, heard the shouting, they asked, "What is the noise all about?" About that time Jonathan the son of Abiathar came in and Adonijah said, “Come in. A worthy man like yourself must be bringing good news.” “Not at all!” Jonathan answered. “Our lord king David has made Solomon king. Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in front of all the people, and from there they have gone up cheering, and the city resounds with it. That’s the noise you hear.”

He went on to also tell them, “Moreover, Solomon has taken his seat on the royal throne. The royal officials have also come to congratulate our lord King David, saying, ‘May God make Solomon’s name more famous and greater than yours!’ And the king has bowed upon his bed in worship and said, ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has allowed me to see the one given to sit upon my throne today.’”

At this, all of Adonijah’s guests rose in alarm and went on their way quickly. But Adonijah, in fear of Solomon, went and took hold of the horns of the altar. Solomon was told that Adonijah was afraid of him and was clinging to the horns of the altar, saying, “Let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.” Solomon replied, “Tell him if he shows himself to be worthy, not a hair on his head shall fall to the ground, but if evil is found in him, he will die.”

Solomon then sent men to bring Adonijah to him. Adonijah came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon quietly said, “Go home.”

Now the days of David drew near that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, saying: “I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the Lord your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn; that the Lord may fulfill His word which He spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul,’ He said, ‘you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ ”

So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years. Then sat Solomon upon the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was greatly established.

Then Solomon went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices to God. That night God appeared to him in a dream and asked, "What would you like for me to give you?" Solomon answered, "I am just a young man and I don't know how to rule your people. Give me the wisdom that I need to rule them." Then God was pleased and he told Solomon, "Because you have asked for these things and not for things for yourself such as long life, riches, or the death of your enemies. I will make you wiser then any other king, such as was not before you nor will rise up after you. I also will give you the riches and honor that you did not ask for."

So Solomon became the Israelites' wisest king. He wrote many wise sayings called proverbs. He wrote the Song of Solomon, the book of Ecclesiastes, and much of the book of Proverbs.

Solomon showed his wisdom one day when two women came before him with a baby, one of them said, "This woman and I live together in the same house. I had a baby boy and two days later she had a boy too. One day she laid on her son and he died; so she got up in the middle of the night and traded babies while I was asleep. The next morning I thought my child was dead, but when I looked closely, I saw it was not my child," Then the other woman said, "The child that is alive is mine; the dead child is yours." Then they argued in front of the king, so Solomon said, "Each one say's that the child is hers. Bring a sword and cut it in half and give half to each woman." Then the real mother said, "Don't kill the child. Give it to her." But the other woman said, "Cut it in half." And then Solomon said, "Don't kill the child; give it to the first woman. She is the real mother!" And when people heard about Solomon's decision, they knew that God had given him wisdom.

While Solomon was king, he built the temple to replace the tabernacle. It took seven years to build the temple. When they took the Ark of the Covenant inside it, a cloud filled the temple so that the priests could not go in.

When the Queen of Sheba in the south heard of Solomon's wisdom, she came to see him. She brought many rich treasures and he gave her many gifts in return. When she saw how wise he was and all the riches he had, she said, "I heard about you in my country and I came to see for myself. But you are much greater than I was told. Even half of it was not told to me."

King Solomon, however, loved many strange women. He married the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. These all came from the nations in which the Lord commanded the children of Israel not to intermarry with because they would turn their hearts after their gods. Nevertheless Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.

And it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, his heart was not perfect with the Lord as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after the gods of his wives, he built high places, burned incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord was angry with him because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel. Twice the Lord had appeared unto him and commanded that he should not go after other gods, but he kept not the commandments of the Lord.

So the Lord said unto Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.

And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father.

 Solomon’s story could be the story of any of us if we are not careful to persevere in the ways of God. Lust, greed, fascination with the world, these are human problems. Even those close to the Lord, if not careful, can drift away due to worldly preoccupations, bad and ill conceived relationships, career dominance, and bad influences from the TV and Internet. Prayer and Church attendance slip away. Bad moral behavior gets excused, and ever so slightly we turn less to God, and more to the gods of this world.

It is the road that Solomon trod. The great and wise Solomon, once close to God’s heart and preferring nothing of the world to God’s wisdom. But a man who died smothered in wealth, sex and power - a man whose heart turned from God.