- 70-
CHAPTER 9 : Solomon’s court — his polygamy — spread of foreign
ideas in the country — imitation of foreign manners — growing luxury —
Solomon’s spiritual decline — judgment predicted — Solomon’s enemies:
Hadad, Rezon, Jeroboam — causes of popular discontent — Ahijah’s
prediction of the disruption — Jeroboam’s rebellion and flight into egypt
— death of Solomon. 1 KINGS 11
GREATER contrast could scarcely be imagined than that between the state of
Solomon's court and of the country generally, and the directions and restrictions laid
down in Deuteronomy 17:16, 17 for the regulation of the Jewish monarchy. The first
and most prominent circumstance which here presents itself to the mind, is the direct
contravention of the Divine command as regarded the number of "princesses" and
concubines which formed the harem of Solomon.^158 Granting that the notice in Cant.
- 8 affords reason for believing that the numerals in 1 Kings 11:3 may have been due
to a mistake on the part of a copyist, still the sacred narrative expressly states, that the
polygamy of Solomon, and especially his alliances with nations excluded from
intermarriage with Israel,^159 was the occasion, if not the cause, of his later sin and
punishment.
While on this subject we may go back a step further, and mark (with Ewald) what sad
consequences the infringement of the primitive Divine order in regard to marriage
wrought throughout the history of Israel. It is undoubtedly to polygamy that we have to
trace the troubles in the family of David; and to the same cause were due many of those
which came on David's successors. If Moses was obliged to tolerate the infringement
of the original institution of God, "the hardness of heart" which had necessitated it
brought its own punishment, especially when the offender was an Eastern king. Thus
the sin of the people, embodied, as it were, in the person of their representative, carried
national judgment as its consequence.
But the elements which caused the fall of Solomon lay deeper than polygamy. Indeed,
the latter was among the effects, as well as one of the further causes of his spiritual
decline. First among these elements of evil at work, we reckon the growing luxury of
the court. The whole atmosphere around, so to speak, was different from what it had
been in the primitive times which preceded the reign of Solomon, and still more from
the ideal of monarchy as sketched in the Book of Deuteronomy. Everything had
become un-Jewish, foreign, purely Asiatic. Closely connected with this was the evident
desire to emulate, and even outdo neighboring nations. Such wisdom, such splendor,
such riches, and finally, such luxury, and such a court were not to be found elsewhere,
as in the kingdom of which Jerusalem was the capital. An ominous beginning this of
that long course of Jewish pride and self-exaltation which led to such fearful
consequences. It is to this desire of surpassing other Eastern courts that the size of
(^)