Kings 9:26-28; 10:11, 12; 2 Chronicles 8:17, 18; 9:21). This was the
“golden age” of Israel. The royal magnificence and splendour of Solomon’s
court were unrivalled. He had seven hundred wives and three hundred
concubines, an evidence at once of his pride, his wealth, and his sensuality.
The maintenance of his household involved immense expenditure. The
provision required for one day was “thirty measures of fine flour, and
threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the
pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and
fallow-deer, and fatted fowl” (1 Kings 4:22, 23).
Solomon’s reign was not only a period of great material prosperity, but
was equally remarkable for its intellectual activity. He was the leader of his
people also in this uprising amongst them of new intellectual life. “He
spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five.
And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the
hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl,
and of creeping things, and of fishes” (1 Kings 4:32, 33).
His fame was spread abroad through all lands, and men came from far and
near “to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” Among others thus attracted to
Jerusalem was “the queen of the south” (Matthew 12:42), the queen of
Sheba, a country in Arabia Felix. “Deep, indeed, must have been her
yearning, and great his fame, which induced a secluded Arabian queen to
break through the immemorial custom of her dreamy land, and to put forth
the energy required for braving the burdens and perils of so long a journey
across a wilderness. Yet this she undertook, and carried it out with safety.”
(1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chronicles 9:1-12.) She was filled with amazement by
all she saw and heard: “there was no more spirit in her.” After an
interchange of presents she returned to her native land.
But that golden age of Jewish history passed away. The bright day of
Solomon’s glory ended in clouds and darkness. His decline and fall from
his high estate is a sad record. Chief among the causes of his decline were
his polygamy and his great wealth. “As he grew older he spent more of his
time among his favourites. The idle king living among these idle women, for
1,000 women, with all their idle and mischievous attendants, filled the
palaces and pleasure-houses which he had built (1 Kings 11:3), learned
first to tolerate and then to imitate their heathenish ways. He did not,
indeed, cease to believe in the God of Israel with his mind. He did not
cease to offer the usual sacrifices in the temple at the great feasts. But his