Solomon’s failure: the secret of it and its results
Till now we have had the beautiful picture of God’s blessing resting upon the son of David, whose only desire it had been to possess wisdom from God, that he might know how to govern His people. Jehovah had, in addition, given him riches, magnificence and glory. The reverse of this picture, painful to the heart, serves nevertheless to instruct us in the righteous dealings of God.
In the event, foreseen by God, of Israel’s having a king, he was forbidden to multiply his wives or his riches, and to go down into Egypt to multiply horses (Deut. 17:16-1716But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. 17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. (Deuteronomy 17:16‑17)). Now with whatever blessings we may be surrounded, we can never forsake the law of God with impunity, nor the walk appointed in the Word for His children. God had bestowed the abundance of riches and honor on Solomon, who had only asked for wisdom; but the study of the law, which was prescribed to the king (Deut. 17:19-2019And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: 20That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:19‑20)), should have prevented his using the means he did in acquiring his riches. These chapters teach us that he did precisely that which the law forbade his doing. He multiplied silver and gold, he multiplied the number of his wives, and had a great number of horses brought from Egypt.
God’s promise was fulfilled. Solomon was rich and glorious above all the kings of his day; but the means he used to enrich himself showed a heart at a distance from God, and led to his ruin according to the just judgment and sure Word of God.
How perfect His ways, how sure His testimony! Holiness becomes His house. His judgments are unchangeable.
Solomon enjoys the sure promises of God. He sins in the means by which he seeks to satisfy his own lusts; and although the result was the accomplishment of the promise, yet he bears the consequences of so doing. Outwardly only the fulfillment of the promise was seen; in fact, there was something else. Without sending for horses from Egypt, and gold from Ophir, Solomon would have been rich and glorious, for God had promised it. By doing this he enriched himself, but he departs from God and from His Word. Having given himself up to his desires after riches and glory, he had multiplied the number of his wives, and in his old age they turned away his heart. This neglect of the Word, which at first appeared to have no bad effect (for he grew rich, as though it had been but the fulfillment of God’s promise), soon led to a departure more serious in its nature and in its consequences, to influence more powerful and more immediately opposed to the commands of God’s Word, and at last to flagrant disobedience of its most positive and essential requirements. The slippery path of sin is always trodden with accelerated steps, because the first sin tends to weaken in the soul the authority and power of that which alone can prevent our committing still greater sins-that is, the Word of God, as well as the consciousness of His presence, which imparts to the Word all its practical power over us.
God brings chastening and trouble upon Solomon during his life, and takes from his family the rule over the greater part of the tribes, declaring that He will afflict the posterity of David, but not forever.
Rehoboam’s folly; Jeroboam’s revolt; the two kingdoms
According to the king’s lamentation (Eccl. 2:1919And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:19)), he to whom Solomon left all the fruit of his labor was not wise. His folly brought the consequences upon him which, in God’s counsels, were attached to his father’s sin. Under the guidance of Jeroboam ten tribes shook off the authority of the house of David. Looked at with an eye to its responsibility, the house of David has entirely and forever lost its glory.
We have to follow the history of the two kingdoms, and yet more particularly that of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which retained the name of Israel, although God still caused the lamp of David to shine at Jerusalem.
The sin of Jeroboam
Now, the moral fall of the new king-of Jeroboam-was not long delayed. Judging by human wisdom and forgetting the fear of Jehovah, he made two golden calves, in order that the powerful links of a worship in common might be broken, and no longer attach his subjects to Judah and Jerusalem. A new priesthood had to be set up; everything, with respect to worship, was devised of his own heart. Israel’s sin was an established rule, and the phrase, “Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,” became the sad designation of their first king.