Sermon: Solomon, the Righteous King??

Last week we looked at how the Bible defines the word RIGHTEOUSNESS. To be righteous, if you recall, means to have a good, and love-centered. right-relationship with:

1. God
2. Fellow humans
3. Every other part of God’s creation- earth, sea, sky and everything that lives in them.

And the things that guide us to know what right-relationships look like were…

• The Ten Commandments (or Words of God) and…
• The Living example of Jesus

This is our calling… to live righteously, like Jesus.

Job 36:7

He does not take His eyes off the righteous, but He enthrones them with kings, seats them, and exalts them forever. 

Those who are righteous are the true royal family of God! Today we’re going to look at a child of God whose human job title was actually “king”… King Solomon. In Hebrew, btw, his name is King Shlomo. (I don’t know why that sounds amusing to me, but it does). Shlomo is connected to the word Shalom… peace. Solomon was King Peace.

But Solomon’s early life and early reign was anything but peaceful! In fact, it’s a real Game of Thrones type story.

So, let’s get to know Solomon because he’s a huge personality in the Bible. So much happened during his reign. We know the highlights: he built the temple, he became exceedingly rich, he was celebrated for choosing wisdom, he had A LOT of wives… But what was his family-life like? Who was his mother? Who were his brothers and sisters? Where did he fit in the family dynamic? What’s his genealogy?…

I’m going to stop, and I’m going to take a moment to tell you what I’ve been up to. As many of  you know, I’m working on a doctoral degree in Biblical Studies. I’m nearing the ½ way point, which is exciting, and that means I have to start thinking about what I’m going to do for my dissertation. That means I have to decide what my particular area of expertise will be. Really, I think I’ve known for most of my life what it’s supposed to be, but it took somebody else to point it out to me. 

Last year I submitted an article for publication in an academic journal. It’s one of those things you’re expected to do as a scholar. The paper was… rejected. That’s not uncommon for academic journals. You usually deal with a few rejections before you get an acceptance, so I wasn’t too upset. But the Editor gave me a reason for the rejection. She said that it was a topic that had already been discussed before in their journal. They were looking for fresh content. And then the Editor said something to me: she noticed that in my “bio” I mentioned that I was an amateur genealogist. Would I consider writing an article on Biblical Genealogy?

Of course. Everything came into focus. This is what I’ve always meant to be doing. I’ve worked on my own family history since I was in my mid-twenties. Tracking down the family history is like being Indiana Jones to me… digging up the past, one document at a time… finding out stories about your ancestors. Also, I used to have a piece of paper tucked inside my Bible and every time I came across the word genealogy I’d note the Biblical reference. It seems like I was always meant to study Biblical Genealogies. 

So, unless something else crazy comes along, I’m pretty sure my dissertation will be somehow connected to Biblical Genealogy… all those so-and-so begat so-and-so… all the bits that so many people find boring… that’s my jam, folks! 

So I wrote another paper. It’s titled Genealogy of Suffering: The Women in David’s Genetic Family Tree, and it has been accepted and is scheduled for publication this fall. And this little academic nerd is very much excited about it!

Today I’m going to TRY to prove to you that Biblical genealogy isn’t as boring as you think. We’re going to look at Solomon’s family tree. His father, of course, is King David. We know Solomon succeeded his father as king, but was he the first born son? Nope. Was he the second born son? Nope. Far from it in fact! If you read 1 Chronicles 9, you find out that David had six sons born in Hebron, in the following order:

1. Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam
2. Daniel (aka Chileab), whose mother was Abigail
3. Absalom, whose mother was Ma’acah, daughter of the King of Geshu
4. Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith
5. Shephatiah, whose mother was Abital
6. Ithream, whose mother was  Eglah

David then moved to Jerusalem and had four sons with Bathsheba:

• Shimea
• Shobab
• Nathan and… 
• Solomon. 

Then the Chronicler lists nine other sons by unnamed mothers. And finally we read: 

1 Chronicles 3:9

These were all the sons of David, besides the sons by his concubines. And Tamar was their sister.

Solomon wasn’t the first, second or third son of David… here he is listed as the 10th son (although it can be argued that he’s somewhere between 7th -10th born son!) How did a son, born so far down the ladder become the heir to David’s throne?!

Solomon’s oldest brother, and top spot as heir to the throne, was Amnon, son of David and his wife Ahinoam. Do you remember what Amnon was famous for? It’s not good. 

Amnon raped his ½ sister, Tamar. Tamar was David’s only named daughter. She and her brother Absalom were the children of David and Ma’acah, a Geshurite princess. 

Young Solomon would have been wrapped up in all this drama. His sister was raped by his ½ brother and then another ½ brother, Absalom, murdered Amnon out of revenge for his sister. What does the supper-table conversation look like when all of this is going on?! “By the way, your brother killed your brother today. Pass the salt”.

Absalom, the third born son, is of course famous for killing his brother Amnon in revenge for raping his sister. He’s also famous for leading a rebellion against his father. It was David’s military General and Solomon’s cousin, Joab (son of David’s sister),  who ordered the death of Absalom, against David’s wishes.

And this is just a small portion of the family drama. Solomon has some pretty wild and scheming older brothers and cousins, who brought murder and mayhem into his daily life. 

Solomon’s family life was a disaster! It was dangerous and messy! A dark and tragic, real life, Game of Thrones scenario… rape, murder, mayhem, chaos. Being in David’s family was no picnic. 

And it goes deeper than that. Who was Solomon’s mother?… Bathsheba.

David broke the 10th commandment…  Thou shall not desire what is not yours to have. He saw Bathsheba from a distance and desired her. David saw and took Bathsheba… it’s the same phrasing we see in the Eve story. She saw and took the forbidden fruit. But Eve hesitated. It took an outside force to convince her it was the “right” thing to do. 

David needed no convincing. He saw Bathsheba and he concocted a murderous plan to have her at all costs. He slept with her, got her pregnant and then ordered the death of her husband Uriah to conceal his sin. David broke another commandment: thou shall not kill. It was one of David’s great shames, for which he confessed and sought forgiveness. 

He publicly tore his clothes in grief over the sin he had done. Solomon came from that union. He was one of the four named sons of David and Bathsheba.

David’s sin with Bathsheba would have been a burden, I think, for Solomon to bear…. Many in the kingdom may have looked down on David and Bathsheba as a couple, because of the terrible way in which David acquired this wife… and any children born of that union, may have also been looked down upon. Those sons were like little walking reminders of David’s sin. That would have been a tough thing to bear, as a child. 

But, eventually, through a wild string of events, Solomon gets chosen to be king. And I don’t know about you, but I grew up thinking only good things about Solomon… he was wise and brought peace and prosperity to the young Kingdom of Israel. In 2 Samuel 12:24-25 we read that YHWH loved Solomon and even gave him a new name: Jedidiah/Yedidiah, meaning “YHWH’s beloved”. 

So Solomon was one of the great “good guys” in the Bible…yah? and all of his actions must have been for the good of the kingdom, right? So, was Solomon a righteous king?… What was our definition of righteousness?

To be righteous means to have right-relationship with: God, fellow humans, and every other part of God’s creation- earth, sea, sky and everything that lives in them.

And the things that guide us to know what right-relationships look like were:

• The Ten Commandments (or Words of God) and…
• The Living example of Jesus

Love, humility, kindness, honouring others, helping all of creation grow and flourish, showing mercy, standing against lies, destruction, and death… these were the actions of the righteous.

So, Solomon. Was he a righteous king? Were the authors trying to make Solomon look righteous? Or, were they in fact, subtly showing us how he wasn’t so righteous?

Let’s take a look at how his reign began: Remember, as a young man, Solomon witnessed a lot of murder in his family: cousins killing cousins, brothers killing brothers… and Solomon, very early in his reign, was no different. In order to take control of a rather rocky start to his kingship, Solomon sent his executioner, Benaiah (yes, he had a personal executioner)… he sent him to kill his older brother Adonijah, because he was a threat to the throne. He then sent Benaiah to kill his cousin Joab, David’s military General, because he had garnished too much power. Joab fled to the Temple for sanctuary but with Solomon’s permission, he was killed in front of the altar… murdered in the Presence of YHWH. And finally, he sent Benaiah out to kill one of David’s former enemies, Shimea, who had repented, but Solomon did not trust him and eventually had him executed without mercy.  This was the early reign of the “king called Peace”.

Now, maybe we can convince ourselves that those three men were dangerous to the kingdom, and that Solomon was justified for their murders. And, by the way, it was actually David, at the end of his life, who told Solomon to kill Joab and Shimea. 

However, Solomon killing his brother Adonijah was all his own doing. Really, is murder ever justifiable? What was that pesky commandment again?… thou shall not kill…

Let’s look at a bit more of Solomon’s story. Do you recall… who was the “big bad guy” in the Exodus story?… Pharaoh. If you pay attention to the story, Solomon starts to look more and more like Pharaoh. In 1 Kings ch.5  we read that:

1 Kings 5:13-14

Then King Solomon conscripted a labour force of 30,000 men from all Israel. He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of 10,000 men, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced labour. 

This is not a “labour force”, it is harsh labour, forced on the people. How do we knw that? The phrase “forced labour” is the same phrase used in Exodus to describe the Hebrew people’s slavery under Pharaoh. And now the Hebrew people are enslaved by a man of their own heritage. Solomon, like Pharaoh, instituted harsh, imposed, slave labour just like in the Exodus story, where the Israelites were forced, under terrible conditions, to build the Pharaoh’s kingdom. 

Solomon was now building his kingdom in the same way. Why were they going to Lebanon? To cut down the famous Cedars of Lebanon to build his kingdom. Was Solomon having a right-relationship with his people? It doesn’t look like it. Was Solomon having a right-relationship with the environment, tearing down the cedars of Lebanon en masse to build his city? It’s questionable.

Talking about “building”. Solomon was famous for building the Glorious Temple of God in Jerusalem. This was a good thing!

1 Kings 6:38b

…the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years. 

But then we read in the next line:

1 Kings 7:1

Solomon, however, took thirteen years to complete the construction of his entire palace. 

Interesting. So Solomon put more effort and time into his own elaborate residence. Should Solomon’s house be more elaborate than God’s?  And on top of that, he also built a palace for his new queen. And guess who she’s the daughter of… …Pharaoh.

Yep. Solomon marries Pharaoh’s daughter. And Pharaoh attacks the city of Gezer, kills the entire population, gathers all the spoils of war, and gives them to Solomon as a dowry for his daughter. This is the definition of blood money… and (as far as we know) Solomon accepts it without question.

So the Temple was built… and it was dedicated to God… and then YHWH spoke to Solomon and said:

1 Kings 9:3-9

“I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time. And as for you, IF you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, AND IF you keep My statutes and ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ BUT IF indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, AND IF you go off to serve and worship other gods, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples. AND WHEN this temple has become a heap of rubble…

“And when?!”...God already sees the writing on the wall. He knows Solomon’s heart.

Solomon has not been a righteous king. He looks like Pharaoh… He does not have a good and right-relationship with his fellow humans. He has enslaved them. 

He does not have a good and right-relationship with God. He may have built the temple, but he’s already flirting with idolatry. Marrying an Egyptian princess, whose father is not only the king of Egypt but he’s also, according to Egyptian culture, a god himself. In Egypt, Pharaoh was a god. And now his daughter has infiltrated Israel’s throne room. And so God says to Solomon,

AND WHEN this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has YHWH done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken YHWH their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, YHWH has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

God’s talking to him like this disaster has already happened, because, in a way, it has. Now, in Solomon’s mind, he’s probably thinking… “Oh, that’s never going to happen”… but he was very wrong.

Here’s another hint that lets us know that the writer is outing Solomon for being unrighteous: 

…we read in 1 Kings chapter 4 that Solomon had 12,000 horses. Solomon is a very wealthy dude. 

I want you to note that in 1 Kings 10 we are told that Solomon’s grand fleet of horses were regularly imported from Egypt. He also had a huge “fleet” of women. 700 wives and 300 concubines. A thousand women at his beck and call. That’s not a house full of women, it’s a village. Also, all throughout the Book of Kings we read about Solomon’s hoard of silver and gold. He’s dripping in wealth.

Now, the writer of 1 Kings made some assumptions. They assumed that you’ve read, and studied, the Torah… the first five books of the Bible. The stories of the beginning of the Hebrew people… these stories were ingrained into the mindset of the people of Israel. They would know, well, the following verse from the book of Deuteronomy, which says:

Deuteronomy 17:14-17

When you enter the land that YHWH your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” you are to appoint over yourselves the king whom YHWH your God shall choose… …But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for YHWH has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’ He must not take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray. He must not accumulate for himself large amounts of silver and gold.~

Uh-oh! Uh-oh, Solomon… it’s not looking good for you.

Furthermore, we read…

Deuteronomy 17:18-20

…When [this king] is seated on his royal throne, he must write for himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear YHWH his God by carefully observing all the words of this instruction and these statutes. Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, and he will not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or to the left, in order that he and his sons may reign many years over his kingdom in Israel.

Every single day the king is supposed to read this hand-written scroll that says: do not amass horses from Egypt, do not take many wives for yourself, and do not gather large amounts of silver and gold. He is to read this every day and learn from it… SO THAT… his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen… If you follow God’s commandments, you will have right-relationship with the people of your country. You will not become self-righteous and self-possessed, placing your desires above the needs of others. Instead, you will put others above yourself. Then you will be a righteous king!

Solomon screwed up… pretty much from the get-go. And the writer of 1 Kings is highlighting, quite elaborately, how Solomon has ignored these three kingly commandments, given by God in the Torah.

The warning Solomon received from God came to fruition… they stopped following God and, as soon as Solomon’s heir took the throne, everything fell. What was it that broke the whole thing down? It was a failure to be righteous. They stopped having a right-relationship with God and with all the people in the kingdom and outside the kingdom. The kingdom stopped being righteous and instead became self-righteous… and Solomon led the charge. 

Solomon couldn’t see, through the muddiness of his own ego and self-righteousness, the promise God gave His people… to save them from their own unrighteousness. 

1 John 1:9

If we should confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, that He may forgive us our sins and may cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

Your translations probably say “If we should confess our sins, He is faithful and just…” But in the original Greek it actually says, “He is faithful and righteous”. Jesus is faithful to us, and has a right-relationship with us, so He wants to cleanse us from the burden of all of our not-right-relationships. He wants to hear our confession, clean the slate, and set us free. 

What was the difference between David and Solomon?… they both made some terrible choices… but David, time and time again, sought forgiveness. He publicly confessed his pretty horrific deeds and cried out to God for mercy. Did Solomon ever do that? Nope. Not once. At the end of Ecclesiastes he said: “fear God and keep His commandments,” (like a cautionary tale)… but he never overtly confessed his sins or asked for forgiveness. That’s a big problem. Solomon’s crown, and power, and glory stood too proudly for humility ever to take the stage in his lifetime. 

In contrast, the Apostle Paul, a man clothed in humility, said this at the end of his life:

2 Timothy 4:7-8

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day– and not only to me, but to all who crave His appearing.

We might not own crowns and tiaras (although maybe there are a few of you who do)… We’ll never be dripping with gold or silver….but we are the royal family of God. A crown of righteousness awaits us.

Solomon had an earthly crown and it wasn’t enough for him, but you who follow YHWH already have a crown of righteousness waiting for you. Go live your life like you’re wearing it now! Amen? Amen!

**************

Benediction: Two weeks from now we’re going to look at the end of Solomon’s life… and how he viewed righteousness in his writing called “Ecclesiastes”. Does he make amends? Does he turn his life around? We’ll find out! Until then, listen to the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. He said (Matthew 5:6 & 10) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled……Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So, go out there… and live in righteousness! See you next week!