_THE OLD AGE OF SOLOMON._
1 KINGS xi. 1-13.
"That uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul."
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
"Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things?"--NEH.
xiii. 26.
"That they might know, that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the
same also shall he be punished."--WISDOM xi. 16.
Solomon had endeavoured to give a one-sided development to
Israelitish nationality, and a development little in accord with the
highest and purest traditions of the people. What he did with one
hand by building the Temple he undid with the other by endowing and
patronising the worship of heathen deities.[407] In point of fact,
Solomon was hardly a genuine off-shoot of the stem of Jesse. It is
at least doubtful whether Bathsheba was of Hebrew race, and from her
he may have derived an alien strain. It is at all events a striking
fact that, so far from being regarded as an ideal Hebrew king, he
was rather the reverse. The chronicler, indeed, exalts him as the
supporter and redintegrator of the Priestly-Levitic system, which
it is the main object of that writer to glorify; but this picture
of theocratic purity, even if it be not altogether an anachronism,
is only obtained by the total suppression of every incident in the
story of Solomon which militates against it. In the Book of Kings we
are faithfully told of the disgust of Hiram at the reward offered to
him; of the alienation of a fertile district of the promised land; of
the apostasy, the idolatries, and the reverses which disgraced and
darkened his later years. The Book of Chronicles ignores every one of
these disturbing particulars. It does not tell us of the depths to
which Solomon fell, though it tells us of the extreme scrupulosity
which regarded as a profanation the residence of his Egyptian queen
on the hill once hallowed as the resting-place of Jehovah's Ark.
Yet, if we understand in their simple sense the statements of the
editor of the Book of Kings, and the documents on which he based
his narrative, Solomon, even at the Dedication Festival, ignored
all distinction between the priesthood and the laity. Nay, more
than this, he seems to have offered, with his own hands, both burnt
offerings and peace offerings three times a year,[408] and, unchecked
by priestly opposition or remonstrance, to have "burnt incense
before the altar that was before the Lord," though, according to the
chronicler, it was for daring to attempt this that Uzziah was smitten
with the horrible scourge of leprosy.
The ideal of a good and great king is set before us in the Book of
Proverbs, and in many respects Solomon fell very far short of it.
Further than this, there are in Scripture two warning sketches of
everything which a good king should _not_ be and should _not_ do, and
these sketches exactly describe the very things which Solomon was and
did. Those who take the view that the books of Scripture have undergone
large later revision, see in each of these passages an unfavourable
allusion to the king who raised Israel highest amongst the nations,
only to precipitate her disintegration and ruin, and who combined
the highest service to the centralisation of her religion with the
deadliest insult to its supreme claim upon the reverence of the world.
1. The first of these pictures of selfish autocrats is found in 1
Sam. viii. 10-18:--
"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked
of Him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that
shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for
himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run
before his chariots. And he will appoint his captains over thousands,
and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to
reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments
of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, and
to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your
vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them
to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your
vineyards, and give to his courtiers, and to his servants. And he will
take your menservants and your maidservants, and your goodliest oxen,
and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of
your sheep, and you shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that
day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord
will not hear you in that day."
2. The other, which is still more detailed and significant, was
perhaps written with the express intention of warning Solomon's
descendants from the example which Solomon had set.[409] It is found
in Deut. xvii. 14-20. Thus, speaking of a king, the writer says:--
"Only 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. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself; that
his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself
silver and gold. And it shall be that when he sitteth upon the throne
of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book
... that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, ... that his heart
be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from
the commandment, ... to the end that he may prolong his days in his
kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel."
If Deuteronomy be of no older date than the days of Josiah, it is
difficult not to see in this passage a distinct polemic against
Solomon; for he did not do what he is here commanded, and he most
conspicuously did every one of the things which is here forbidden.
It is quite clear that in his foreign alliances, in his commerce,
in his cavalry, in his standing army, in his extravagant polygamy,
in his exaggerated and exhausting magnificence, in his despotic
autocracy, in his palatial architecture, and in his patronage of
alien art, in his system of enforced labour, in his perilous
religious syncretism, Solomon was by no means a king after the hearts
of the old faithful and simple Israelites. They did not look with
entire favour even on the centralisation of worship in a single
Temple which interfered with local religious rites sanctioned by
the example of their greatest prophets. His ideal differed entirely
from that of the older patriarchs. He gave to the life of his people
an alien development; he obliterated some of their best national
characteristics; and the example which he set was at least as
powerful for evil as for good.
When we read the lofty sentiments expressed by Solomon in his
dedication prayer, we may well be amazed to hear that one who had
aspirations so sublime could sink into idolatry so deplorable. If
it was the object of the chronicler to present Solomon in unsullied
splendour, he might well omit the deadly circumstance that when he
was old, and prematurely old, "he loved many strange women, and _went
after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the
abomination of the Ammonites_.[410] _And Solomon did evil in the
sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord as did David
his father. Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the
abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for
Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon._[411] _And likewise
did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed
unto their gods._"[412]
The sacred historian not only records the shameful fact, but records
its cause and origin. The heart of Solomon was perverted, his will
was weakened, his ideal was dragged into the mire by the "strange
wives" who crowded his seraglio. He went the way that destroys
kings.[413] The polygamy of Solomon sprang naturally from the false
position which he had created for himself. A king who puts a space
of awful distance between himself and the mass of his subjects--a
king whose will is so absolute that life is in his smile and death in
his frown--is inevitably punished by the loneliest isolation. He may
have favourites, he may have flatterers, but he can have no friends.
A thronged harem becomes to him not only a matter of ostentation and
luxury, but a necessary resource from the vacuity and _ennui_ of a
desolate heart. Tiberius was driven to the orgies of Capreæ by the
intolerableness of his isolation. The weariness of the king who used
to take his courtiers by the button-hole and say, "_Ennuyons-nous
ensemble_," drove him to fill up his degraded leisure in the _Parc
aux Cerfs_. Yet even Louis XV. had more possibilities of rational
intercourse with human beings than a Solomon or a Xerxes. It was in
the nature of things that Solomon, when he had imitated all the other
surroundings of an Oriental despot, should sink, like other Oriental
despots, from sensuousness into sensualism, from sensualism into
religious degeneracy and dishonourable enervation.
Two facts, both full of warning, are indicated as the sources of his
ruin: (1) the number of his wives; and (2) their heathen extraction.
1. "He had," we are told, "seven hundred wives, princesses, and three
hundred concubines."[414]
The numbers make up a thousand, and are almost incredible. We are
told indeed that in the monstrosities of Indian absolutism the
Great Mogul had a thousand wives; but even Darius, "the king" _par
excellence_, the awful autocrat of Persia, had only one wife and
thirty-two concubines.[415] It is inconceivable that the monarch of
a country so insignificant as Palestine could have maintained so
exorbitant a household in a small city like Jerusalem. Moreover,
there is, on every ground, reason to correct the statement. Saul,
so far as we know, had only one wife, and one concubine; David,
though he put so little restraint on himself, had only sixteen; no
subsequent king of Israel or Judah appears to have had even a small
fraction of the number which is here assigned to Solomon, either
by the disease of exaggeration or by some corruption of the text.
More probably we should read seventy wives, which at least partially
assimilates the number to the "threescore queens" of whom we read in
the Canticles.[416] Even then we have a household which must have
led to miserable complications. The seraglio at Jerusalem must have
been a burning fiery furnace of feuds, intrigues, jealousies, and
discontent. It is this fact which gives additional meaning to the
Song of Songs. That unique book of Scripture is a sweet idyll in
honour of pure and holy love. It sets before us in glowing imagery
and tender rhythms how the lovely maiden of Shunem, undazzled by all
the splendours and luxuries of the great king's court, unseduced by
his gifts and his persistence, remained absolutely faithful to her
humble shepherd lover, and, amid the gold and purple of the palace
at Jerusalem, sighed for her simple home amid the groves of Lebanon.
Surely she was as wise as fair, and her chances of happiness would be
a thousandfold greater, her immunities from intolerable conditions
a thousandfold more certain, as she wandered hand in hand with her
shepherd youth amid pure scenes and in the vernal air, than amid the
heavy exotic perfumes of a sensual and pampered court.
Perhaps in the word "princesses" we see some sort of excuse for that
effeminating self-indulgence which would make the exhortations to
simplicity and chastity in the Book of Proverbs sound very hollow on
the lips of Solomon. It may have been worldly policy which originally
led him to multiply his wives. The alliance with Pharaoh was secured
by a marriage with his daughter, and possibly that with Hiram by the
espousal of a Tyrian princess. The friendliness of Edom on the south,
of Moab and Ammon on the east, of Sidon and the Hittites and Syria on
the north, might be enhanced by matrimonial connexions from which the
greater potentates might profit and of which the smaller sheykhs were
proud.[417] Yet if this were so, the policy, like all other worldly
policy unsanctioned by the law of God, was very unsuccessful. Egypt as
usual proved herself to be a broken reed. The Hittites only preserved
a dream and legend of their olden power. Edom and Moab neither forgot
nor abandoned their implacable and immemorial hatred. Syria became a
dangerous rival awaiting the day of future triumphs. "It is better to
trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man; it is better to
trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes."
2. But the heathen religion of these strange women from so many
nations "turned away the heart of Solomon after other gods." It may be
doubted whether Solomon had ever read the stern prohibitions against
intermarriage with the Canaanite nations which now stand on the page
of the Pentateuch. If so he broke them, for the Hittites and the
Phœnicians were Canaanites. Marriages with Egyptians, Moabites, and
Edomites had not been, in so many words, forbidden, but the feeling of
later ages applied the rule analogously to them. The result proved how
necessary the law was. When Solomon was old his heart was no longer
proof against feminine wiles. He was not old in years, for this was
some time before his death, and when he died he was little more than
sixty. But a polygamous despot gets old before his time.
The attempt made by Ewald and others to gloss over Solomon's apostasy
as a sign of a large-hearted tolerance is an astonishing misreading
of history. Tolerance for harmless divergences of opinion there
should always be, though it is only a growth of modern days; but
tolerance for iniquity is a wrong to holiness.
The worship of these devils adored for deities was stained with the
worst passions which degrade human nature. They were themselves the
personification of perverted instincts. The main facts respecting
them are collected in Selden's famous _De Dis Syris Syntagma_, and
Milton has enshrined them in his stateliest verse:--
"First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears: ...
Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the Grove
Of Moloch homicide; lust, hard by hate:
Till good Josiah drove them thence to hell.
... With these in troop
Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phœnicians call
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul."
What tolerance should there be for idols whose service was horrible
infanticide and shameless lust? "What fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
and what concord hath Christ with an infidel? and what agreement hath
the temple of God with idols?" How vile the worship of Chemosh was,
Israel had already experienced in the wilderness where he was called
Peor.[418] What Moloch was they were to learn thereafter by many a
horrible experience. Had Solomon never heard that the Lord God was a
jealous God, and would not tolerate the rivalries of gods of fire and
of lust? At least he was not afraid to desecrate one, if not two, of
the summits of the Mount of Olives with shrines to these monstrous
images, which seem to have been left "on that opprobrious mount" for
many an age, so that they "durst abide"
"Jehovah, thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the cherubim; yea, often placed
Within His sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations, and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront His light."
And, to crown all, Solomon not only showed this guilty complaisance
to _all_ his strange wives, but even, sinking into the lowest abyss
of apostasy, "burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods."
"He that built a temple for himself and for Israel in Sion," says
Bishop Hall, "built a temple for Chemoch in the Mount of Scandal for
his mistresses in the very face of God's house. Because Solomon feeds
them in their superstition, he draws the sin home to himself, and is
branded for what he should have forbidden."
FOOTNOTES:
[407] "L'amour du luxe et de la nouveauté le conduira peu à peu à
défaire l'œuvre de son père, à ruiner le peuple dont il pouvait faire
le bonheur, à detruire les institutions, et à dédaigner le culte
national, auquel il avait d'abord cherché à donner le plus grand
éclat."--Munk, _Palestine_, p. 285.
[408] 1 Kings ix. 25.
[409] Modern criticism generally regards the Book of Deuteronomy, or
some elements of it, as "the Book of the Law" which was found in the
Temple by the high priest Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah. We shall
speak of this in the following volume (in 2 Kings). See Deut. xvii. 18.
[410] LXX., ἦν φιλογύνγς. Vulg., _adamavit mulieres alienigenus_.
[411] Some suppose that this clause about Milcom is an interpolation
from 2 Kings xxiii. 13.
[412] See Exod. xxxiv. 11-17; Deut. vii. 1-4. The Talmud makes one of
its dishonest attempts to get rid of the fact; Shabbath, p. 56, _b_.
Sanhedrin, _ff._ 55, 56. Justin Martyr preserves a tradition (_Dial.
c. Tryph._, 34) that Solomon in taking a Sidonian wife worshipped
idols at Sidon. Muslim tradition attributes Solomon's idolatry to the
tricks of demons who assumed his form (Qur'an, _Sura_ ii. 99; but see
_Sura_ xxxviii. 30).
[413] Prov. xxxi. 3.
[414] The Song of Solomon (vi. 8) gives him, besides the _'alamoth_
("damsels") "without number," the sixty wives (_saroth_), and the
eighty concubines, who were partly perhaps their slaves.
[415] Parmen. _ap._ Athen., _Deipnos._, iii. 3. Comp. Quint. Curt.,
_Vit. Alex._, iii. 3. Amehhate of Egypt had more than three hundred
and seventeen wives (Brugsch, _Egypt_, iii. 607, E.T.). Rehoboam, who
had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, left twenty-eight sons and
sixty daughters. Solomon, so far as we know, had only one son and two
daughters.
[416] Cant. vi. 8.
[417] The Vatican MS. of the LXX. adds Syrian and Amorite princesses
to the number. Marriages with Sidonians and Hittites are expressly
forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 12-16, and with Canaanites in Deut. vii. 3
(comp. Ezra ix. 2 and Neh. xiii. 23).
[418] Numb. xxv. 3.