When Solomon in his wealth and prosperity grew unmindful of his God,
and, contrary to the injunctions laid down for kings in the Torah,
multiplied wives unto himself, and craved the possession of many horses
and much gold, the Book of Deuteronomy stepped before God and said:
"Lo, O Lord of the world, Solomon is seeking to remove a Yod from out
of me, (80) for Thou didst write: 'The king shall not multiply horses
unto himself, nor shall he multiply wives to himself, neither shall he
greatly multiply to himself silver and gold'; but Solomon has acquired
many horses, many wives, and much silver and gold." Hereupon God said:
"As thou livest, Solomon and a hundred of his kind shall be annihilated
ere a single one of thy letters shall be obliterated." (81)
The charge made against Solomon was soon followed by consequences. He
had to pay heavily for his sins. It came about in this way: While
Solomon was occupied with the Temple, he had great difficulty in
devising ways of fitting the stone from the quarry into the building,
for the Torah explicitly prohibits the use of iron tools in erecting an
altar. The scholars told him that Moses had used the shamir, (82) the
stone that splits rocks, to engrave the names of the tribes on the
precious stones of the ephod worn by the high priest. Solomon's demons
could give him no information as to where the shamir could be found.
They surmised, however, that Asmodeus, (83) king of demons, was in
possession of the secret, and they told Solomon the name of the
mountain on which Asmodeus dwelt, and described also his manner of
life. On this mountain there was a well from which Asmodeus obtained
his drinking water. He closed it up daily with a large rock, and sealed
it before going to heaven, whither he went every day, to take part in
the discussions in the heavenly academy. Thence he would descend again
to earth in order to be present, though invisible, (84) at the debates
in the earthly houses of learning. Then, after investigating the seal
on the well to ascertain if it had been tampered with, he drank of the
water.
Solomon sent his chief man, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, to capture
Asmodeus. For this purpose he provided him with a chain, the ring on
which the Name of God was engraved, a bundle of wool, and a skin of
wine. Benaiah drew the water from the well through a hole bored from
below, and, after having stopped up the hole with the wool, he filled
the well with wine from above. When Asmodeus descended from heaven, to
his astonishment he found wine instead of water in the well, although
everything seemed untouched. At first he would not drink of it, and
cited the Bible verses that inveigh against wine, to inspire himself
with moral courage. At length Asmodeus succumbed to his consuming
thirst, and drank till his senses were overpowered, and he fell into a
deep sleep. Benaiah, watching him from a tree, then came, and drew the
chain about Asmodeus' neck. The demon, on awakening, tried to free
himself, but Benaiah called to him: "The Name of thy Lord is upon
thee." Though Asmodeus now permitted himself to be led off
unresistingly, he acted most peculiarly on the way to Solomon. He
brushed against a palm-tree and uprooted it; he knocked against a house
and overturned it; and when, at the request of a poor woman, he was
turned aside from her hut, he broke a bone. He asked with grim humor:
"Is it not written, 'A soft tongue breaketh the bone?'" A blind man
going astray he set in the right path, and to a drunkard he did a
similar kindness. He wept when a wedding party passed them, and laughed
at a man who asked his shoemaker to make him shoes to last for seven
years, and at a magician who was publicly showing his skill.
Having finally arrived at the end of the journey, Asmodeus, after
several days of waiting, was led before Solomon, who questioned him
about his strange conduct on the journey. Asmodeus answered that he
judged persons and things according to their real character, and not
according to their appearance in the eyes of human beings. He cried
when he saw the wedding company, because he knew the bridegroom had not
a month to live, and he laughed at him who wanted shoes to last seven
years, because the man would not own them for seven days, also at the
magician who pretended to disclose secrets, because he did not know
that a buried treasure lay under his very feet; the blind man whom he
set in the right path was one of the "perfect pious," and he wanted to
be kind to him; on the other hand, the drunkard to whom he did a
similar kindness was known in heaven as a very wicked man, but he
happened to have done a good deed once, and he was rewarded
accordingly.
Asmodeus told Solomon that the shamir was given by God to the Angel of
the Sea, and that Angel entrusted none with the shamir except the
moor-hen, (85) which had taken an oath to watch the shamir carefully.
The moor-hen takes the shamir with her to mountains which are not
inhabited by men, splits them by means of the shamir, and injects
seeds, which grow and cover the naked rocks, and then they can be
inhabited. Solomon sent one of his servants to seek the nest of the
bird and lay a piece of glass over it. When the moor-hen came and could
not reach her young, she flew away and fetched the shamir and placed it
on the glass. Then the man shouted, and so terrified the bird that she
dropped the shamir and flew away. By this means the man obtained
possession of the coveted shamir, and bore it to Solomon. But the
moor-hen was so distressed at having broken her oath to the Angel of
the Sea that she committed suicide.
Although Asmodeus was captured only for the purpose of getting the
shamir, Solomon nevertheless kept him after the completion of the
Temple. One day the king told Asmodeus that he did not understand
wherein the greatness of the demons lay, if their king could be kept in
bonds by a mortal. Asmodeus replied, that if Solomon would remove his
chains and lend him the magic ring, he would prove his own greatness.
Solomon agreed. The demon stood before him with one wing touching
heaven and the other reaching to the earth. Snatching up Solomon, who
had parted with his protecting ring, he flung him four hundred
parasangs away from Jerusalem, and then palmed himself off as the king.