“Because thou hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked
riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast
asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; behold, I have done
according to thy words; lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding
heart: so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee
shall any arise like unto thee.”
Thus spake God unto Solomon, and through His word did the king come to
know the structure of the universe and the working of the elements; to
fathom the beginning, end, and midst of all ages; to penetrate the
mystery of the eternal, wave-like and rotating recurrence of events;
from the astronomers of Byblos, Acre, Sargon, Borsippa and Nineveh did
he learn to watch the yearly orbits of the stars and the changes in
their positions. He knew also the nature of all animals and divined the
feelings of beasts; he understood the source and direction of winds, the
different properties of plants, and the potency of healing herbs.
The designs in the heart of man are deep waters, but even them could
the king fathom. In the words and voice, in the eyes, in the motions
of the hands, he read the innermost mysteries of souls as plainly as
the characters of an open book. And because of that, from all ends of
Palestine, there came to him a vast multitude of people, imploring
judgment, advice, help, the settlement of some dispute, as well as the
solving of incomprehensible portents and dreams. And men would marvel
at the profundity and finesse of Solomon’s answers.
Three thousand proverbs did Solomon compose, and his songs were a
thousand and five. He dictated them to two skilled and rapid scribes:
Elihoreph and Ahiah, the sons of Shisha, and afterwards collated
what both had written. Always did he clothe his thoughts in choice
expressions, for a word fitly spoken is like an apple of gold in a bowl
of translucent sardonyx;[4] and also for that the words of the wise are
as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which
are given from one Shepherd. “A word is a spark in the motion of the
heart,”--thus saith the king. And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom
of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of the
Ægyptians. For he was above all men in wisdom; wiser than Ethan the
Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Dardra, the sons of Mahol. But he
was already beginning to weary of the beauty of ordinary human wisdom,
and no longer did it have its former value in his eyes. With a restless
and searching mind did he thirst after that higher wisdom, which the
Lord possessed in the beginning of His way, before His works of old, set
up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; that
wisdom which was His great artificer when He set a compass upon the
face of the deep. And Solomon found it not.
The king mastered the teachings of the magi of Chaldæa and Nineveh; the
science of the astrologers of Abydos, Sais, and Memphis; the secrets of
the Assyrian sorcerers, mystagogues, and epopts, and of the fatidicæ of
Baktria and Persepolis; and he had become convinced that their knowledge
was but the knowledge of mortals.
Also did he seek for wisdom in the occult rites of ancient pagan faiths,
and for that reason visited idol-temples and offered up oblations to the
mighty Baal-Lebanon, who was honoured under the name of Melkart,--the
god of creation and destruction, the patron of navigation in Tyre and
Sidon,--called Ammon in the Oasis of Sibakh, where his idol would nod his
head to indicate the routes to festal processions; called Bel by the
Chaldæans, and Moloch by the Canaanites. He also bowed down before his
spouse,--the dread and passionate Astarte, who bore in other temples the
names of Ishtar, Isaar, Baaltis, Ashera, Istar-Belet, and Atargatis.
He libated holy oil and burnt incense before Isis and Osiris of
Ægypt,--sister and brother, joined in wedlock while still in the womb
of their mother and there conceiving the god Horus; and before Derketo,
the pisciform Tyrian goddess; and before Anubis of the dog’s head, the
god of embalming; and before the Babylonian Cannes; and Dagon of the
Philistines; and the Assyrian Abdenago; and Utsabu, the Ninevehian idol;
and the sombre Kybele; and Bel Marduk, the patron of Babylon,--the god of
the planet Jupiter; and the Chaldæan Or,--the god of eternal fire; and
the mystic Omorca, the first mother of the gods, whom Bel had cloven in
two parts, creating heaven and earth out of them, and out of her head,
men; and the king bowed down also before the goddess Anaïtis, in whose
honour the virgins of Phoenicia, Lydia, Armenia and Persia gave up
their bodies to passers-by, as a sacred offering, at the threshold of
temples.
But the king found in the pagan rites nought save drunkenness, night
orgies, lechery, incest, and lusts contrary to nature; and in their
dogmas he perceived vain discourse and deception. But he forbade none
of his subjects to offer up sacrifices to a favourite god, and he
even built upon the Mount of Olives an idol-temple for Chemosh, the
abomination of Moab, at the supplication of the beautiful, pensive
Ellaan, the Moabite, the then favorite wife of the king. One thing
only could not Solomon abide and pursued with death,--the bringing
of children in sacrifice.
And he saw in his seekings that that which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them: as one dieth, so
dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no
preëminence above a beast. And the king understood, that in much wisdom
is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. He
also learned that even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end
of mirth is heaviness. And so one morning he dictated to Elihoreph and
Ahiah:
“‘All is vanity of vanities and vexation of spirits’--thus saith
Ecclesiastes.”
But at that time the king did not yet know that God would soon send him
a love so tender and ardent, so devoted and beautiful,--more precious in
itself than riches, fame, and wisdom; more precious than life itself,
for it values not even life, nor hath fear of death.