1 Kings 11:31-35

The Punishment of Solomon's Sin.

We have lately traced the gradual declension in piety of this most puissant prince; we have seen him steadily sowing to the wind. The next thing Scripture records concerning him is the retribution which befel him. It is now for us to see him reaping to the whirlwind.

But in considering the recompenses of his sin, it is essential to remember—

1 . That we can only speak, because we only know, of the temporal punishment which attended him. It may be that was all. Possibly the flesh was destroyed that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord ( 1 Corinthians 6:5 ). It may be that, foully as he fell, he did not fail finally, but of this no man can be certain. There is every reason to think that the question has been "left in designed obscurity", that no one might presume. It may be, therefore, that he still awaits the just recompense of wrath in the day of wrath ( Romans 2:5 ).

2 . That if this temporal punishment does not strike us as severe—considering the enormity of his sin and the greatness of the gifts and privileges he had abused—it is partly because the temporal punishment was mitigated for his father's sake. The avenging hand could not smite Solomon without at the same time hurting David. We are expressly told that Solomon was maintained on the throne all his life, and that one tribe was given—the word implies that the gift was unmerited—to his son, for David's sake ( 1 Kings 11:34-36 ). If, therefore, we are tempted to think that the punishment was not exemplary, let us see in it an instance of God's "showing mercy unto thousands" ( sc ; of generations, Exodus 20:6 )—a proof of the Infinite Love which "remembered David and all his afflictions" ( Psalms 132:1 ). But such as it was, it was sufficient to teach us these two lessons at least.

1 . "Be sure your sin will find you out" ( Numbers 32:23 ).

2 . "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" ( Galatians 6:7 ).

For this retribution was of two kinds. There was—

I. THAT WHICH SOLOMON SUFFERED IN HIS OWN PERSON ; and,

II. THAT WHICH HE SUFFERED IN HIS FAMILY AND KINGDOM . Under the first of these categories the following penalties are to be ranked:

1. His life was shortened . Probably by the operation of natural laws. It is not suggested that he was directly smitten of God; it is quite possible that his rank voluptuousness destroyed his energies and induced premature decay. But all the same his days were cut short. Not only was long life the principal sanction of the dispensation under which he lived, but it had been expressly promised him as the reward of piety ( 1 Kings 3:14 ). But his sun went down while it was yet noon. He was not sixty when the mandate went forth, "Remove the diadem, and take off the crown" ( Ezekiel 21:26 ). And if it be true, what Dr. Johnson said to David Garrick when the latter showed him his elegant house at Richmond, that great and rare earthly possessions "make deathbeds miserable," it must have cost Solomon a sharp pang to leave so soon his cedar palace and his chryselephantine throne.

2. His life was embittered . If, as is most probable, we have in the book of Ecclesiastes a chapter of his autobiography, it is clear that his glory brought him little satisfaction ( Ecclesiastes 3:1-22 . passim ; Ecclesiastes 5:13 ; Ecclesiastes 6:12 ; Ecclesiastes 7:26 ); there was a worm at the root of all his pleasures. Of what avail were his houses, his gardens, his pools of water, etc; so long as he had not the heart to enjoy them?

"It is the mind that maketh good or ill,

That maketh wretch'd or happy, rich or poor,

For some, that hath abundance at his will,

Hath not enough, but seeks a greater store."

He knew nothing of "the royalty of inward happiness." How different St. Paul, "Having nothing, yet possessing all things," etc. ( 2 Corinthians 6:10 ). What a commentary on the "confessions" of Solomon, as they have been called, with their everlasting refrain, their vanitas vanitatum, is that confession of a man who suffered one long martyrdom of pain—the Baptist minister, Robert Hall—"I enjoy everything."

3. He was tortured by remorse . This is not expressly stated, but surely it may with good reason be inferred. For the wisest of men could not be so insensate, when he heard the message of doom ( 1 Kings 12:2 ), as not to reflect how different his end was to be from his beginning; how fair the flower, and how bitter the fruit. Surely the cry he has put into others' lips would often rise from his own, "How have I hated instruction," etc. ( Proverbs 5:12 ).

4. He was haunted by forebodings . "This great Babylon" which he had builded, how soon should it be destroyed. The empire which he had consolidated should barely last his life. "One tribe"—how those words would ring in his ears! Then he had good reason, too, to fear that his son was one of the class he had himself described ( Proverbs 10:1 ; Proverbs 15:20 ; Proverbs 17:25 ; Proverbs 19:18 . Cf. Ecclesiastes 2:19 ), and no match for Jeroboam, of whose designs upon the throne he cannot have been ignorant ( 1 Kings 11:26 , 1 Kings 11:27 ). He had the mortification of knowing that his "servant" would enter into his labours. And to the prospect of dissensions within, was added the certainty of disaffection without. Hadad and Rezon were already on his border, and were only biding their time. The political horizon was indeed black and lowering.

5. He was harassed by adversaries . For it is clear from verses 14, 28, 26, that Solomon's enemies were not content to wait for his death. Damascus was a thorn in his side. Egypt was a hotbed of intrigues. The profound peace which he once enjoyed he had lost. The clouds of war were not only gathering, but some of them had burst. His throne of ivory and gold can have been but an insecure and uncomfortable seat for some time before he vacated it.

II. But men like Solomon think of posterity and of posthumous fame as much as of themselves. If every father has "given hostages to fortune," how much more vulnerable is a king in the person of his successor. Let us now trace the calamities which betel Solomon's house and kingdom.

1. In the infatuation of his son . Was there ever a political crisis so wofully mismanaged as that which marked Rehoboam's accession? A few pacific words, a graceful concession, and all would have gone well. But his brutal non possumus precipitated his downfall. It was enough to make Solomon turn in his grave. But it is for us to remember that "his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonitess " ( 1 Kings 14:21 , 1 Kings 14:31 ). And this is the result of multiplying wives .

2. In the dismemberment of his kingdom . The vast empire which Solomon had founded with so much care and pains, how short a time sufficed to tear it asunder. What a contrast between the "one tribe" with its barren territory, and the description of 1 Kings 4:20 , 1 Kings 4:21 . How had he spent his strength for naught, or rather for his slave Jeroboam, who inherited all the fairest and wealthiest portions of the realm. And this was the end of his land hunger—that he was left with the desert of Judah.

3. In the invasion of Shishak . For he had not long slept with his fathers when the vast treasures which he had lavished on the palace of the Lord and his own palaces were carried away to Egypt. All the precious metals which David had accumulated, all the acquisitions of Solomon's fleets, all the royal offerings of the queen of Sheba and of tributary kings—gone to the sons of the stranger, to the swart children of Ham. He had amassed prodigious wealth, but it was for aliens and enemies. Not only the shields and drinking vessels, but the candlesticks, bowls, and the very laminae which had glorified the sanctuary, all fell to the invader. What a case of Sic vos non vobis! What would Solomon have said could he have foreseen Rehoboam's "Brummagem" shields, and the punctilious ceremony with which they were paraded and preserved? And this was the end of multiplying silver and gold to himself. He had put it all into a bag with holes ( Haggai 1:6 ).

4. In the demoralization of his people . For the idolatries of Judah, the images, the groves, the Sodomites ( 1 Kings 14:23 ), were but the continuation and development of the idolatries which Solomon had inaugurated. His son did but reap the crop which himself had sown. Nay, so exact is the lex talionis that we presently find a queen of Judah erecting a "horror" for the most shameful of rites (see note on 1 Kings 15:13 ). And this was the result of building altars for his queens and princesses "on the hill that is before Jerusalem," that within a few years the Lord's people, whose was the law and the temple, etc; built them high places, etc; "on every high hill and under every green tree" ( 1 Kings 14:23 ).

5. In the captivity of the nation . For the dispersion and enslavement of the Jewish people, though only consummated some four centuries later, and though it was the retribution of a long series of sins, was nevertheless, in a sense, the result of Solomon's sin. That is to say, his sin was (as 1 Kings 9:1-28 . 1 Kings 9:6 , 1 Kings 9:7 show) the first beginning of that ever deepening apostasy from the Lord, of which the captivity was, from the first, denounced as the punishment. Other princes no doubt followed in his steps and filled up the measure of iniquity, but the Grand Monarque of their race had first showed them the way. And so the people who had held sway even to the Euphrates were carried beyond the Euphrates, and those who had seen subject kings in their land became subjects in a foreign land (cf. Jeremiah 5:19 ). How full of instruction and warning is it that the captivity which Solomon foretold ( 1 Kings 8:46 ) he should have done so much to precipitate. He predicted, i.e; both his own and his nation's downfall.

6. But the multiplication of horses, that too, like the other sins, seems to have brought its own peculiar Nemesis . For whence, let us ask, came the army that pillaged Jerusalem, and carried off the treasures of the temple? It came in the footprints of the horses. First, the invasion of Solomon, and then the invasion of Shishak, "with twelve hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen " ( 2 Chronicles 12:8 ). And what came of the horses supplied to the Tyrians and Hittites? See 1 Kings 20:1 ("horses and chariots;" cf. 1 Kings 20:25 ); 1 Kings 22:31 ; 2 Kings 6:15 ; 2 Kings 7:6 , etc. It is extremely probable that the cavalry he supplied to foreign kings became an instrument in their hands to scourge his own people. Nor is it wholly unworthy of notice that the murderer Zimri was "captain of half the chariots " ( 1 Kings 16:9 ). Assuredly, that unhallowed trade did not go unpunished.

Such, then, is the principal moral of this history: "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god" ( Psalms 16:4 ). And among the additional lessons which this subject teaches are these:

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD