1 Chronicles 22:5

Solomon… is young and tender . It is impossible to fix the exact age of Solomon as marked by these words. In a "fragment" of Eupolemus he is put down at twelve years of age. Josephus ('Ant. Jud.,' 1 Chronicles 8:7 , § 8) as vaguely supposes he was fourteen at the time that he took the throne. He was the second son of Bathsheba, and can scarcely have exceeded the last-men-tioned age by mere than three or four years. This same language, "young and tender," is repeated in 1 Chronicles 29:1 . The reign of Solomon lasted forty years ( 1 Kings 11:42 ; 2 Chronicles 9:30 ). He is called old ( 1 Kings 11:4 ) when his strange wives "turned away his heart after other gods." We are not told his age at the time of his death. There are, in fact, no sufficient data for fixing to the year, or indeed within the liberal margin of several years, the age now designated as young and tender.