The Living Bible (111 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
When the queen of Sheba heard how wonderfully the Lord had blessed Solomon with wisdom,
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she decided to test him with some hard questions.
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She arrived in Jerusalem with a long train of camels carrying spices, gold, and jewels; and she told him all her problems.
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Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too difficult for him, for the Lord gave him the right answers every time.
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She soon realized that everything she had ever heard about his great wisdom was true. She also saw the beautiful palace he had built,
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and when she saw the wonderful foods on his table, the great number of servants and aides who stood around in splendid uniforms, his cupbearers, and the many offerings he sacrificed by fire to the Lord—well, there was no more spirit in her!
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She exclaimed to him, “Everything I heard in my own country about your wisdom and about the wonderful things going on here is all true.
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I didn’t believe it until I came, but now I have seen it for myself! And really! The half had not been told me! Your wisdom and prosperity are far greater than anything I’ve ever heard of!
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Your people are happy and your palace aides are content—but how could it be otherwise, for they stand here day after day listening to your wisdom!
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Blessed be the Lord your God who chose you and set you on the throne of Israel. How the Lord must love Israel—for he gave you to them as their king! And you give your people a just, good government!”
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Then she gave the king a gift of $3,500,000 in gold, along with a huge quantity of spices and precious gems; in fact, it was the largest single gift of spices King Solomon had ever received.
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(And when King Hiram’s ships brought gold to Solomon from Ophir, they also brought along a great supply of algum trees and gems.
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Solomon used the algum wood to make pillars for the Temple and the palace, and for harps and harpsichords for his choirs. Never before or since has there been such a supply of beautiful wood.)
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In exchange for the gifts from the queen of Sheba, King Solomon gave her everything she asked him for, besides the presents he had already planned. Then she and her servants returned to their own land.
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Each year Solomon received gold worth a quarter of a billion dollars,
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besides sales taxes and profits from trade with the kings of Arabia and the other surrounding territories.
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Solomon had some of the gold beaten into two hundred pieces of armor (gold worth $6,000 went into each piece) and three hundred shields ($1,800 worth of gold in each). And he kept them in his palace in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon.
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He also made a huge ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold.
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It had six steps and a rounded back, with arm rests; and a lion standing on each side.
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And there were two lions on each step—twelve in all. There was no other throne in all the world so splendid as that one.
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All of King Solomon’s cups were of solid gold, and in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon his entire dining service was made of solid gold. (Silver wasn’t used because it wasn’t considered to be of much value!)
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King Solomon’s merchant fleet was in partnership with King Hiram’s, and once every three years a great load of gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks arrived at the Israeli ports.
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So King Solomon was richer and wiser than all the kings of the earth.
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Great men from many lands came to interview him and listen to his God-given wisdom.
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They brought him annual tribute of silver and gold dishes, beautiful cloth, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules.
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Solomon built up a great stable of horses with a vast number of chariots and cavalry—1,400 chariots in all and 12,000 cavalrymen, who lived in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem.
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Silver was as common as stones in Jerusalem in those days, and cedar was of no greater value than the common sycamore!
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Solomon’s horses were brought to him from Egypt and southern Turkey, where his agents purchased them at wholesale prices.
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An Egyptian chariot delivered to Jerusalem cost $400, and the horses were valued at $150 each. Many of these were then resold to the Hittite and Syrian kings.
King Solomon married many other girls besides the Egyptian princess. Many of them came from nations where idols were worshiped
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—Moab, Ammon, Edom, Sidon, and from the Hittites—
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even though the Lord had clearly instructed his people not to marry into those nations, because the women they married would get them started worshiping their gods. Yet Solomon did it anyway.
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He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines; and sure enough, they turned his heart away from the Lord,
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especially in his old age. They encouraged him to worship their gods instead of trusting completely in the Lord as his father David had done.
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Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the horrible god of the Ammonites.
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Thus Solomon did what was clearly wrong and refused to follow the Lord as his father David did.
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He even built a temple on the Mount of Olives, across the valley from Jerusalem, for Chemosh, the depraved god of Moab, and another for Molech, the unutterably vile god of the Ammonites.
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Solomon built temples for these foreign wives to use for burning incense and sacrificing to their gods.
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Jehovah was very angry with Solomon about this, for now Solomon was no longer interested in the Lord God of Israel who had appeared to him twice to warn him specifically against worshiping other gods. But he hadn’t listened,
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so now the Lord said to him, “Since you have not kept our agreement and have not obeyed my laws, I will tear the kingdom away from you and your family and give it to someone else.
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However, for the sake of your father David, I won’t do this while you are still alive. I will take the kingdom away from your son. And even so I will let him be king of one tribe, for David’s sake and for the sake of Jerusalem, my chosen city.”
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So the Lord caused Hadad the Edomite to grow in power. And Solomon became apprehensive, for Hadad was a member of the royal family of Edom.
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Years before, when David had been in Edom with Joab to arrange for the burial of some Israeli soldiers who had died in battle, the Israeli army had killed nearly every male in the entire country.
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It took six months to accomplish this, but they finally killed all except Hadad and a few royal officials who took him to Egypt (he was a very small child at the time). They slipped out of Midian and went to Paran, where others joined them and accompanied them to Egypt, and Pharaoh had given them homes and food.
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Hadad became one of Pharaoh’s closest friends, and he gave him a wife—the sister of Queen Tahpenes.
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She presented him with a son, Genubath, who was brought up in Pharaoh’s palace among Pharaoh’s own sons.
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When Hadad, there in Egypt, heard that David and Joab were both dead, he asked Pharaoh for permission to return to Edom.
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“Why?” Pharaoh asked him. “What do you lack here? How have we disappointed you?”
“Everything is wonderful,” he replied, “but even so, I’d like to go back home.”
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Another of Solomon’s enemies whom God raised to power was Rezon, one of the officials of King Hadadezer of Zobah who had deserted his post and fled the country.
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He had become the leader of a gang of bandits—men who fled with him to Damascus (where he later became king) when David destroyed Zobah.
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During Solomon’s entire lifetime, Rezon and Hadad were his enemies, for they hated Israel intensely.
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Another rebel leader was Jeroboam (the son of Nebat), who came from the city of Zeredah in Ephraim; his mother was Zeruah, a widow.
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Here is the story of his rebellion: Solomon was rebuilding Fort Millo, repairing the walls of this city his father had built. Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw how industrious he was, he put him in charge of his labor battalions from the tribe of Joseph.
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One day as Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh (who had put on a new robe for the occasion) met him and called him aside to talk to him. And as the two of them were alone in the field,
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Ahijah tore his new robe into twelve parts
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and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten of these pieces, for the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I will tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and give ten of the tribes to you!
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But I will leave him one tribe
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for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen above all the other cities of Israel.
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For Solomon has forsaken me and worships Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians; and Chemosh, the god of Moab; and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. He has not followed my paths and has not done what I consider right; he has not kept my laws and instructions as his father David did.
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I will not take the kingdom from him now, however; for the sake of my servant David, my chosen one who obeyed my commandments, I will let Solomon reign for the rest of his life.
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“‘But I will take away the kingdom from his son and give ten of the tribes to you.
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His son shall have the other one so that the descendants of David will continue to reign in Jerusalem, the city I have chosen to be the place for my name to be enshrined.
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And I will place you on the throne of Israel and give you absolute power.
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If you listen to what I tell you and walk in my path and do whatever I consider right, obeying my commandments as my servant David did, then I will bless you; and your descendants shall rule Israel forever. (I once made this same promise to David.
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But because of Solomon’s sin, I will punish the descendants of David—though not forever.)’”
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Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but he fled to King Shishak of Egypt and stayed there until the death of Solomon.
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The rest of what Solomon did and said is written in the book
The Acts of Solomon.
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He ruled in Jerusalem for forty years,
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and then died and was buried in the city of his father David; and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.