SOLOMON
“peaceful”.
Son of David with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12:24; 1 Chron. 3:5; Ant. 7:14, 2); born in Jerusalem. David, warned that under his successor there would be a reign of peace, gave him the name Solomon, “peaceful” (1 Chron. 22:9).
The prophet Nathan gave him the name Jedidiah, “beloved of the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:25). When David grew old and weak, Adonijah, one of his sons born in Hebron, and probably the eldest after the death of Ammon and Absalom, attempted to usurp the throne.
The prophet Nathan, aided by the high priest Zadok and Benaiah, the chief of the guard, and with the support of David’s personal guard, dismantled this conspiracy, and Solomon was proclaimed king (1 Kings 1:5-40) , shortly after which David died.
Solomon began his reign around the year 970 BC. C. He would then be about 20 years old. Obeying the last recommendations of his father, he deposed Abiathar from the high priesthood, and had Shimei executed for disobeying the order to remain in Jerusalem.
Faced with a new claim from Adonijah, Solomon had him executed, as well as Joab, also implicated in this matter (1 Kings 2:1-46).
Solomon married the daughter of the king of Egypt, and brought her to Jerusalem (1 Kings 3:1). After the Lord had left Shiloh, the cult had not been restored. The Tabernacle was in Gibeon, and the ark of the covenant in Jerusalem.
Disregarding the order of the Law, the people had erected altars in high places. Solomon went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices. That night, the Lord appeared to him in his dreams and asked him what he wanted.
Solomon implored the grace of wisdom and intelligence, in order to be able to administer justice. At that time the administration of justice was the responsibility of the king. God answered this prayer.
Shortly thereafter, Solomon issued a judgment that has become famous because it revealed who was the true mother of a newborn child vehemently claimed by two women as their own (1 Kings 3:2-28; 2 Chron. 1:3-12 ).
About twenty years later, during a new appearance, God conditionally promised Solomon to preserve the throne for his dynasty, and gave him solemn warnings (1 Kings 9:1-10; 2 Chron. 7:12- 22).
David had subdued the surrounding nations. According to the texts, Solomon only undertook one war campaign, against Hamath. The possession of this city allowed him to maintain peace in the northeast of his states.
Hadad, an Edomite prince, and Rezon of Damascus opposed Solomon. He fortified the city of Hazor, on the upper Jordan, and built a fortress in Lebanon to pacify Damascus; He also managed to keep the road that led to Ezion-geber safe through Edom.
King Solomon maintained friendly relations with numerous sovereigns; He organized his kingdom, and protected the arts. David had amassed a great quantity of materials for the construction of the Temple.
Solomon built the building in seven years. Hiram, king of Tyre, obtained materials and craftsmen for him (1 Kings 5:6). Solomon held a solemn dedication of the Temple (1 Kings 7:13-8:66; 2 Chron. 2-7).
Then he had a palace built, the construction of which took thirteen years (1 Kings 7:1-12). He fortified numerous cities and built others in various parts of the country (1 Kings 9: 17-19; 2 Chron. 8: 4-6).
Solomon administered his estate with great wisdom. He surrounded himself with competent officials, with the grandson of the high priest as their leader (1 Kings 4:2-6). He maintained a powerful army; He divided the kingdom into twelve districts.
Regardless of the ancient boundaries of the tribes, which facilitated the administration of it (1 Kings 4: 7-19). The sovereign also took care of the maintenance of the cult of Jehovah, pronouncing the prayer of dedication of the Temple and invoking divine blessing on the people.
Commercial expansion enriched the kingdom (1 Kings 10:14-29; 2 Chron. 9:13-27). Goods came from Ophir and India, from where Solomon’s servants brought them (1 Kings 10:22, 23; 2 Chron. 9:10-22).
The king had storage cities built, including Palmyra, in the desert, halfway between Damascus and the Euphrates. Solomon was interested in literature and science, and “discoursed on trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall.
He also spoke about the animals, about the birds, about the reptiles, and about the fish” (1 Kings 4:33). Furthermore, he collected and composed numerous proverbs (see PROVERBS). Ps. 72 and 127 are attributed to him in the heading (see also ECCLESIASTES and SONG OF SONGS).
The magnificence of his court, of his table, of the luxury with which he surrounded himself in his travels, corresponded to his income and political importance (1 Kings 10: 4, 5, 21). Many came from afar to hear his words full of wisdom (1 Kings 4:34; 10: 23-25). The queen of Sheba herself went to Jerusalem to ask the king difficult questions (1 Kings 10:1-13).
But Solomon was not obedient to divine instructions. He had a harem of just over a thousand women. Many of them were princesses, given to the king of Israel as pledges of political pacts.
Solomon allowed himself to be persuaded by these idolatrous foreigners to erect sanctuaries to their gods (1 Kings 11:1-8). The Lord punished the sovereign’s apostasy by leaving his dynasty with no more than a small fraction of the kingdom (1 Kings 11:9-13).
The prophet Ahijah of Shiloh announced to Jeroboam, Solomon’s official, that God would give him ten tribes (1 Kings 11:28-29), but he would not obtain them before Rehoboam’s accession. Solomon also sinned by his luxury and ostentation, which he paid for by imposing heavy fiscal burdens on his subjects.
These exactions broke the confidence of the Israelites in their king and later became the cause of rebellions (see RHOBOAM).
Solomon reigned 40 years, dying around 931 BC. The events of this period were recorded in the following works:
Book of the Acts of Solomon,
Book of the prophet Nathan,
Prophecy of Ahijah Shilonite and
Prophecy of the seer Iddo (1 Kings 11:41-43; 2 Chron. 9:29-31)
Archeology
The archaeological discoveries show close agreement and shed good light on a multitude of details referring to the biblical texts about Solomon, while the merely speculative theories of the past, without any basis in independent evidence, but based on a series of “a prioris” of “historical evolution”, had a strong tendency to detract from the description of the power and glory of this king that appear in 1 Kings 3 to 11 (cf. also Mt. 6:29; 12:42; Luke 11:31). Among other aspects touched by archaeological discoveries, we can consider:
(a) Solomon’s kingdom.
Faced with the positions that affirmed that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were strictly limited to Palestine, because a kingdom could not have existed with the extensive borders that are affirmed before the world powers of Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, it can be verified that these empires did not exercise power at that time.
(A) Egypt had recently shaken off Hyksos rule, and was recovering (see EGYPT, a, History, HYKSOS, and, for more detail, the corresponding Bibliographies).
Assyria lacked a capable leadership between Tiglath-pileser I (died about 1076 BC) and the accession of Assurbanipal II (about 880 BC). Babylon was then vegetating, and the Hittite empire had been crushed by Assyria in the year 1110 BC, leaving only a few free cities. (See ASSYRIA, BABYLON, HITITES.)
(b) Solomon’s great prosperity had also been called into question. However, it is now recognized that in the time of Solomon all the commercial and political conditions necessary for this were in place.
It has been confirmed by archaeological means that in the time of Solomon there was intense caravan traffic between southern Arabia and Mesopotamia.
In this way, Solomon, who dominated the strategic Palestinian link, and without any power that could challenge his dominance, was able to exercise a monopoly over the caravans that circulated through this communication route.
With control of the routes that channeled trade between the various points of the ancient world, the Israelite sovereign could not help but have abundant income based on taxes on “the merchants, and the hiring of spices, and the all the kings of Arabia, and of the rulers of the land”, with the great quantity of products that crossed their territories (1 Kings 10:15).
(c) Copper mines discovered the port of Ezion-geber and a large copper smelter. Nelson Glueck affirms that Solomon was “the first to make the Wadi Arabah mining industry a truly national enterprise” (“The Other Side of the Jordan”, 1951, p. 98).
(d) The fortifications, horses and chariots. In addition to maintaining an active commercial exchange with neighboring nations (1 Kings 10:28-29), Solomon invested great resources in maintaining a powerful army (1 Kings 4:26).
Important military cities were Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, which were provided with the necessary logistical facilities to resist and stop powerful attacks, as well as to store supplies and quarter cavalry troops (cf. “The Sad Case of Tell Gezer”, in Biblical Archaeological Review, Jul./Aug. 1983, PP, 30-42; also “How Water Tunnels Worked,” Bib. Arch. Rev., Mar./Apr., PP. 9-29, and “Five Ways to defend an Ancient City”, Bib. Arch. Rev., Mar./Apr. 1983, pp. 73-76).
(e) The visit of the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1-13) has been regarded by some critics as mere fiction. It is maintained that there is no evidence of the queen’s personal existence. However, Velikovsky (“Ages in Chaos”, Doubleday, 1952) demonstrates, without leaving any room for doubt:
(A) that the lack of identification is due to a gap in the conventional chronology of Egypt of 600 years, due to some erroneous identifications at the beginning of Egyptology;
(B) Velikovsky points out that Josephus (Ant. 8:6, 5) states that this woman was “queen of Egypt and Ethiopia”;
(C) based on the revised chronology, bringing the accounts of the monuments and the Bible into close correspondence, Queen Hatsepsut was a contemporary of Solomon;
(D) Hatsepsut states in her chronicles that she visited the land “of Punt”;
(E) Punt was, according to Egyptian inscriptions, to the east of Egypt, and there was a river flowing south (evidently the Jordan); In addition, “Punt” is also called “God’s land.”
These and many other reasons, based on the study of Egyptian archaeological finds relating to Queen Hatsepsut and her journey to the land of Punt, and careful consideration of the chronological structure of Egyptian history, lead to the identification of ” the queen of Sheba” with “the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia” mentioned by Josephus, none other than the famous Hatsepsut.
In the aforementioned work by Velikovsky there is copious documentation and an exhaustive treatment of this entire topic.