40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 2:36-3:3 (Episode 294)

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Solomon places restrictions on where Shimei can travel which ends badly for David's old foe. Solomon makes a marriage alliance with the Pharaoh. And the new king has the order he should build things backward. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Hey friends, this is Daniel Emery Price, host of 30 Minutes in the New Testament and 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. We just all had Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and so-called Cyber Monday. Tuesday, November 30th, as many of you know, is Giving Tuesday. On Giving Tuesday, we have a quick question for you. Is this podcast of value to you on a weekly basis? It is the goal of 1517 and the 1517 Podcast Network and this show also to proclaim and defend the good news that we are forgiven and free on account of the death and resurrection

of Christ alone. Please hear that and know that and receive the good news once again today that on account of Christ, you are forgiven. Furthermore, we value your support, your encouragement, your listening ears, and your engagement. We are thankful for you and we value you, which brings us back to our first question. Is this podcast a value to you in your life with Christ? We sincerely hope it is. If this is the case, we ask you today to take action in financially supporting the production and distribution of this show and all the other projects of 1517. To give, you can go to 1517.org or follow the link in the show notes. Whether you give a one-time gift, a new recurring donation, or possibly an increased donation, we thank you

for your support and partnership in the gospel of Jesus Christ. welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament 40 minutes in the old testament is a 1517 podcast network podcast you can go over to 1517.org slash podcast check out all the other podcasts that are living over there and while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that we've got going on hey make sure that you check out the new advent slash christmas release from 1517 music tis the season chad and uh 1517 is coming through with the advent ep of blake flatley contributing to that and it's really good and so it's yeah it is it's some awesome music yeah it's really great so if you spotify amazon music apple music wherever you

listen to it you can find it there it's free so you can just stream it and make sure that you go over to whatever music service you use and make sure that you follow 1517 music because we've got you know the live album that came out from um from the nwa conference which is great and now we've got the christmas ep so uh yeah it's the season for christmas music is it's upon us so make sure that you go and check that out all right chad so last week uh solomon got started and and almost completed he's not quite done yet uh putting to death his enemies or supposed enemies theoretical enemies uh people that could potentially really it's anyone that could potentially be a threat uh to to his uh his reign slash anyone that his father just didn't

approve of or people that his dad really didn't like the idea of outliving him people that had offended his dad insulted his dad people that his father had even absolved but he said i know i absolved you but my son he was not involved in absolution so he's gonna kill you and uh that's sort of uh the the place that we're at right now is uh you have you have joab which was a bummer you had solomon's brother doing something stupid but not sure he needed to die for it but solomon Solomon disagreed with that, and he's dead. You have a banished priest. And now we're going to get to a guy who just said some bad things to David,

and David forgave him. And we'll see if that absolution holds up in the eyes of Solomon. Yeah, it was an absolution that died with the death of David, I guess. Not the best kind of absolution that you want to have. It was a temporary absolution. Yeah, that's not what you want. He's like, I'm going to forgive you, but once I die, all bets are off. And this one is even stranger.

So the guy's named Shammai. But it's even stranger because Shammai, we learn at the beginning of 1 Kings, is actually a supporter of Solomon. That's the real weird part about this. And given, yes, I mean, Solomon does not kill, execute Shammai right away, But he does set up a situation where, you know, with one misstep, he can take him out. So we've had, yeah, like you said, we have one banished priest, we have Adonijah killed, we have Joab killed, and now we're left with Shammai. So what's Solomon's approach going to be to him?

Because, of course, he's also on that list that David gave to Solomon on his deathbed. I think it's safe to say that David didn't really ever forgive Shammai, because if you're bringing up something on your deathbed that you supposedly forgave someone for, it's safe to say that you did not forgive that person. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, it was like when David came back from exile, which is when he, well, he had problems with Shammai when he left for exile, when Absalom was taken over the kingdom. and then he kind of gave this amnesty when he came back you know it's one of these and this often happens you know when a king comes back into power when a king comes to power then the sort of a you know an amnesty all right we're not going to put anybody to death that seems to be david's approach on that particular day but you're right i mean this is a lot of

years later and he never forgets it right you know just even on his deathbed he wants to make sure that once more an old guy doesn't die peacefully, instead that he dies in blood. So here's what the king does. The king sent and summoned Shammai and said to him, build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there to any place whatever. For on the day that you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall die. Your blood shall be on your own head. And so what does Shammai say? Well, he says to the king, what you say is good. As my lord the king has said, so will your servant do. So Shammai lived in Jerusalem many days. So for those who don't quite remember that background, Shammai was the

one who cursed out David, called him all sorts of really terrible things. When David was fleeing from Absalom, comes back. As I mentioned, David forgave him. So we know that Shimei did not live in Jerusalem. Thus, he's going to have to move into the city. He lived in a place called Baharim, which was to the east of Jerusalem. And that's why Solomon says, on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall die. So the Kidron Valley or the brook Kidron is on the eastern side of Jerusalem. That's the valley that, for instance, Jesus and his apostles crossed when they went up to the Mount of Olives. You leave the temple on the east gate, you go down into the Kidron Valley, then you go up the Mount of Olives to the east of the city. Baharim was

on that eastern side of the city of Jerusalem. And that's why David, excuse me, that's why Solomon mentions that particular direction. My impression that I get from this is this is basically Solomon adopting approach to where Jerusalem is treated by him as a city of refuge, like there were cities of refuge scattered all throughout Israel. And then Solomon sets himself up as the avenger of blood, that redeemer of blood. That's kind of the idea. Because the way cities of refuge worked is if you accidentally killed someone, you go to the city of refuge, and as long as you stay there, you're okay. The avenger of blood can't come inside the city walls to kill you. But if you leave and he finds you and kills you, well, then that's on you. That's kind of the way this is

couched by Solomon, at least it seems to me. He's like saying, all right, I want to keep you close. I'm going to keep you here in Jerusalem. And as long as you stay in the city, as long as you don't leave the city, it's specifically as long as you don't leave the city eastward and go back home. And maybe Solomon has the idea he'd go back home and gather together some revolutionaries or something. Who knows what's in Solomon's head, but as long as you don't go that direction and stay here, we're good. And of course, I mean, what is Shammai supposed to say? He's supposed to say, no, I don't like that idea. He realizes he doesn't want to mess with Solomon because Solomon has all of these guys taken out. So Shammai realizes, yeah, okay, I'll do what you say. Whatever you

propose sounds good to me. And that's what he does. He lives there many days. Well, we learned how many these many days are in the account that follows this. We're told that at the end of three years, so that's the many days, at the end of three years, two of the servants who belonged to Shammai ran away to Achish, son of Maakah, king of Gath. Now we've encountered this name before. This is probably not the same person, but if you remember back in David's story, David went and when he was running away from Saul, he hid out in the city of Gath, and a king of Gath by the name of Achish was there, and then David later found shelter with Achish. Could be the same guy. If he is, he's very old. I suspect this was a kind of a throne name popular among the Philistines,

and this particular guy just took the same throne name as the earlier ahish did and one of the reasons i say that is because archaeologists have found an inscription in not in gath but in one of the other cities of the philistine pentapolis uh called ekron they found a seventh century inscription which says that such and such was built by ahish so this is like three centuries after these events happened with Solomon, or two and a half centuries, whatever it might be. So once more, same name, same area of the Philistine-controlled part of Judea. So I suspect this is just another guy that has the same name as the one that David dealt with. And he's the king of Gath, and Gath is one of those cities of the Philistine Patapolis.

So keep in mind, if you can just kind of picture the Holy Land too, that these servants who ran away from Shammai went westward. So the Philistines are on the coast. They're on the Mediterranean coast. So the reason this is important is because Solomon specifically said that when you cross the Brook Kidron, then you could be killed. Well, to co-retrieve his servants, he doesn't have to cross the Brook Kidron. All he has to do is leave the western part of the city of Jerusalem.

them. So maybe it was that kind of legal loophole that Shammai had in his head thinking, well, you know, Solomon did say when I crossed the Brook Kidron, then I'm being in danger. I'm not going to cross the Brook Kidron. I'm going to go the other direction. I'm going to go west to the city of Gath. We don't know what was in Shammai's head, but that at least is one probability. So the two servants run away. Shammai finds out, behold, your servants are in Gath. So verse 40, He gets up, saddles his donkey, and he goes to Gath, to Achish, and he sought his servants there. Finds them. Shemay brings his servants back from Gath. So presumably he thinks either he thought he could just kind of sneak away.

It wouldn't be found out. Or he was interpreting this Brook Kidron business thinking, oh, I'll make the other direction. Whatever it was, he probably thought or maybe, you know, three years have passed. he's thinking, ah, you know, it's been a long time. Surely by now, Solomon's not going to seek vengeance or justice against me. Well, if that's what he thought, he was wrong. Verse 41, Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and returned. And so the king summons him. And here's what he says. This is middle of verse 42. Did I not make you swear by the lord and solemnly warn you saying no for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever you shall die and you said to me what you say is good i will obey why then have

you not kept your oath to the lord and the commandment which i commanded you now hold on a I don't remember Shammai ever swearing by the Lord. That's one little detail that I think Solomon has. He's hamming this up a little bit. He's adding something. Because back there in verses 36 through 38 that we just read, nowhere in there is Shammai swearing by the Lord his God. All he's basically saying is, yes, sir.

That's what you say. So that's what I'll do. Solomon seems to be, I mean, as if it's not enough to disobey the rules of the king, he's bringing in God's name here to make it seem as if Shammai has really, you know, broken an oath to God and not just to the king. Well, I mean, he's making him seem like a commandment breaker, right? I mean, this is why he does this. He's like, you've broken the commandment of the Lord, a commandment that you swore to keep.

I mean, it almost seems like, because he's using this language of commandments and stuff, too, I mean, it hits like he's saying, you've broken, you know, the thing that God has told you to do something, you have sworn to do it, and you have not. And that might be a little bit of a stretch of what's happened here. Yeah, well, Solomon's basically putting his own humanly devised rule on par with God's word. Right. yeah so he's basically saying to break my word is to break god's word well no not necessarily because you just came up with this on your own and and shemay never swore by the lord his god saying that he would would not do this so anyway that's the accusation and i mean what are you

going to say uh evidently he doesn't say anything in fact this is one of the we've seen this a couple times before it occurs with uh with some frequency one of the so one of the characteristics of biblical dialogue, when you got person A talking to person B, is if person A says something to person B, and person B doesn't respond, or that maybe they're shocked, maybe they're nonplussed, maybe they're upset by whatever person A says, that silence is then sometimes followed by a repetition that person A also said to person B. So that's kind of what happens here. So Solomon says this to Shimei, Shimei doesn't respond. He's either upset or shocked or angry or silent, whatever it is, he doesn't respond. And so the beginning of verse 44 says, the king also said

to Shimei. So anytime you see that repetition of so-and-so also said, when there's no response to the person who was talked to, a lot of times what's happening there is the person who's spoken to. That other person in the dialogue is just kind of taken aback. They don't know what to say. So Shimei was probably just thinking, oh, great. Now what's going to happen to me? So what does the king say? What does Solomon say? Verse 44. Now he kind of lets the cat out of the bag here. You know in your own heart, Shimei, all the harm that you did to David, my father. now is gone is all this language about oh you broke your oath whatever david solomon is actually being honest now you know in your own heart all the harm that you did to david my father

so the lord will bring back your harm on your own head but king solomon kind of a strange case where he's referring to himself in the third person he doesn't say i he says but king solomon shall be blessed and the throne of david shall be established before the lord forever you always you always you always love the the third person thing this is what's going to happen to you now let me let me tell you what's going to happen to the wonderful king solomon yeah it really does come across that way yes yeah why are you referring to yourself in the third person solomon that's just weird it's super weird and here's the thing about it you know like this is this is so how the bible works is that king solomon does something that's like really like just like i don't know like it's

always gross when people do that sort of thing where but king solomon shall be blessed and the throne of david shall be established before the lord forever and you're like ew that doesn't seem humble at all like if you were to say like how much humility is in this statement you're like i feel like there's no humility in this david this seems like a rubbing your face in something yet this is true because god has said it's true solomon's not wrong like god will establish the throne of david forever but it's not true because solomon's so great or because david's so great it's just true because god said he was going to do it yeah yeah i mean it's it's and it's a great case too where we have to be always be careful just because a biblical character says something

does not mean it's true i think that's one of the very common mistake that people make is that just because so-and-so says something, and they use God's name to say it, that it's true. Not necessarily. I mean, we're going to see, for instance, in the next chapter when we get to Solomon's prayer or response to God, whatever you want to phrase it, that some of the language he uses doesn't really match up with reality. And there's plenty of other instances of this as well, where a biblical character, even a leading biblical character, like a king, will say something, well, that doesn't mean that they're somehow divinely inspired to say that.

Sometimes they're just saying things because they're making it up, that's their opinion, or they're lying, or whatever it might be. So bear that in mind when you're listening to Solomon speak here. So that's then what happens, verse 46, after Solomon confronts him and accuses him, and then uses his third-person language to refer to himself. Verse 46, the king commanded Benaiah, his fixer, Joab's replacement, the king commanded Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada,

and he went out and struck him down, and he died. So, wraps up with a summary statement. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. Now, notice the passive there. It doesn't say, so Solomon established his kingdom. So the kingdom was established by or in the hand of Solomon. You got to think at this point, anyone that was maybe thinking, is this the real king, has decided not to probably speak that to anyone else

and certainly not to do anything about it. It's established in the sense that he has started his reign out by, we had talked about this, like, hey, sort of pardoning your brother is a good way to start. well that was the beginning and end of that tactic and then it was just banishing and killing people including his brother and joab and yeah if there was anyone who was who was thinking well i don't know man like is solomon the right guy like you're probably keeping that to yourself at this point you're like okay he started his reign out by just eliminating any detractors and it's a good

reminder too that a lot of times people have the impression of first kings that you kind of have two stages in solomon's life you know his the first stage of his of his life and his reign is good he's he's wise he's making good decisions he's going to be a great davidic kind of ruler but then he starts marrying all these foreign women and building temples for their gods and then then you have kind of the second half of solomon's life this gradual decline until he get to the end, and his heart has been turned away from the Lord, and he's building high places for all these foreign gods. So there is kind of this caricature of first half of Solomon's reign, good guy. Second half of Solomon's reign, bad guy. That's way too simplistic, because we have

already seen here at the beginning of Solomon's reign, he's making some very self-serving decisions, got a lot of blood on his hands. And as we'll see at the beginning of chapter three, already the very beginning he's messing up because he's kind of he's it's almost a return an undoing of the exodus a return to egypt so he's making a lot of mistakes early on and then yeah he's going to have a good season there but then that's going to be blown up by idolatry as well yeah i mean this first verse and in chapter three you know it's funny because in your bible if you're reading uh a bible with headers the header uh for chapter three is solomon's prayer for wisdom that's leading there that's nice uh so great like

solomon's gonna pray for wisdom solomon's prayer for wisdom verse one solomon made a marriage alliance with the pharaoh the king of egypt okay that sounds like you know what a marriage alliance is it means that you have to marry that someone from that from that country which by the way is not a wise thing to do no no not at all yeah i was looking i was curious as soon as i saw pharaoh king of egypt i was wondering have we seen that particular phraseology like in the last two or three years that we've been going through and so i did a search and no we have not the last time that we saw that was in deuteronomy chapter 11 where the reference to pharaoh king of egypt was in reference of course to what you would think it was reference to to the enslavement and the

oppression of the israelites so all the way from deuteronomy now through joshua judges ruth first samuel second sam but we have not heard that particular name drop but the minute that it's dropped, what does our minds immediately go back to? Well, it goes back to everything the Egyptians did and what Pharaoh did. So for Solomon to make a marriage alliance, and the Hebrew verb there implies you're entering into a relationship of affinity. So it's not so much that Solomon is getting married. It's that Solomon has now committed himself politically and in other ways to the ruler of Egypt. That's what that implies.

So it's not just like, hey, I saw this really good-looking girl when I was in Egypt, and I thought I'd marry her. No, this is all about politics, and it's not about love or anything else. These are national politics. It's an alliance that includes marriage. Marriage is sort of like the signature on the deal that you've made. Yeah, that's all it is.

And what's weird about it is you wonder, is Solomon sitting there thinking, like, because we haven't heard about Egypt at all for a long time. And is he sitting there thinking, like, what would be good is if we never, you know, is he thinking, is Egypt still sitting around kind of hacked off about that whole Exodus thing that happened all those generations ago? And maybe we need to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. I know what I'll do. I'll get into a political alliance, and I'll sign this thing off by taking the daughter of a pharaoh and having her come to Jerusalem, and I'll marry her up. I don't know if that's what's going on. I mean, I'm sure at this point Egypt is still obviously a very powerful country,

but it's not something that we've heard of them being a threat, or were they going to come back and enslave all of you? We haven't heard anything like that. No, I think this is probably nothing more than Solomon trying to establish some political clout. You know, maybe it looked good for him. Hey, I married—I did this to marry a local girl from Jerusalem. I married a princess of Egypt. Well, this is like an alliance sort of thing.

What you're doing is you're saying that, hey, Philistines or whoever you are, you need to watch yourself because if you come and attack us, to attack us is to attack Egypt. And to attack Egypt is to attack us. That's how alliances work, right? So you increase your strength by making a deal with another power that says, we take an attack on you as an attack on us, so we come to your defense, we come to your aid, you do the same for us. This detours anyone from thinking that they should come and do this. So it has to give all your enemies pause now.

They're like, ooh, they have an alliance. oh not just any alliance a marriage alliance with this other country so before we go and do anything crazy we better think long and hard about it because we're not just attacking them we're attacking both of these countries this is i mean you know how this works politically nowadays i mean nowadays what stops some bigger country from going and why is france just sitting there you know uninvaded well the answer to that question is you're not just invading france allies yeah if you invade france you got a huge problem on your hands yeah yeah that's the way this has always worked i mean it's never a time in human history when things have not worked this

way and you know it worked this way with regard to these political marriages for just as long so just nothing is nothing has changed so what did he do he uh he made a marriage alliance he took pharaoh's daughter brought her into the city of david city of david by the way is not Jerusalem. It's not Bethlehem, which is what we sometimes associate with the city of David. It was referenced to part of Jerusalem, kind of military fortress part of Jerusalem. Brought her into the city of David until he had finished building. Now notice the order here. I think the order is significant. Building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. so i don't think this is just simply uh sequential here he uh this is with regard to priorities

until he had finished building his own house oh then also the house of the lord and then also the wall around julius because we know that he spent a lot of time on his own house it took if i remember right 13 years for solomon to have his own house constructed seven years to have the house of the lord constructed yeah you would think that a wall i mean not that the house of the lord isn't important but if you're you know if you're a king you might think that the first thing you want to do is build the wall before you start constructing the things that you don't want attacked you know like your house more sense and the temple you know that sort of thing so i think you could you could make a you might be like yeah obviously the house of the lord is the most important thing here the

temple but at least to argue it makes sense it would make sense to do this in the exact reverse order where you're like I'm going to build the Lord a temple before I do that I'm going to make sure we build a wall so that when we build the temple it's difficult for anyone to attack the temple, to destroy the temple

and then after that I'll build my house, because it's not as though Solomon is homeless and has nowhere to sleep it's not like he's living in a tent David refers to a house of cedar that he lived in, which presumably Solomon would have inherited so yeah it's not as if he's in a one-bedroom apartment somewhere or homeless on the street

needing some place to live he just launched a lush palace what what he needed was a nehemiah on his staff that's what yeah he needed a wall builder on his staff which he obviously didn't have at least not someone who's telling him and a wall is in this day is the means of defense i mean this isn't like i don't know like you could you could put a wall up eventually or like that no a wall is super important yeah yeah that was that was your primary means of protection so it's a wild thing it's a wild thing not to build that first but anyway that's the order his own house house lord and the wall around Jerusalem so he he marries he doesn't have this lavish palace yet for uh for the princess of Egypt she's probably

no doubt constantly asking Solomon when you can build my house when you can build my house and then so that's one situation then verse two says the people were sacrificing at the high places we need to talk about those however because no house had yet been built for the name of the lord there's a lot of stuff in that verse it's worth uh reflecting on for a minute first of all what are these what are these high places we've encountered them before but it's been a while so the uh in the plural and the singular it's by ma in the plural it's by moat these these high it's usually translated high places the word itself comes from like the back of an animal which if it's a four-legged animal it's going to be the highest part so it's often

then used to describe a higher place and sometimes these were geographically higher they were hills they were small mountains where these high places were located but not necessarily it could have been an artificially elevated spot it's just kind of a high place is a technical term for a place of religious devotion, which is usually accompanied by altars and sacrifices and all that. A high place could just be a holy place, or it doesn't have to necessarily be elevated other than spiritually elevated.

It's a place, it could be a place that you say, this is a high place, as in this place is higher than other places, and it is a set-apart place. Yeah, it's a ritual space. That's really all it is. In fact, I can't remember the chapter, but back in 1 Samuel, when right before Samuel anoints Saul, he goes up to a high place in order to offer sacrifices. And that introduces kind of this, there's this strange idea, not idea, but this strange mixed message we have about high places.

Because, for instance, the prophet of the Lord Samuel is going to sacrifice in a high place. Okay. The people are sacrificing on these Bamoth, these high places in 1 Kings 3. And then also later on, the high places are forbidden. No sacrifices are to take place there. So it seems as if this is probably a little bit too neat and tidy, but it seems as if it wasn't God's will that people be sacrificing and worshiping on these Bamoth, these high places. but many of them did, and some of them were on the high places sacrificing to Yahweh. They were worshiping Yahweh at these high places. So they weren't supposed to. It was supposed to take place in front of the tabernacle or the Lord's altar, but they were. And because the high places were associated with the Canaanite religion and the whole history behind that,

they were forbidden, and later on they were very much forbidden because what was happening there was all sorts of terrible idolatry. But there was kind of this, I don't know, you get a different sense of high places depending on where you look in the Bible. Generally speaking, bad. Sometimes, okay. I suppose that's the best way to summarize it. It's kind of never great.

Sometimes it's sort of permissible because you don't have a temple built, I guess. But it's never like what God is wanting. He might be okay with it because of circumstances, but I think part of the reason for that is that a high place becomes a temptation is sort of built in there to elevate creation over creator. Because a place is always some place in creation, as opposed to, like, the tabernacle or something, which God gives specific instructions to be built as a house for him. And then what makes that house special is the fact that God dwells there. But it's something that you built for God. These are, like, things in creation. These are spots on the earth, right?

And the temptation then can become that this is now a holy place, not because God is there, but the place itself is holy. And then you can end up sacrificing things to other gods in this holy place because it's a holy place. And there are no holy places if God's not there. That's not how it works. There's not some set-apart spot that's just holier than other spots. That's not a thing. uh if god's not there it's not there it ain't holy that's it and the temptation with these high places to say that's a holy place and you're like well it's not if god's not there

no no yeah so all of that then leads to as you mentioned the syncretism where you have yahweh and whoever yahweh and baal yahweh and asherah yahweh and molek yahweh and whoever so all of that to say you can understand why they were never great because there was always this this uh this temptation notice to the language it's used because no house had yet been built doesn't say for the lord it says but for the name of the lord this this is pretty typical language that we get from deuteronomy that's going to be scattered throughout first and second kings and elsewhere where the purpose of the temple is for god for sure but specifically often it's the name of the lord and this could be one of those cases where we see these elsewhere in the old testament where

name almost takes on a personification just like we've seen other personifications of god sometimes you have god then you have his name and then the name is almost distinguished as it were from the lord just like of course the messenger of the lord that we've talked about multiple times and the glory of the lord and the word of the lord so sometimes the name of the lord is also treated as sort of a personification, and this name is there in the temple, and people address the name and call upon the name. So that could be one of these examples, but it certainly becomes kind of typical king's speech for the purpose of the temple. So that's the first couple verses. What happens next? Well, we're kind of working our way toward this dream. So we're first

Joshua told that Solomon loved the Lord, walking the statutes of David, his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places. He's the only king that we are told loved the Lord. I'm not saying that other kings didn't love the Lord, but he's the only one we're explicitly told loved the Lord. And I think, I could be wrong, but I think perhaps the reason that this is made explicit is because so much later on is made of the fact that he also loved foreign women. So love and Solomon are pretty close together. So he loved the Lord and walked in the statue of his father, David. Only he made these sacrifices, which we'll get to in just a minute. But if you skip ahead to 1 Kings 11, we read,

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, Hittite women, all these women. And then we're told at the end of verse 2, Solomon clung to these in love. so i wonder if the reason we're not told that we're told solomon loved the lord is sort of a almost a a subtle subtle hint of some other loves that that are to come now you love the lord but there were other loves yeah here's the thing uh this isn't to say that solomon didn't love the lord but it is to say that solomon is a passionate guy there you go he's a passionate guy go read the song of songs like he's a passionate dude okay so did he love the lord sure did he love lots of things yes he did he's a he's a passionate fellow not a dude who people were like you know

i just wish that solomon was a more romantic i wish he wasn't so cold that's not a that's probably not an accusation that solomon ever got like he's a passionate guy yeah the passion that his dad had for warfare and all things military that same passion that passion that kind of passion was what solomon had for well women but you could just you could just see solomon being this guy that just gushes you know so you know if you ask him about the lord he'd probably say something incredible and just gush about like how great the lord was and how much how much affection he had for for god and all of this stuff and then you know but also every pretty girl that he meets he also like falls head over heels in love with her immediately and so

this is just how he is add to his harem yeah well he ends up what with 300 wives 700 concubines something like that yeah something like that a thousand thousand women a thousand wives and co-wives just just just like the size of the town you grew up in yeah yeah pretty much so uh he loved the lord walking the statues of david his father now the language it's used here only when it says only he made sacrifices at the high places uh it's a when you compare that with the same kind of language it's used to describe his father it really stands out uh starkly because if you skip ahead to first kings 15 verse 5 we're told david did what was right in the eyes of the lord and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded all the days of his life

except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Now that English translation there as except, the Hebrew hymn is rock. Sounds just like R-O-C-K, but it's like R-A-Q, but rock. That is the same Hebrew that's used here that's translated in 1 Kings 3 as only. So except he sacrificed to make offerings on the high place. David was faithful except only

he really messed up the matter of Uriah the Hittite so to have father and son described in similar language with this this same word used to describe the except or the only and then listed after that the way that they went astray is suggestive of me of a parallel between these two so just like David completely blew it in the case of Uriah the Hittite with ongoing negative ramifications in his life i think the same thing is being suggested here solomon loved the lord walked in such as so david his father but only except he made these sacrifices well it's these it's this predilection toward high places and everything idolatrous connected with that that's going to be solomon's main issue because he's gonna we read later on that he the guy went so

far as to make high places for Molech and for other really, really nasty foreign deities. I mean, just the worst of the worst. So this is, I think what we're seeing in these opening verses is kind of a small

window into the huge problems that are going to befall Solomon later on. And it all revolves around two things. Women and worship. It's his wives and it's the worship of the the false deities. Those are going to be the twin

downfalls of Solomon. Yeah, I think you see this hinted at as the house for the Lord is not the predominant thing. Why is it not the priority? Because he has these high places. And this sort of language of, hey, he loved the Lord, but

he did sacrifice in the high places, is not talking about something even that's currently going on. This is sort of a summary of the life of Solomon that you get right at the beginning. And the idea is that he has fallen into the trap of thinking that these places are special, and so he can not just sacrifice to the Lord there, but any God can be sacrificed there by virtue of the place. And I do think that it's leading you in to this thing where you're like, here's the order in which

he built stuff. That's a hint. Here's these high places. That's a hint. And it's letting you know that, yeah, Solomon was a passionate guy, and Solomon loved the Lord, and Solomon's going to, next week, make a, what I would think is a pretty noble request of the Lord. But these high places are just sort of hanging around, letting you know that this is probably not going to end up great. Yeah, yeah. It's all a reminder, as we have multiple reminders in the Bible, that Solomon is a son of David, but he's not the son of David. That's right. I mean, this is the recurring pattern we've seen all the way from Noah onward, where you have a guy he sounds pretty good he might you know he might be a really you know the guy

and then he just falls flat in his face happens with noah happens with abraham happens with david it's about to happen with solomon so uh yeah but not your trust in princes that's correct only in the prince of peace for sure that's correct all right man that's it that's uh that's where we're gonna have to leave it next week we will most definitely get into uh god telling solomon that He can ask him for one thing, and we'll see what that one thing is. So I'll see you next week. See you then.