40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 4:1-34 (Episode 296)

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

We meet the men in Solomon's royal cabinet and his twelve officers. The fame of his wealth and wisdom is starting to spread, but all the horses could be a problem. And Solomon is really into plants and animals. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

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 to 1517.org slash podcast. check out all the other podcasts that are living over there while you're over there make sure you check out all the other things that 1517 is doing which is everything I mean videos

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go over there and check out everything else. Chad, last week, Solomon asked for some wisdom, got some wisdom. Two prostitutes decided to put that wisdom to the test. And this resulted in Solomon threatening to cut a baby in half and give each prostitute half of it. But one of them having her heart be warmed and say, don't do that, just give it to the other one. And this let Solomon know who the mother was. and that's sort of where we ended was this with this sort of legendary uh act of wisdom by solomon yeah we uh we're gonna shift from the high drama to seemingly pretty dry stuff but uh you know don't don't shut your podcast app down keep keep listening because there's actually uh

some pretty fascinating stuff in some of this and then you know once we get past uh some a long list of odd names. We're going to get into some pretty weighted language, language that takes us all the way back to Genesis, so we'll get a glimpse into just exactly how the kingdom of Solomon was sort of like an Eden, at least that's the way it's partially described. So we'll pick that up when we get to verse 20. But right now we're in 1 Kings chapter 4 verse one, which begins by saying that King Solomon is king over all Israel. So not just, of course, a portion of the kingdom, but the entirety. And by all Israel, it doesn't mean just Israel as opposed to Judah, but Israel here is used that blanket term for the northern and southern parts

of the kingdom. So he's reigning over everybody. And then we have a list of what are called his high officials. And I believe there's 11 of these. Some of these we've heard before. Many of them we we have not heard of before it starts out with a guy named azariah the son of zadok he's called the priest i'm assuming this means the high priest i mean it's not we're not told but i'm assuming this is in reference to the high priest so that's the very first official that's named and he goes on to describe his to name his secretaries his recorder the commander of his army. We have met him several times. He was active in first Kings chapter two, offing all those people that Solomon wanted to get rid of. And his name is Benaiah. So he was kind of the, he was

Solomon's fixture, like Joab was David's fixture. So Benaiah, he was commanded the army. In other words, he was Joab's replacement. And then there was kind of interesting inclusion here. We're told that zadok and abiathar were priests now the reason this is noteworthy is because remember abiathar was the guy that solomon exiled said hey you can't be a priest anymore you got to go back home and so he exiled him away from jerusalem away from the uh the sanctuary to go to his hometown Now, either Abiathar is included here because this is sort of a general reference to back when Abiathar served as a priest under Solomon, or another possibility, which is somewhat entertaining, is that actually Solomon brought Abiathar back from exile. Now, I don't know which of those is true, but it does seem strange to me that his name is included here, alongside Zadok, when, back a couple chapters ago, he was exiled by Solomon. Yeah, maybe it's just once a priest, always a priest. He's serving as a priest in exile.

Yeah, maybe so, yeah. He's not dead, so he's still a priest. Technically, yeah, this is true. It's true. So anyway, his name is there alongside Zadok. And then we have a few others listed, along with one guy named the king's friend. We've encountered that phraseology before. Didn't mean he was like the king's buddy. You know, they grew up together or something. This is an official title, probably like a counselor.

So a close counselor type friend. And then at the very end, we're told about a fellow named Adoniram, who was in charge of the forced labor. Now, I bring that up now because we're going to encounter that several times in the next, well, the next few chapters, all the way into chapters 9 and 10, this discussion of the labor force of Solomon. It's kind of a negative cast to that particular Hebrew word because that is, the form of that word was used way back in Exodus to describe the taskmasters in Egypt. So they were the ones who forced the labor upon the Israelites when they were in Egypt.

and now we have the israelites engaging in forced labor so we'll i'll save it for when we get to it we're going to encounter more than one situation where solomon is enlisting both israelites as well as foreigners to work in the building of his his house as well as as well as the temple anytime it's a little bit fuzzy it's like are these guys willingly doing this are they being forced into this? Do they have any kind of say-so in this? Are they just kind of workmen who are partially paid, or are they slaves? Exactly what's going on here. So we'll encounter a few of those as we work away through the chapters that are coming up. Just kind of keep that in mind that already here in chapter 4, we're encountering the forced labor gangs. Then 7 through verse 19 describes 12

officers who are over Israel. Now, this is another kind of interesting detail because you would assume, okay, you got 12 officers. I would assume anyway, that these 12 officers are going to be representatives of the 12 tribes and that these officers would then be bringing the taxation and the goods and all of that from their respective travel areas back to Jerusalem, except that doesn't work that way. When you start going through the list here, it does not match up with the tribal allotments that were given all the way back in Joshua. And many of these places are designated not according to the tribe to which they belong, but cities. It'd be kind of like, suppose a newly elected American president came into office and he just did away with the old

state boundaries and divided up the country into 50 new territories and named them after certain cities that were in those territories. So say he combined Texas and Louisiana and just called it the Houston territory or something like that. That's more or less what is going on here with Solomon. And I suspect the reason he did this is that this is his political way of destroying old tribal allegiances so he's realigning boundaries realigning commitments because his goal i'm assuming his goal is to provide a more centralized cohesive form of form of government instead of there being kind of this tribal sort of governance going on out there and then we have a list of their names which we're not going to go through the only one that's

probably familiar to anybody has been her because of the movie uh but not the guy in the movie different guy yeah yeah different guy uh it is one uh one hebrew uh detail here that that's kind of odd about this list is so you listen to these names ben her ben decker ben about ben abinadab uh where's another one there's another ben in there somewhere it'd be like me so my dad is named carson but like instead of saying chad ben carson people just call me ben carson so it's kind of strange here. There's no first names with some of these guys. So Ben-Hur just means son of her. And Ben-Decker just means the son of Decker. And Ben-Abenadab, son of Abinadab. So I don't know why their first names are not listed, but it's kind of oddity in this list of names. So this is

kind of a big overview of, so far anyway, we're going to hear more about it, of how Solomon is governing his kingdom. He's been given the gift of wisdom. He's got his personal counselors around him these these high officials who are his secretaries and counselors and recorders and whatnot and then he's got these 12 officers who are spread out all over the land of israel in these newly newly drawn territories and each of them as we'll as we'll see in a minute is going to be responsible for providing the taxation revenue and other goods to to solomon but anyway that's the picture so far that we have but what's uh what's happening you got any great insights to add to that uh theologically rich section nope uh ben hurst good movie though i like that movie

yeah it was a good movie that's for sure okay so uh the next section does have a lot more to it that uh is pretty fascinating for lots of reasons and we we encounter one of these actually right away so i'll let me read the first uh couple verses this is uh first kings 4 20 and 21 Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. This is where you see that Solomon has this reputation of being this really good king, right? And we kind of talked about this a little bit last episode, where in his personal life and in his worship life,

Solomon is not great, to be generous, to say he is not great. But if you just ask the people during his reign, if you're taking the approval rating, it's probably pretty high, because it does seem like there's a lot of peace and there's a lot of prosperity. Everyone's happy. So if you just ask the one of the citizens like what do you think about how do you think old solomon's doing they're probably going to say it's going great yeah yeah the romans had their pax romana and the israelites have their what they're the pax solomono it is it really is it's the it's a piece of solomon and if you if you read through the rest of kings well you start reading with saul saul and david's kingdoms were were not anything like this david's more than saul's but there was

warfare there were strife there were coups going on all kinds of problems that we've all talked that we've talked about in podcasts and if you read after solomon everything falls apart pretty quickly and you never have any kind of kind of this broad international solomonic peace going on like you have here nor do you have this high approval rating that solomon's gonna have so yeah um individually in in lots of different ways solomon's messed up but uh as far as his his governance of the kingdom overall especially in this opening chapter describing it man it's it's picturing glowing colors yeah it seems like he really it seems like he really channeled that wisdom outwardly right like i'm gonna i'm gonna rule in in uh in wisdom but i'm not gonna live

in wisdom yeah absolutely that's what that is what happens and notice the image that are used here the the very first one judah and israel were as many as the sand by the sea well if you're familiar with genesis and know the promises that god gave to abraham that's exactly why that particular metaphor is or similarly is used because abraham has promised what as many descendants as the well celestially as the stars in the sky and then terrestrially as the sand and the seashore So, the reason, I think, the reason that that particular image is used is the way that the author is tapping us on the shoulder and saying, hey, guess what's happening at the time of Solomon? Many of the promises, not all, but many of the promises to Abraham are being fulfilled. So, and we'll see more of that actually in just a minute.

So, there are many to stand by the sea. And then we have this kind of, you know, it's a generic description of the happiness of the people. but it's also a rich description says they ate and they drank and they were happy in other words there's plenty plenty of food plenty of wine plenty of joy so it's just kind of an overall description of the the happiness the the satisfaction of the kingdom and then there's a sort of a uh sort of a word play here going on and when it says that solomon ruled over all the kingdoms. The verb that's used there in Hebrew for rule is mashal. Mashal is also the word used for a proverb. So you could say that Solomon's reign was proverbial in quite a literal sense.

And we're told later in the chapter that he also spoke many of these mashalim, these proverbs. So he proverbed he ruled over all these kingdoms and it's a pretty wide territory from the euphrates to the philistines to the border of egypt in fact this is exactly the way back in genesis 15 again once more to go back to the days of abraham this is exactly the the extent of the territory that was promised to abraham but that had not yet been realized all these centuries in genesis 15 18 to 21 god says that he's going to give to the offspring of abraham this land and then here's a language from the river of egypt to the great river the river euphrates so what god promised abraham is now coming to pass during the reign of during the reign of

solomon and uh says they they that is all these other kingdoms they brought tribute and serve Solomon all the days of his life. So it's implicit, but one of the things that's happening here is that you've got the descendants of Abraham who are bringing under their wing, as it were, and it's a political wing, but nonetheless bring under their wing the Gentiles. I think a lot of what's happening here is you're seeing in 1 Kings chapter 4 a foreshadowing of the kingdom of the true son of david so of course he's going to reign over jews and gentiles christ and he's going to his kingdom is going to expand and expand and expand and he's going to fulfill all the promises to abraham and in his kingdom people will eat and drink and be happy so what's happening in first

kings four is sort of a a small window into the future broader kingdom that we have in the true son of David. So this is sort of a sketching out of what is going to come to full flower once Christ is born and establishes his kingdom. Yeah, it does seem like this sort of goodness and prosperity has extended out past Israel, right, and has sort of subdued any enemies or anything like that. The reign of Solomon is at least, you know, horizontally kind of good for everybody and so nobody really wants to fight him or or have conflict because it does seem like what he's making everything good for everyone yeah yeah and when we work our way farther along we'll we'll discover there are some exceptions to that it's sort of a uh and this is this is a

painting with a broad brush in in chapter four we'll we'll come across some details later where you know in fact we'll see one of them in just a minute where there was some there's some cracks in the foundation but you don't really you got to look closely to see those they're going to broaden over time uh but overall yeah that's exactly what's going on here well i mean we'll see like you see it with the queen of sheba and that sort of stuff but his reputation is just that that yes that that is something something marvelous and great that you that you need to behold uh and not something that you need to go conquer but something that you almost need to go witness yeah yeah that's a great contrast yeah i mean it's not like people were saying we need to invade

israel and conquer solomon then we're like hey let's go check this guy out yeah have you heard about what he's done have you heard about these these judgments that he's made you heard about these you know he's building accomplishments it's kind of a you know one of the wonders of the ancient world kind of kind of magnetism that attracts people to come and and see you know is all true we gotta we gotta check this out yeah it's legendary in that way it's sort of weird like you know you say david to somebody about then like david might strike fear in the heart of someone where solomon like strikes awe over a person which is which is different yeah it's different it's a different kind of uh different kind of attraction that pulls people pulls people

toward him and uh it's of course it's not a direct parallel but i think something like that was happening with with jesus too you know people everybody who heard anything about him wanted to find out more and maybe not always in a good way but his his attraction was irresistible well everybody that approaches jesus in the gospels approaches him because they heard a rumor people were talking about him they couldn't help but talk about him i mean you you see that i mean come and see a man who told me all I ever did. I mean, this is directly from Scripture. There's people that go and make requests of Jesus,

have you never met him? Have you never seen him? But just because they have heard. And Solomon is like that. Yeah, he's just one of those people that you would, I mean, you would pay big money to go and just to be able to see him uh and especially to be able to talk with him face to face well i know i know we're going to

get to this at some point but it was in you know in the queen of shiva instance she hears all the like you know normally like a rumor goes out or like a you know reputation goes out there and you know it gets greater and greater and greater and it would be impossible for where the person you know, any person to live up to this huge, you know, portrait that's been painted of them. In Solomon's case, she comes and she says, like, they didn't do you justice. All these rumors, you surpassed all of them.

Yeah, you not only lived up to the hype, I mean, you, like, outdid. I just thought it was going to be great. It was far beyond anything that I had heard. And, again, this is all sort of horizontally, like if you're just looking at it, you know, from a worldly perspective, you say this guy's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah.

And we get kind of a detailed description of just, I guess, the richness of his kingdom would be one way to describe it, and then the effects that it had, not just on him, so don't get the impression that this is just all about Solomon, because the individual Israelites

are enjoying the munificence of his kingdom as well. We're told verse 22 through 23 about the provision that was provided for his table. So, you know, so many, 30 cores of fine flour, 60 cores of meal. Then you have seven different animals listed here that were regularly on his menu. Oxen, cattle, sheep, deer, gazelles, roebucks, fowl, which are probably geese. of course these aren't just for these aren't just like solomon's eating all this or just his immediate family uh it's kind of the picture of the king's table right and he invites people to it and so this would be the provision for the meals that would feed solomon his family as well

as all the people who were part of his his entourage there in jerusalem then verse 24 uses an interesting verb here. It says he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tifsa to Gaza over all the kings of the Euphrates. The verb that's used there is the same verb that's used back in Genesis 1.26. So in Genesis 1, God says, let us make man our image after our likeness and let them radah, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea or the verge of the heavens and over all the other animals now that's the same verb that's used back here at first kings for solomon rada he had dominion over all the region west of the euphrates and so on and so forth one of the implications of this i think again is this is sort of a picture

of him he's he's an adam kind of figure uh he's everything that we've been talking about and he's also he's he's having dominion he's ruling over these these vast territories and as we'll see at the end of the chapter he has wisdom that is interested in all these various aspects of creation that from the cedars the hyssops to the beasts birds reptiles fish and so he's he's really being portrayed here as this adam kind of figure full of wisdom who has this vast almost seemingly idealistic kingdom and so it's it's the it's the it's probably the first person we've encountered since genesis that most closely resembles a picture of what adam was destined to do and to to do and to be which of course makes his demise all the more regrettable because he's he is

elevated to such a high extent that when those cracks in the foundation begin to show then and everything crumbles it's uh it's even a greater disappointment than it would have been had he not been this way so anyway he rules over all these people he has peace on all sides around him judah and israel lived in safety from dan even to beersheba so there's your northern and southern boundaries and then we have this proverbial expression that occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament as well, such as in Micah chapter 4, that every man under his vine and under his fig tree all the days of Solomon. So it wasn't just the king who was becoming rich and impoverishing everybody else. His success, his wealth, his peace, all of that flowed down

to everybody so that, as it says here, everyone was happy and they were peaceful under their vine and under their fig tree, which becomes in the prophets an image of the eschatological kingdom, the kingdom of the Messiah. So this is another reason why 1 Kings 4 is kind of a prototype of what the Messianic kingdom is going to be like. Yeah, the idea is there's a lot of grapes on those vines and a lot of figs on those trees. Yeah, just reach up, pluck what you want, and you're good to go.

okay so all that's great now verse 26 introduces us to what i think is one of these foreshadowings of problems to come because after the description of the food he has and the dominion he has and how this extends out to individual israelites we're told that solomon also had 40 000 the septuagint has 4 000 so who knows which one's right but either way there's a bunch 40 000 or four thousand stalls of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen now why would that be a big deal why isn't this just another description of uh you know this the wealth and the the power of his kingdom well yeah it is but it also is in direct violation of deuteronomy chapter 17 where moses had laid down the requirements for the king and one of the

things the king was not to do he wasn't to go to egypt and he was not to collect horses because horses are not for roping steers horses are for chariots and horses and chariots are of course the the the war machine of the ancient world so anytime you have horses and chariots mentioned almost without exception it's a negative image so this is sort of i think it's kind of a ticking time bomb it's it's the it's the narrator's way of telling us hey everything i'm saying sounds really great and it is but there's problems and these problems will become more and more obvious as we go on i'm sure it's i'm sure solomon would say i'm not i'm not planning on using any of this is uh this is all deterrent that's what this is uh just to let people know that i could have

So, you know, I'm out here and I'm known as a wise king and stuff, not really known as a warrior. So I'm going to need to let people know that there's a lot of horses and chariots back there, just so you know. Yeah. I'm not going to drop any of these bombs, but I've got a bunch of them. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of the idea here. so uh verse 26 is yeah it's a verse 26 kind of a ticking time bomb uh telling us there's problems

ahead 27 picking up there it says those officers supplied provisions for king solomon and for all who came to king solomon's table each one in his month so there's this picture of everyone enjoying a feast there's plenty of food everybody's happy solomon's table has not only plenty of food but everyone has filled up the chairs there's nothing lacking there's a verse 28 there's barley straw for the horses and swift steeds they brought to the place where it was required each according to his duty some more talk about horses there in verse 28 so good a lot of good a little bit of bad And that little bit of bad will be the leaven in the whole lump as we go on. Then, finishing out verses 29 through 34, continues the description, focusing more on Solomon personally and how wise he was.

God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore. There's that image again of the sand on the seashore. so far no one has ever described me that way you dan no one has ever said you chat has wisdom just like the sand on the seashore yeah beyond measure again i tried to quantify the wisdom that dan has and found out that it could not be measured it was so much right yeah yeah not not something that someone has said of me nor actually of anybody else that i know of i mean it is it is quite a And I understand it's hyperbolic, but still, I mean, that is quite a statement. Wisdom and understanding, you can't even measure it.

Yeah, beyond measure is quite a way to say something. If someone has anything that is beyond measure, you're saying that they have a tremendous amount of this thing. It's not worth trying to count it. It's so much that you don't bother trying to count it. Yeah, there's not a number for the IQ here. This is beyond. So that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. So wisdom here wasn't just an Israelite thing.

Wisdom, you can read in the ancient or Eastern literature, and wisdom was a big deal in a lot of countries. I mean, they had schools that taught various kinds of wisdom. And by wisdom here, we don't just mean, of course, being smart, but it's knowing all sorts of, It's kind of a holistic understanding of how the world works, how humanity works, how you govern. There's a lot of very practical things to wisdom. Egypt was certainly known for its schools of wisdom. In fact, if you go to the book of Acts in Stephen's speech, Stephen's sermon is harangue, whatever you want to call that, one of the most fiery sermons in the New Testament. he says in Acts 7 22

Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds so Stephen himself is referencing this famous legendary wisdom of Egypt but we're told Solomon surpassed all that

we're about to hear a group of people that Solomon was wiser than that I think is going to really drive home to the listener just how wise he was because I'm sure these names are names that the listener is familiar with yes yes yes so so ready yourself he was wiser than all other men wiser even than drumroll ethan the ezra we all know how wise he was yeah gosh and hayman i mean not just hayman too yeah uh and if and if those were not enough calcule and darda the sons

in my hole just let that sink in for a minute now i did i did do a little bit of digging here and uh if you look long and hard you will actually find ethan and hayman mentioned uh they were respectively the authors of two of the psalms so hayman wrote psalm 88 that really really depressing dark psalm that ends literally in darkness and then ethan wrote psalm 89 so i think it's kind of cool that uh this is a side issue but you know that these two names that are side by side end up having two psalms that are side by side there you go points to the fact that you know when it came to putting the 150 psalms together they didn't just shuffle them like a deck of cards like oh here we go well look hayman and ethan psalms are all together no i'm sure that

was uh uh definitely on purpose but anyway those two guys do come up they were uh evidently not only wise, but they wrote poetry, which was pretty typical of wise men. In fact, that's a good segue into the next verse, because verse 32 tells us that Solomon also spoke 3,000 proverbs. I have not got anywhere close to 3,000 on my list of Chad-written proverbs. Proverbs were just simply wise sayings uh pithy wise sayings you're trying you're trying to get to 3 000 so you got to you're like solomon wrote the proverbs and and ecclesiastes and does it just attribute like any wise wise portion of scripture to solomon yeah pretty much where it goes you got to get to 3 000 here people and he was a songwriter too uh it's kind of funny you know how many songs you wrote

not not not a thousand a thousand and five yeah this is one of those rare times where the where the scriptures have like a very specific number yeah not three thousand and five proverbs but a thousand and five songs yeah yeah anytime there's a like a very specific number like that you got to think oh well i guess it actually was a thousand and five yeah we know of one we know one or two so there's a psalm by by solomon there you go uh so song of songs and we have uh we have a song but like what happened to the rest it is kind of odd when you see things like that and you're like well this this guy was the smartest wisest guy so what happened to the other 1003 of his song yeah can we get those they're probably buried in some library in jerusalem

that archaeologists haven't discovered yet maybe uh maybe in time they will be be found And then when he wasn't writing proverbs or writing songs, he was talking about trees. He spoke of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. We kind of have the whole stretch there because cedar was the tallest tree. So you go from the biggest, the cedar, to the hyssop, which was a plant that was so small that grew out of a wall. Of course, we know the hyssop because it was used in many rituals. Hyssop was a good plant for absorbing liquids, using kind of as a paintbrush. Yeah, it's like a spongy bush.

Yeah, like a spongy bush, yeah. So used it, what, back in the Exodus, right, to paint? And then it was used in various rituals described in Leviticus, and shows up in the Gospels, right? Is that John? Yeah. attach it to a hyssop branch and stick it up there. I mean, and David, you have cleanse me with hyssop,

which you can tie right back into that John text where Jesus is paying for David's sins. He's offered the hyssop. So yeah, the hyssop appears all over the place. Yeah, hyssop is one of those things. You know, sometimes you come across these tiny little things like that where you could do a whole sermon series

on just something like that because all those stories connect in one way or another. I mean, you're linking the Passover to the Psalm 51 to the crucifixion of Christ. And then you're including these rituals by the priest where hyssop was hyssop was used. So I love details like that, because it's like when we start paying attention to tiny things like that, you realize, man, this is all so deeply interconnected. you can you can see how uh god was at at work kind of pulling all this story into one one narrative yeah i mean when david says cleanse me with hyssop that if that was the only time it was mentioned that would be weird of course why would he say something like that uh he is asking god to sort

of soak up his sin and take it away from him yeah the fact that that works its way all into into the crucifixion is just perfect yep there's probably a preacher out there listening there you go there you just we just helped you out with your your next sermon series on hyssop just make sure that uh you include first kings 4 33 solomon talked about the hyssop i'm assuming this is sort of a uh what just a he just studied these things he said he spoke about them but he was presumably just interested in the things of nature it was a what a biologist uh botanist i mean he was early scientist i know that i know this if you if you knew if you could somehow know for a fact that the cross was made of cedar and that Christ was offered hyssop,

you'd really have something going on here. Yeah, you certainly would. Yeah, that would be, man, that verse would just blow up with significance. So he talked about the plant life. And he also talked about beasts and birds and reptiles and fish. Now, all those show up in Genesis chapter 1. And this is another, of course, trees and plants do too. So this is another one of those Genesis 1 kind of echoes.

There's a lot of Genesis stuff going on here. All the Genesis 12 and 15, Abraham, references to the sand and the seashore and the territories of Solomon's reign. And now we have this language of creation that's in verse 33 about plants and trees and beasts, birds, reptiles, fish. So you have the dry land represented. You've got the seas. You've got the heavens represented with all these different animals.

So Solomon studied all of those, and there's talk of this also in Ecclesiastes, another one of those books traditionally attributed to Solomon. Yeah, you definitely get the impression. I mean, obviously David was a psalmist, I mean, the psalmist. And so they're not altogether different in that sense. You have Solomon writing songs and that kind of thing, and you have Solomon talking about nature. And when David writes Psalms, he talks about nature a lot, uses a lot of illustrations drawn from creation.

But I don't know if David was sitting around studying these things. You get the impression that Solomon had a lot more time to engage in this sort of stuff than David did early in his reign. I don't think David had a lot of time to be like, I'm going to take the week and think about fish or something. I don't think David did—that was not something that David was—he was not afforded the peace and prosperity to do such a thing. Yeah, you know, like after he collects all those Philistine foreskins for a dowry. He doesn't go, you know, I'm going to take a week off, and I'm going to study hyssop. No, no. He was way too busy as a warrior.

You don't get the impression that David was doing a lot of bird watching? No, no, I don't think that was happening. He was doing some Philistine watching, but that's different. And then the chapter wraps up, verse 34, with what we alluded to earlier about his international fame. It says, people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon and from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. Now we'll see an example of that later on. But this sweeping kind of statement here is indicative of the fact that everybody was talking about Solomon. he was he was the guy during this time period and so people from all over the place leaders as well

as others came to sit at his feet and to see what he what he had to say yeah and this is a pretty unique thing i mean there's not anything else like this no no no this is it i mean you don't have any other kings where people are clamoring to get an audience with them but solomon yeah Which is why I think this whole chapter is described in this way, to show us this idealistic, Eden-like picture of what the Messianic Kingdom is going to be like. There's plenty of underlying problems with some of this, but overall, that's the impression that we're given, is this is a pre-portrait, if you will, of what's going to happen when the Son of David comes. That's right And that is all the time we got Wrapped up chapter 4

So that's good Next week we gotta get prepared to build the temple We gotta cut some cedars down Yeah we gotta cut some cedars down And get a temple built So we'll cover that next week Chad I'll see you then See you then