BibleProject - Solomon: The Wisest of the Fools - Wisdom E3

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

Welcome to our third episode discussing the theme of Wisdom in the bible. In this episode, Tim and Jon zoom in on the character Solomon. Was Solomon really the wisest person who ever lived? In part 1 (0-8:30), Tim and Jon quickly recap the conversation so far. Tim explains how the English word “help” is inadequate when used to describe Eve’s or woman’s role in relationship to Adam. Instead of an unnecessary addition, it’s more of an essential completion, even a “saving” role that the woman fills. Tim also explains that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn’t the perfect translation in the Hebrew. More accurately, it’s “the knowledge of the tree of good and bad.” In part 2 (8:30-19:20), Tim begins to trace the human story after Adam and Eve, through Abraham and arriving at Solomon. Tim says that God promises to restore the blessing of Eden to all humanity through the family of Abraham. Here is God’s promise to Abraham: Genesis 12:1-3 “And I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you,
and make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and him who curses you I will curse;
and in you will be blessed all the families of the earth.” Genesis 12:7 “The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your seed I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.” 
In Genesis 16, God promises Abraham and Sarah seed and land to be a blessing to the nations. But when they’re unable to have a child, they turn to their own wisdom and power. This is a clear design pattern from the fall narrative of Genesis 3. See below the breakdown of this passage and it’s reflection of the the Eden story. Genesis 16:1-2 tells us, “Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.” So Sarai says to Abram, “Go now into my female servant, perhaps I will be built up from her.” (This language of being “built” from Hagar suspiciously reminds us of Genesis 2:22, “and Yahweh God built the side which he took from the human into a woman, and he brought her to the man.”) 
Genesis 16:2b “…and Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.” (In Genesis 3:17, God says to Adam, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife…”) 
Genesis 16:3-4 “Sarai, the wife of Abram, took Hagar the Egyptian her female slave… and she gave her to Abram her husband as a wife (Gen. 3:6, “and she gave also to her husband with her”). And he went into her and she became pregnant and she saw that (ותרא כי) she was pregnant, and her mistress became less in her eyes” (Gen. 3:6, “When the woman saw that [ותרא] the tree was good…”). 
Genesis 16:6 “And Abram said to Sarai, ‘Look, your female slave is in your hand. Do to her what is good in your eyes (טוב בעיניך).’ (Gen. 3:6, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes…”). 
Genesis 16:6b-7 “So Sarah oppressed her, and Hagar fled from before her. And the angel of Yahweh found her by a spring of waters in the wilderness.” (Gen. 3:24, “So [God] drove the man out….”) In Genesis 22, when God provides a son from Sarah, God demands his life. God does not take lightly to the oppression of Egyptian slaves (the entire Exodus slavery is an inverted consequence for this sin). Also because of this sin, Ishmael is cast out from Abraham’s family, which grieves God, so he demands that Abraham give Isaac back to him. God is looking for people who will trust Yahweh’s word and command over their own wisdom, that will reverse the folly and fear of Adam and Eve. The first character to demonstrate this Abraham in Genesis 22:4-6: “And Abraham lifted his eyes (עיניו) and he saw (וירא)… and he took (ויקח) in his hand the fire and the knife/eater(מאכלת), and the two of them (שניהם) walked on together (יחדו).” This releases the blessing of Eden through Abraham’s fear of Yahweh out into the nations. 
Genesis 22:15-18
"Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened My voice.” The point is this: When humans don’t live by their own wisdom regarding good and bad, but instead trust God’s wisdom and obey his commands (the fear of the Lord), it leads to blessing and life. This is true wisdom: to live in the fear of the Lord. In part 3 (19:20-36:45), Tim begins to outline the story of Solomon. Tim says Solomon is presented as a new Adam. He has an opportunity to rule the world, and he actually asks God to give him wisdom to rule. Solomon is a complex character, depicted as both a new, ideal Adam—but also as a failed, foolish Adam. In one narrative thread, he is depicted as a new Adam/Abraham, meeting God in a new high-place, and living by God’s wisdom/Torah. 1 Kings 3:3-15 “Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David... The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place; Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night; and God said, ‘Ask what you wish me to give you.’ “Then Solomon said, ‘You have shown great covenant love to Your servant David my father...You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know to go out or come in.
 “‘Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. So give Your servant a heart that listens in order to govern Your people, in order to discern between good (Heb. tov) and bad (Heb. ra’). For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?’” 
“It was good (tov) in the eyes of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to hear justice, behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a heart of wisdom and discernment, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days. If you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days.’ Then Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream.” Tim shows how Solomon was blessed after he began to walk in the fear of the lord. 1 Kings 4:20-21, 25, 29-34
“Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and rejoicing. Now Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life….” 
“So Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.” 
“Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore. Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations. He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of beasts and birds and creepers and fish (do you hear Genesis 1 in there?). Men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom." Solomon is portrayed as a new Adam, wisely ruling a garden with trees for everyone, fruitful and multiplying, boundaries expanded to Eden-like proportions. He knows the plants, beasts, birds, and creepers. He is more wise than “all the sons of the East” (link to the book of Job). He spoke thousands of proverbs (link to the book of Proverbs). He wrote over a thousand songs (link to Song of Songs).
 Tim’s point is that Solomon is beginning to to fulfill the original call of mankind to rule wisely. However, Solomon’s story has another side as well. In part 4 (36:45-52:50), Tim outlines the foolish side of Solomon’s life. Solomon enslaved people to help him build Jerusalem up. He imported and exported arms, chariots and horses to other countries. He had hundreds of wives and concubines. Solomon demonstrates wisdom but isn’t fully committed to following the laws of Yahweh. 1 Kings 5:13-17
“Now King Solomon levied forced laborers from all Israel; and the forced laborers numbered 30,000 men. He sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in relays; they were in Lebanon a month and two months at home. And Adoniram was over the forced laborers. Now Solomon had 70,000 transporters, and 80,000 hewers of stone in the mountains, besides Solomon’s 3,300 chief deputies who were over the project and who ruled over the people who were doing the work. Then the king commanded, and they quarried great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with cut stones.” 1 Kings 9:17, 19
“So Solomon rebuilt Gezer and the lower Beth-horon... and all the storage cities which Solomon had, even the cities for his chariots and the cities for his horsemen….” Solomon, for all his wisdom, implemented policies which directly violated the laws of the king as outlined in the Torah. Deuteronomy 17:15-20
“you shall surely set a king over you whom Yahweh your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since Yahweh has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. 
“Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel. Tim has found scholar Daniel Hays to be helpful here: “We as readers are given a tour of a fantastic, spectacular and opulent mansion, the house of Solomon. Everywhere we look we see wealth and abundance. However, without changing the inflection of his voice the tour guide also points out places where the façade has cracked, revealing a very different structure. Continuing with the standard speech which glorifies the building, the guide nonetheless makes frequent side comments (forced labor, store cities, horses from Egypt, foreign marriages) that make clear that his glowing praise for the structure is not really his honest opinion of the facility, and he wants us also to see the truth. Finally, at the end of the tour in chapters 11, he can restrain himself no more, and he tells us plainly that the building is basically a fraud, covered with a thin veneer of glitz and hoopla, and soon will collapse under its own weight. This is the manner in which the narrator of 1 Kings leads us on a tour of the House of Solomon.” (Daniel Hays, “Narrative Subtlety in 1 Kings 1-11: Does the narrative praise or bury Solomon?”) Tim points out that Solomon violates every rule that Israel’s king was supposed to follow. A Bible reader should ask why the narrator is giving us a dual portrait of Solomon? In the New Testament, Jesus says, “something greater than Solomon is here.” (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). Jesus positioned himself as the true example of the ideal human who learns wisdom correctly by learning from Yahweh God. In part 5 (52:50-end), the guys discuss the seeming asymmetry of male and female portrayals in the Bible. Why is it that a woman is portrayed as a “wise and foolish woman” in Proverbs? Why are women often portrayed with seductive and illicit behavior? Tim points out that throughout history, men have been the ones translating the Bible, so they have default and built-in blind spots to understanding and accurately portraying a better view of man and woman’s portrayal in the original Hebrew context. 
Tim notes that women have been making great strides in contributing to and furthering academic and scholastic work on biblical texts and that their voices need to be heard. Thank you to all our supporters! Show Resources:  • www.thebibleproject.com • J. Daniel Hays, “Narrative Subtlety in 1 Kings 1-11: Does the narrative praise or bury Solomon?” Show Music: • Roads by LiQwyd • Yesterday on Repeat by Vexento • Moon by LeMMino • self reflection by less.people • Defender Instrumental by Tents Some music for this episode brought to you by the generosity of Chill Hop Music. Show Produced by:  Dan Gummel, Jon Collins Powered and distributed by Simplecast

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

In the story of the Bible, God creates a good world, and in it an abundant garden where he places humans to rule the world with him. And in the garden are two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowing good and bad. So the tree represents a choice about two different ways of learning what is tove and wrong. I can take it for myself because it's good in my eyes, or hands off I will allow God in his own time to give me the knowledge of Toe and wrong. The humans decide to eat of the tree of knowing good and bad and are exiled from the garden,

but God still wants to rule the world with humans. So the conflict of the story of the Bible can be summed up this way. The house God going to rule the world through rebellious humans. So here's the plan. God promises a human will come who will bring humanity back. So what I'm looking for now is a seed, an offspring from this family who will live by the fear of the Lord and do what is wise so they can rule the world and bring the blessings of Eden to Israel and to the nations. Welcome to the story of Solomon. Solomon is King David's son, and he has an opportunity

that everyone would want. God appears to him in a dream and says, I will give you whatever you wish for. And Solomon asks God to give him wisdom. He's asking for the tree of life, and not on his terms, but on God's terms. This is Solomon, he just pulled his hand back from the tree, instead I'm not going to take it for myself. I want you to give it to me, and that's tov in the eyes of Yahweh. God says, I'm going to give you the life of Eden. We've made it.

A new human who makes the right choice. And it's awesome. But simultaneously, he is going to be introducing little hints and clues and hyperlinks that make you start going like, oh no, no, no, not this guy. We've got so far. Oh, and then he replays Genesis 3 with the variant. We can learn a lot from Solomon's story, but ultimately he is at the one who will reconnect us to a purpose of ruling the world with God and abundance.

Then the story of the wise Solomon sits here now in the Hebrew Bible and becomes a resource of imagery when the seed of the woman finally does come, he will be a greater than Solomon. Jesus uses that very phrase to describe himself. He calls himself a greater than Solomon in Matthew chapter 12. I'm John Collins, this is the Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us, here we go. We're talking about the wisdom literature.

Yes, we are. And this is a third episode. We're going to finally, no, we're not going to get into the wisdom literature. We're going to talk about Solomon. We're gonna finally... Nope, we're not gonna get into the Wisdom literature. We're gonna talk about Solomon. We're gonna talk about Solomon, but yeah, as the three of the key wisdom books in the Hebrew Bible are connected to Solomon. In the last two episodes, we talk through Genesis 1 through 3, looking at the terms good and bad, Toe and Ra,

and the whole idea of God defines what is good, he creates good, it's a world of goodness, and then... And he does all that out of his wisdom. The narrative doesn't say that, but it's... But he looks going, you know. He sees that something is good. Yes. And so he's able to look at it and go, I know this is good.

And we would call that wisdom. Yes. And the knowing of good and bad. Yeah, so yeah, that's interesting. God knew good from bad. He's portrayed as one with the ultimate wisdom of good and bad. Yeah, and he acts on it.

Yes. Then you get humans who are to rule with God, multiply, subdue the earth. They are in the narrative, especially in Genesis 2. They are, we have Adam who's split in half, and then we have Adam and Eve who not merely compliments or helps, but becomes this like essential other. The Adam needed in order to fulfill his vocational calling, to rule with God, and use the word

his salvation. Yep. That's actually from a colleague of mine who developed that way to describe Eve, but I think it's right in that the English word help doesn't communicate the full, what Azer does in Hebrew. To be an Azer, yeah, is to do for someone what they cannot do for themselves. So you have these two who then are to become one in order to do what God called them to do. Do what God called them to do. Yeah.

And just rule the world together. This unity. Yeah. And so an assumption built into this narrative is, well, how are they going to rule if they don't have wisdom? And so the assumption is God must give them wisdom. Where they're going to need to learn good and bad. They're going to have to go about ruling the world. They're going to have to come to have that knowledge somehow.

And this phrase, knowing good and bad, it's used in the Bible in other places and it's always referring to this like growing in a moral aptitude. People who don't know good and bad are children. Yeah, yeah. If you don't know good and bad, then you're, you just don't have the mental ability to do it yet. And we know that with children, there's kind of like the sense of like a child is just acting off of impulses and they're not making moral decisions.

And you see a kid grow up into this knowledge of good and bad. But you get someone like Solomon who goes, yeah, even though I'm an adult, I'm still like that kid. I'm like a little child. I don't really know. Yeah, God calls Solomon to rule and he says, I'm like a kid, I don't know how to discern between good and bad. Yeah. So God puts this tree in the garden that is the tree of knowing good and bad, and it's not merely being able to discern good from bad. It's an active participation. Yeah. And also remember the word no and Hebrew means to experience.

Yes, experience. God has provided them only tove up to this point. They have had no experience with Ra. They've had no experience with Ra. But have they had any experience in having to choose between Tove and Ra? Well they're going to, that's what they're going to need. As they cultivate and work the garden and spread and so on. So how are they going to get it? And so the tree represents that choice. We talked about that a lot.

They choose their own wisdom. Be wise in their own eyes. It's a evaluation of something's goodness combined with my desire for it. And taking that becomes the narrative definition of wisdom in my own eyes. It's the taking of it. Yeah. And the things fall apart. There's disunity, there's mistrust, there's hiding, there's shame, and then there's the consequence. The two levers that were one are now divided. That's the important part of the story. For the wisdom books. And then the consequence of our inability to have this power on our own terms leads to

death. And that's where the narrative goes. Yeah. And violence. It just gets worse and worse and worse. Correct. Yeah, that's right. So you leave Adam and Eve into exile outside the garden. Trust in God's promise.

They will provide a seed in offspring. Who will, no, we didn't, but it's relevant and it's much, well, it's relevant for the Solomon story. There's ongoing hope of one who will come from the woman who will reverse everything, defeat evil, and restore the goodness of the garden back to God's world. And when you have that restoration of the garden, we'll be the reuniting of families, the reunion of male and female, the divided lovers, men ruling over women. This will all be fixed and

restored back to the unity and love and vulnerability and joy of ruling in the garden. Womp or do it. By God's wisdom. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yep. That's what you're looking for. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 In Genesis 12, God turns a new page in the story by calling a guy named Abraham and promising in a seven line poem to give

him the blessing of Eden to his family. Well, he promises to give him a family, to give him the blessings of Eden and then climatically to give the blessing of Eden to all the nations through his family. Again, these are the well-known lines, but they're important for the plot. God says to Abraham, I'll make you a great nation. Be fruitful and multiply, right? Of Genesis 1 is now being given to one person. I'll make you the fruitful multiplying people. I will bless you. That's God bless humanity. Genesis 1. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. So I'm gonna bless you so that you become a blessing I'll bless those who bless you whoever curses you all cursed. I'm gonna protect you

Because I'm going to accomplish my purpose through you, which is what that in you all the families of the land will find blessing a lot of blessing We've talked about this before, but can you quickly just shape that word for me? Oh, well, yeah, the blessing is about, in the narrative, it's the Eden abundance that God has built creation for. It's about the realizing of the full potential and abundance that God has designed. To be blessed for. To bless someone as a say, I want you to realize full abundance. Yeah, a human body is made to produce, right?

Creativity, productivity, reproduce itself. You need two human bodies for that. So we're made for productivity, but all kinds of things can go wrong. And so when you have a fully productive human and then family and community, that's a sign. A productive human where things are going right.

Yeah, that's a blessing. That's a blessing. That's a gift of Eden. It's the Eden gift. So whether that's a productive field, productive flocks, productive family, this is all, these are all Eden. Right, relationships. Eden images and it's called the blessing, productive family. These are all eat. Right, relationships.

Eat images and it's called the blessing. The blessing. So I'm going to give the abundance that I want for all humanity to you. So that through your family, that blessing and abundance can be realized by all human families. And then two sentences later, well, rather, two or three verses later, in verse seven of Genesis 12, the Lord appeared to Abram and said,

to your seed, I will give this land. And so he built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him. So now it's this family having seed that lives in this land through him, the blessing goes out to all the ashes. So, dude, there's so much we could do in the Abraham stories

that's connected to this, but we don't, we don't have time. But here it is in a nutshell. God makes this promise of a lot of seed, family. But he's really old, and his wife's really old, and she's never been able to have kids. That becomes the plot conflict of the Abraham story. Yeah. How is he going to get a kid?

Right. They attempt to generate a child by their own wisdom. Mm-hmm. They do what is good in their eyes. Is the actual phrase he is in Genesis 16, right? We've talked about the story before. The story of Hegar. Yeah, and you've showed me that the Verbege's all hyperlinked back. Yeah. Abraham saw. That's right. He listens to the voice of his wife, yeah, which is what Adam did to Eve. It's a very unique phrase.

It's not used very often to listen to the voice of your wife. Oh, okay. It's used in Genesis 3. It's used in Genesis 16. He listens to the voice of his wife. What does his wife say? She says, I can't produce children. Use my concubine.

So, I've got an idea. Yeah, use my Egyptian slave. And so, Abraham says, do what is good in your eyes? Exactly the phrase for what Eve did. But then, hey, Gar, the Egyptian slave gets pregnant, and now Sarah's jealous. And then she oppresses the Egyptian. It's an inversion of the Exodus, where the Egyptians oppress the Israelites. The Exodus story is a sad inverted consequence of Abraham and Sarah oppressing an Egyptian slave. That's a whole thing.

Anyhow, and then yeah, Sarah took Hegar, gave her to her husband, just like Eve took of the fruit, gave it to her husband. The whole thing, this is Abraham's. But there's no sentence where Abraham saw that she was good. No, Sarah saw. Sarah saw. Yeah, yeah.

And then she took and then she gave. Yeah. So Abraham and Sarah are portrayed as reenacting their Adam and Eve story. They're trying to get a child by doing what is wise in their own eyes, namely abusing a slave and then oppressing them. And that sets in motion this thing where now they have gained a child through raw, by doing raw to another person. And so what God does is because of their evil that ended up in the oppression of a slave and the exiling of a son. What God does is give them an actual

son through Sarah, but then he demands the life of that son in Genesis 22. He says, give him up as an ascension offering. You think that's a direct consequence of the more failure? Correct. Yeah. In other words, the whole story is God says, I'm going to give you seed. Then there's a story of them getting a seed by their own wisdom and they end up hurting all these people Yeah, and so when God finally gives them a seed the whole drama builds up to God gives them a seed a son And then he asks for that son back And we're told at the beginning of the story that it's a test. Yeah, they failed the first time They didn't trust.

Are they going to succeed this time? And so in this story, Genesis 22, I said we weren't going to talk about Abraham, and here we are talking about him. But no, I'll just brief. This is Abraham. Genesis 22, I owe all these observations to the brilliant work of a Hebrew Bible scholar, David Andrew Teeter. The story of Abraham is all mapped on,

we don't have time, but meticulously to all of the vocabulary of Genesis three, but inverting and reversing it. Abraham becomes a reversed Adam and Eve. He lives by the fear of the Lord in this chapter. Because he's doing, he's giving up the sun that God said you were gonna give me. Yeah.

God just provided the sun in the previous chapter, and now he's taking him back. And Abraham doesn't argue. He just starts doing the thing that God asked him to do. And at the last moment, when Abraham's about to offer up his Sun as this sacrifice, God says, don't. And as the reader, you know, you're kind of prepared for that because you're watching, you knew that this was a test from the opening sentence. And here's what God says. God says, by myself, I have sworn, because you have done this thing

and not withheld your son, your only son. Indeed, I will greatly bless you. I will multiply your seed and in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. So the blessings restored. Because you have listened to my voice, you listen to my voice. How did the fall happen? Listen to the voice of his wife. Who listened to the snake? Who listened to the voice of the snake? And that resulted in curse, not blessing. How did Abraham and Sarah fall? He listened to the voice of his wife. And that was to try to get a kid and it didn't work. Now finally for the first time Abraham listens to God's voice and that's what releases the Eden blessing out. And then God's response is, now I know that you fear me. You fear me. The fear of the Lord. So you remember Adam and Eve, they feared

the Lord, but too late. So here we have the first character who fears the Lord before the test, enduring the test, and it prevents him from doing what's right in his own eyes. So Abraham is presented as the first character living by the fear of the Lord. Successfully. And when he does that, he reverses Genesis 3, passes the test, he doesn't do what's right in his own eyes. It's interesting that God was going to give him that blessing without testing him, right? At first, he comes and he says, hey, I'm going to give you this blessing. But the story is just beginning. Yeah, I'm going to give you this blessing.

Yeah. You said that God asking for the Son was a direct consequence of the moral failure. Yes. So if he hadn't done that, more failure, maybe he wouldn't have to be tested. Oh, I understand. I think that's the implication. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If, yeah, if Abraham hadn't abused Heagar in order to get a son, then the God wouldn't have asked for the life of his other son. So the blessing was in the balance. Blessing in the balance. That's right. Yeah. And it's, asked for the life of his other son. So the blessing was in the balance. Blessing in the balance. Yeah.

That's right. Yeah. And this is the balance of the biblical story. God's going to bless all the nations through the family of Abraham. Problem. They are humans. And they keep doing what all the humans in the story do.

Yeah. So how's God going to rule the world through rebellious humans? Yeah. And that's the plot concept. Because Abram passing this test, that is an exception to the rules. An exception to the rule. In the Hebrew scriptures. Yes.

He's the first character to pass the test. Actually, no, sorry, Noah is, but that's whole. Oh. Okay. And Abraham is like Noah. And yeah, the point is that he's the first character who fills out this portrait of living by the fear of the Lord. And when he does, he doesn't do what's right in his own eyes

because they did that once already. He listens to the voice of God. And once you get a human who lives by the fear of the Lord, the blessing of Eden starts, is released out to the nations. So what I'm looking for now is a seed, an offspring from this family who will live by the fear of the Lord and do what is wise so they can rule the world and bring the blessings of Eden to Israel and to the nations. Yeah, that's quite a job script.

It is, and it's welcome to the story of Solomon. Okay. That's what the story of Solomon's all about. Yeah. Okay. That's what the story of Solomon's all about. Yeah. Yep. Okay. We've explored the Solomon story a while ago. Yeah, you helped me see this a while back in it was like, oh my goodness. Yeah. How clear it was that Solomon asking for wisdom is basically doing the thing that Adam and he didn't do.

Yeah, he's exactly. He's presented to the reader as a new Adam. Okay, so here's the setup. As the story goes on, all the people of Israel are the seed of Abraham. They fail as they go into the Promised Land. So God chooses one family, just like each God chose one family out of the nations, Abram, then he makes them into a nation. The nation fails. So then he picks one family out of that one nation, the family of David. But God says to David in 2nd Samuel 7, he repeats all of the stuff he said to Abram, the promised Abraham, but now a little more specific. So he says to David, I'm gonna give you a great name, just like he said, Abraham, I'm gonna make your name great.

God says in verse 10, this is relevant, second Sam, I'll verse 10, I will appoint a place for my people, Israel, and I will plant them. Your men's are plants. Yeah, I will plant them so that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again. This is what God did in Genesis 2. He plants the garden and then he puts the human in the garden.

Which is the word for plant, right? Which is the same word, plant. So God's going to give David the thing that he said he would give Abraham. He's going to give Israel the thing that in Genesis 2 he gave to Adam and Eve, which is the garden. And then he says, I'm going to raise up your seed after you, who will come forth from your loins. That's what God said to Abraham, a seed will come from your loins. And what's that seed going to do for David? He's going to build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So, a son of David's gonna come, build a temple, God's going to build his kingdom, it's gonna be a new garden of Eden planted where the promise to Abraham and the blessing of Eden

can come. Do you see it all coming together here? Yeah, sure. The whole thing. So, who is David's son that ends up on the throne? Solomon. Shlomo. Shlomo. Shlomo. Shlomo. Shlomo.

Shlomo. He's a very complex character. So we're talking here first kings, chapters one through eleven. Solomon narrative. And one simple way to say is he's presented with two sides. It's like a jekyll and hide. Scenario. Where simultaneously the narrator is gonna be building up

Through hyperlinks Solomon as a new Adam a new Abraham a new David yeah, and it's awesome the seed We were hoping for yeah, I mean it's like it's legit with all very intentional We'll see but simultaneously he is going to be introducing little hints and clues and hyperlinks that make you start going like, oh no, no, no, not this guy. We've got so far. Oh, and then he replays Genesis 3 at the very end. But it's important there's two portraits being developed, just like there's two eaves. There's the eve of Genesis 2 that is like the ideal, the right, the salvation, the azure, help for the man, but then there is the deceived deceiver.

She is deceived and then she deceives her husband. And you walk away from the story with two portraits of Eve, the same with Solomon, wise Solomon, foolish Solomon. So let's explore the why a Solomon first. The new Adam. I'm kind of cherry picking the hyperlinks, but they're so good. And first King's chapter three were told that Solomon loved Yahweh. That's awesome.

That's not actually said of that many people in the Hebrew Bible. Oh, okay. But he loved Yahweh. He walked in the statutes of his father, David. And the King went to Ghibbian to sacrifice there because it was a great high place. So you have a seed of Abraham and of David going up to a high place to meet with God and offer a sacrifice. Very biblical. Yeah, that's Eden. That's Eden.

Eden is the ultimate high place. Right. The high places in the book of kings are little hyperlinks back to Eden. I was picturing Abram going up to sacrifice this. That's right. Exactly. And that's Eden. That's also Eden.

That's also Eden. That's Eden image. Yeah. Okay. And it's Noah on the high place offering the sacrifice after the flood. They're all different mountains. They're all different high places where people go to, the place where heaven and earth overlap

and it's where they meet with God and are either succeed in their test or fail in their test. People succeed or fail in their Eden tests at high places. It's like a thing. So he goes up to the high place and we're like, oh, okay, this could go one of two ways. He offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar. Yeah, thorough. So right there on the high place, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night and said, hey, whatever you want me to give you, just ask. Yeah. Solomon says, you've shown great covenant love to your servant, David, my father.

You gave him a son to sit on the throne, talking about himself and third person. That's right. No, that's pretty. It's pretty funny. Oh, no, Lord, my God. Sure great love. It's great. It's great.

Give me. Don't make any sense. Don't make any sense. You have made your servant king in the place of my father, David, but I'm a little child. I don't know how to go out or to come in. That's a phrase that describes Joshua and David.

Means like leading people out and in. Your servant is in the midst of this people that you've chosen a great people. I can't even count them all. Too much to be numbered. That's Abraham, blessing, right? Give your servant a heart that listens. Well, yeah, listen to the voice.

Yes, in order to rule the governed this people, in order to discern between Tove and Ra. He's reversing the Adam and Eve failure here. Yeah. Where, presumably, in the... Remember, we said in the narrative, it infers that if they Adam and Eve didn't take from the tree that God would give them, personally, he would teach them tovenra.

This narrative is built on that pattern and it's filling in the inference. He could rule by his own knowledge, but what if he doesn't? Then he needs it from God. He needs to get it from God. So that's what he asks for. And verse 10, it was Tove in the eyes of Yahweh. Do you remember the Eve story? She saw that the tree was good and it was good to her eyes. Now, this is Solomon. He just pulled his hand back from the tree. Yeah. Instead, I'm not going to take it for myself. Yeah. I want you to give it to me. Yeah. And that's tove in the eyes of Yahweh.

Yeah. That's all I'm going to ask this thing. God said, because you've asked this thing, and didn't ask for eternal life, long life. Yeah. Or did you ask for riches? Yeah. What were you going to say?

4,000 more wishes. I know. I know. Yes. Right. But it's kind of like that. Yeah. It says, you didn't ask for long life, you didn't ask for wealth, you didn't ask for

the life of your enemies, you asked for discernment, wisdom, to listen to what is just and right. So look, I will do according. It's the best thing you can ask for. Yes, that's right. So it's beautiful. It is beautiful. And think in the story, only in the story of the Bible

that has the introduction of the Eden story, does the story make sense? Yeah, I wouldn't pack the same punch. Yes. Otherwise, you're just like, good for him. Yeah, it's once wisdom, okay, that's cool. Well, that's how I've always read the story. I never read the story.

In light of the garden. In light of the garden story. So, it was kinda like, yeah, that was pretty smart. Yeah. Good job, Solomon. Yeah, totally. Like, you can't chose all these things. Yeah, I see, yeah. that was pretty smart. Yeah, good job Solomon. Yeah, totally. Like you could chose all these things, just wisdom. I see, yeah.

Good job. But now you see this is, this was that this was the whole human condition. Yeah, the crux of it is, yeah, okay, yeah, good way to hang it. So God says verse 12, look, I have given you a heart of wisdom and discernment so that there has been no one like you before you, nor will anyone like you arise after you. I have given you what you did not ask for, riches, honor.

There won't be any one like you among the kings all of your days. If you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and my commandments, just like your father David walked, then I will give you long days and Solomon awoke. Oh, it was a dream. Oh, what did God do to Adam? I put him to sleep. Put him to sleep and then provided for him the thing that he couldn't do for himself. So here is a new Adam on a high place meeting Yahweh in a vision, having a dream, after asking for wisdom.

And God says, I'm going to give you the life of Eden. But you got to continue. If you keep my commands, what was the first command in the Bible? Don't need him. Don't need him. So he's making that decision now, but God's saying this is gonna be a lifelong decision. Yes, oh, that's a good point. It's not one and done. Yeah, it's not one and done.

Every day. Oh, that's good. The tree is ever present there. Yes. It's in the middle of the garden. Oh, man, that's good. Thank you for that. That's a good observation. Yeah, it's not, he just started the journey that will be replayed every day. Yeah, every moment of every day. Every moment of every day. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay, look what follows from this. Chapter four. Verse 20, in his days

Judah and Israel, whereas numerous as the sand on the sea in abundance. That was the apron blessing. And the Eden blessing. Be fruitful and multiply. Yeah. Rule, right? They were eating, drinking and rejoicing. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the river up at the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines all the way down to the border of Egypt. The borders were the largest that they ever were.

So Judah and Israel lived in safety and you know what, every man sat under his own vine and fig tree. This is Adam and Eve under the tree. The tree of life? Yeah, under the garden. In the garden. It's like every person gets to experience the blessing of the garden and they all get their own little tree.

Yeah. This phrase means every man, everyone got their own little garden. Yeah. It's an Eden image. Yeah. Now Solomon's wisdom, his wisdom surpassed all the sons of the East. Remember where Job lived? Yeah. Job lived in the East. In the land of Uts, and he was greater than all the sons of the East. Oh, so it's a connection to Job? Yep. Yep. Actually, all the wisdom books are East. Oh, so it's a connection to Job? Yep. Yep.

Actually, all the wisdom books are accounted for right here. Oh. So, he was greater than all the kings who came before him because of his abundance. Okay. That's Cleasy Estes. Yeah, the teacher. Yep.

Okay. His wisdom is greater than all the sons of the East. It's Job. That's Job and the Friends. Are the sons of the East. It's what the opening of the book says. Yeah. And it says that Job was wiser than all of them. And he was greater than all of them.

Great. Yep. Yep. Verse 31, Solomon was wiser than all humans. And then here's some famous ones, Ethan, the Ezraite, Heyman, Heyman, do you see that there? Yeah. Heyman.

Heyman. With Heyman in the Bible. Yeah. Call Cole, Dardar, the sons of macho Am I supposed to know about these people? There a couple of these I follow the hyperlinks. I think I get what they're doing But there's a few there still riddles to me right and his name was known in all the surrounding nations

He spoke three thousand proverbs. Hmm. It's proverbs. There's book of Proverbs He wrote one thousand and five songs. It's a very exact number. Song songs. Song songs. Look, the whole all four wisdom books are counted for in this little paragraph here. And also, look at this.

He also spoke about trees. Yeah, I mean a new one. I would know a thing or two about trees, wouldn't they? The cedar and Lebanon, the hiss up that grows on the wall. You know what he also knew all about? The beasts and the birds and the creepers and the fish. The list of animals from Genesis 1. Remember, Adam naming the animals?

Yeah. In order to rule, you would need to know a thing or two about what you're ruling. Correct, yeah. Yeah, in order to rule, you would need to know a thing or two about what you're ruling. Correct. Yeah. People came from all the peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. This is, we did it. Yeah.

Yeah. We could close the book and be like, sweet, we made it. The wise Solomon of First Kings 3 and 4 is an image of the ultimate. Back in Genesis 2. Yeah, we're back in the garden. Son of David, new at, dude, this is good stuff here. You know what else is interesting? First King chapter 5 is that the nations around, when they see a new Adam ruling, they understand. So you get a whole story

about Hiram, the king of Tire, who says, Praise be the God of Israel, who's given David a wise son. Let me sponsor the building of a temple for your God. Yeah, he's on board. Oh yeah, yep. You also have the queen of the queen. Okay, this is awesome. Okay. All right, first kings, 10 also have the queen of... The queen. Okay, did this awesome. Okay. All right, first Kings 10. Now, the queen of Shiba heard the report about Solomon in relation to the name of Yahweh.

So she came to test him with riddles. Mm. Oh. So you have a queen. Oh. Who's coming? To test. And she will present a test and riddles.

So she came to Jerusalem with a huge caravan, camels carrying spices. Who's coming? To test. And she will present a test. And Riddles. So she came to Jerusalem with a huge caravan, camels carrying spices. So much gold, precious stones. There's a woman coming presenting a test. She brings gold and precious stones. They'll eat in an imagery. A queen, right? She came to Solomon and spoke with him about all that was in her heart. So

this pause we're cool here. Now we're starting to get a little nervous. We're like, oh no. Yeah. I know how men are when women show up, right? Beautiful, rich. Yeah. This is not going to go well. He's going to take something that's not his. He's going to, yeah, he's not going to, he's going to fail the test. That's what we're thinking. Yeah. But verse three, but Salon answered all her questions. Nothing was hidden from the king that he didn't explain to her. And when the queen saw,

look at this, she saw all the wisdom of Salaman, the house that he built, she saw the food of his table, a seeding of his servants, the waiters, the attire, the cut-bearers, the stairway by which he went up to the temple, there was no more ruach in her, her breath, and she said to the king, it's true. What I heard about you in my land and your wisdom, then verse 8, how blessed are your men, how blessed are your servants, verse 9, blessed be Yahweh your God. Yeah, so we're like oh Dodge the bullet

Only does the bullet but like brought praise to Yahweh. What totally that's exactly right So it's not just you dodge a bullet. It's a reversal. Yeah, it's now. They're not married But they both become Adam and Eve figures two rulers rulers of King and Queen, loaded, they combined their wealth, they combined power couple, and praise BTI away from Israel and among the nations. This is awesome man, we're like, go shalom up. Okay, so that's the port, if we created like two if we had two canvases There's why Solomon that was wise. That is wise. All the elements of the story that can and there's some more But that's yeah, exciting ones, okay, and it's Solomon alongside a queen of the nations

Well, everybody has enough Yeah, rejoicing eating Praise the Yahweh from the nations. Abundance. This is new Jerusalem, man. This is like, that's good stuff. However, alongside that portrait, the author has simultaneously been introducing other little, another portrait.

Little cracks. Yeah. I guess the two portraits doesn't do. Yeah, I mean, it is one person. It's one story about one person But you're seeing two sides to him. Hmm. So, well, maybe that metaphor doesn't work. Well, there's another portrait Yeah, along that is being painted. Yeah, alongside the wise Solomon and his foolish Solomon was foolish though. So we've talked about these in the past. Yeah, this is why I think cracks is interesting because it's these small details that you could pass over, not notice, but they're loaded with significance.

Yeah. Right? Are we talking about the wives and the... Oh, well the things that do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do building this New Jerusalem. And in 1 Kings 5, verse 13, you read, now Solomon levied, he forced laborers from all Israel. The forced laborers numbered 30,000 people. Then we hear about how he sent them and shifts up the limon to cut down cedar trees in the shifts of like 10,000 people a month. And then he appointed, verse 16, chief deputies to rule over the people doing the work. And then in chapter 9, we hear about how these forces are building storage cities for all of Solomon's wealth and chariots and horses. Hmm, it's beginning to horde. So this vocabulary of storage, actually this phrase storage cities occurs in one other story in the Hebrew Bible.

And it's what the Israelites are building for Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 1. This word forced laborer appears only elsewhere in the story of the enslaved Israelites in Exodus chapter 1. Oh man. A pointing ruler over the slave laborers. This is what Pharaoh did. Oh wow. So pointing ruler's over the slave laborers. This is what Faro did. Oh wow.

So it's all hyperlinking back to Faro. So Solomon has this Faro. Is it the Jekyll and Hyde thing? Jekyll and Hyde, that's right. So he asked for wisdom, and I'm told everyone gets their own fig tree, and then in the next story I'm told, then he conscripted all these slave laborers

and rulers over them to build storage cities. But you could be kind of like, yeah, okay, that's smart. That's right. He's storing things up. He's organizing labor. That's right. You know, like, yeah, that sounds like good ruling, but if it's all hyperlinked back to the Pharaoh.

Yeah, you start going, oh, you know, the last ruler I read about who did that. Oh, no, really? No. Say it's not true. But, you know, it's just hint at this point. Right. Okay. Then we move on to the laws of the king from Deuteronomy.

Yeah. Yeah. This is what we've talked about these. Yeah, you like this part. So what should the king of Israel never do according to Moses and Deuteronomy? Yeah, it's a very clear list. Yeah. Don't multiply horses, which are like tanks and jets.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, don't build a huge military. Especially don't go get your tanks and jets from Egypt. Right? Don't return to Egypt to get more horses. Okay. For 17. This is in Deuteronomy right now.

Deuteronomy 17, chapter 17. All right. Don't multiply wives. The word multiply, that's be fruitful and multiply. So like you're supposed to be fruitful and multiply, but you don't have to multiply wives to do it. That's an Eden image, right? One man, one woman, together becomes,

that's the ideal of Genesis 1. So don't multiply wives, or else his heart will turn away. Mm-hmm. He should not increase gold and silver for himself. When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, here's what he's to do all day. Yeah. Write out for himself a copy of the Torah on a scroll. Yeah.

So that he may learn to fear Yahweh. Yeah. You ever done that? What's that? Like reproduce, just write out and he'll be here or something. Oh, oh, make it really cool. Mm- Hmm. You were done that? What's that? Like, reproduce, just write out, and hear or something. Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great way to memorize stuff. Yep. Okay. So with that in mind, you go back to 1 Kings chapter 10. Now the weight of the gold that came into Solomon in one year. Well, there's a lot. 666 talents of gold.

That word appears twice in the mile. 666. Just saying. Yeah. You know what he made out of all that gold? We've talked about this before. 200 huge shields. Yeah.

They weighed hundreds of pounds. Yeah, not like they're not practical shields. They're just, they're just playing. Yeah, big decorative shields. Yeah. Let's see, verse 18, he made a huge ivory throne practical shields, they're just, they're just playing. Yeah, big decorative shields. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see, verse 18, he made a huge ivory throne and then overlaid it with gold. And then the steps to this round had the carved lions going up here.

So this is this big paragraph about all the gold. Yeah. Which, according to Moses, don't have a lot of gold. If you don't connect it to a type of link, you're just like, oh, sweet. Good for him. Good for him. Yeah. But once you read it in light of the laws of the king in Deurame, you're like, oh, no, this is not good.

Oh, look at this. Everything made in the house of the forest of Lebanon. He called his palace, the forest of Lebanon, which was the tallest cedars in the region. Everything was made out of gold. None of it was silver. In fact, silver wasn't even considered valuable in the region everything was made out of gold. Yeah, none of it was silver In fact, you know silver wasn't even considered valuable in the days of Solomon. That's how much gold there was Yeah, then he goes on look at this silver loss itself the king had he was the only king to have a Navy only

Israelite king to have a Navy But not for fighting it was to bring more gold But not for fighting, it was to bring more gold. He had to see ships of Tarshish, along with the ships of Hiram. And once every three years, the ships of Tarshish, here's what they brought. Gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. There are apes in the Bible, there they are. There they are, yeah. So...

I was just thinking that because we had an ape in our... In our spiritual beings. Yes, we did. Yeah, totally. So look man ruling with the animals. Yeah. In the land of gold and so you're like, this is kind of like Adam, but no. It's something's off. Something's off. Yeah. No. He made silver as common as rocks and loads of chariot cities. He gathered chariots and horse 1400 chariots 12,000 horsemen. And verse 28, his import of horses was from Egypt.

So I mean, it's just. That's a very clear detail. If you haven't followed any of the other hyperlinks, there's a glowing. I'm slapping you in the face. So you just watched him violate every single rule that the kings of Israel were not supposed to do. Then you get the story of the Queen of Shiba that we talked about. What's the story right after the Queen of Shiba?

First Kings, chapter 11. What, yeah, what's his? Now Solomon loved many foreign women. Do you remember how the story opened with a dream? Solomon loved Yahweh. Now the whole Solomon story is this kind of chiastic symmetry and it begins and ends with his love for many women. Daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Siddonian, Hittite women, from all the nations which the Lord said, don't marry them. They will turn your hearts away to their gods.

To these women, Solomon joined himself. Genesis 2, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Solomon joins himself to women, alright? But in the inversion of Genesis 2.24. 700 wives. 300 just women that he gets to sleep with, concubines, and this turned his heart away. And so when he was old, his heart was turned away after other gods. Wasn't like his father, David. So there you go, man, Solomon. He becomes the most

successful and the biggest failure of all the sons of David. So you have to just stop and ask yourself, why is the narrator giving me this portrait that what role does this play in this? It's unequal among any of the other kings of Israel. It's like a big tease. It's like, here's exactly what we've been waiting for. Yeah. Ah, never mind. Just kidding.

Yes, yeah. Well, that. Yeah. Never mind. Just kidding. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's one way to interpret it. I mean, you have your thumb on something important. It leads you to hope and think like, yes, it's like a narrative device that's not like it tricks you. Well, that's how you're one. You could, from one perspective, you say it's tricking you. Well, I don't mean trick. I mean, like, but it brings you through that emotional roller coaster. Yes, that's right. Of like, wow, this is what's possible.

This is what's possible. Look what happens when. Or like, it's happening. Oh, I felt like this is possible. Like, yeah, it's happening. Yeah, yeah, here we go. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, yeah, never mind.

Yeah, just right. It's not actually happening. Yeah, did this is. It's worse than you thought. You're this right, toil. Yeah, this right. It's not actually happening. Yeah. It's worse than you thought. It's right. Totally. Yeah, this is so par for course of the Hebrew Bible.

This is such a common strategy where a character will be introduced great potential and they are a mix of success and then terrible failure. But then the story of the wise Solomon sits here now in the Hebrew Bible and becomes a resource of imagery. When the seed of the woman finally does come, he will be a greater than Solomon. Jesus uses that very phrase to describe himself. He calls himself a greater than Solomon

in Matthew chapter 12. What that shows is he read the story of Solomon as a pointer beyond Solomon. Yeah. But one who would be like Solomon, at least the good part of the portrait. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

So what's a portrait of Solomon turns up the volume on wisdom. He wants to learn wisdom, but not by taking it, but by receiving it as a gift. Yeah, the thing that God has so close to that great ruling person, the seed, was that he asked for wisdom, he asked for God's wisdom. And he decided not to take it on his own. But God said, hey, this is going to be a lifelong practice. And what Solomon does is all these little things that kind of tie up, which is taking him away from that decision. Yeah, correct. And so, also, you realize, no, he's just gorging on the tree of the Lord.

That's right. Good and bad. Yeah, he said he wasn't going to take it. Yeah. And then you realize that he is. And notice, his story comes to a culmination in two stories about two kinds of women. One is a loaded Eden-like queen who once they join forces, they're like this power wisdom couple that brings praise to Yahweh. Yeah. The next narrative is

Yeah. The next narrative is... A thousand women. Right. The foreign woman, the strange woman, who leads his hardest-straight to other gods. He joins himself to them, and he leads them on a path towards death. So you have the son of David, faced with two women,

but these two women are in the narrative icons of a much larger set of issues about will you follow Yahweh and trust His wisdom will you do what's right in your own eyes live by your own wisdom. And we're watching proverb song songs and ecclesiastes just getting set up right before our eyes here in the story because that is the center image of the three books of Solomon in the Hebrew Bible. And you said that God's wisdom is personified as a woman. Yeah, that's right.

So, let's say that Solomon had not married all those women of first kings, 11. We're not ever told that he married the Queen of Shiba. But the story kind of leads you to think like, are these thinking I sleep together? What's going to happen? Yeah, there's some chemistry. And then it ends up being awesome, but he doesn't marry her. Yeah. And so it leaves you wondering like, wow, man, what if they had gotten married? Yeah, right. That would have been awesome. The one who got away. Yeah, because she was wise. Because she could discern, you always wisdom at work.

And so, but it leaves as unrealized potential. She was a foreigner though. That's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And then you have all the women that he actually does go with. These two women in the stories of Solomon represent two kinds of, like just like the two eaves of the Genesis story,

the ideal eave and the Genesis three eave, and they become narrative icons for the two ways, the fear of the Lord, not fear of the Lord, the way of wisdom, the way of folly, the way that leads, that would lead to life and a new eave and the way that leads to exile and death and so on. And so once that table is set, the Solomon story,

then you walk into Proverbs and you meet a Solomon who's urging his sons that said, the book of Proverbs begins, the Proverbs the Solomon, and then it's 10 speeches from a father to a son. Saying, listen, stay away from the wayward woman. Stay away from the foreign woman. It's the same word as in the Solomon story. She leads to death. She'll lead you away from Yahweh. She'll say that she's giving you life and love, but she'll lead you to death. Choose Lady Wisdom. In her hands are wealth and honor and eternal life. So it's as if it's Solomon, we're imagining the voice of Solomon

speaking the proverbs to us, warning the next generation to not do what he did. I'm saying narratively, to imagine the whole book of Proverbs as coming from a Solomon who learned the hard way. Yeah. And he's trying to help the next generation not repeat his mistakes. Ecclesiastes comes in and you have the Solomon who's at the end of his life. And you remember he opens, we'll look at this, Ecclesiastes opens by saying, I was king in Jerusalem. I made it like Eden, I had pools, I had singers, I had gardens, I had this, and it was all hevel, it was all vapor. And it led towards death and sadness and meaninglessness. So there you get Solomon reflecting back on his Eden that he made and it didn't last and it didn't actually bring him life we wanted.

And then you get song of songs, which we'll talk about, which is all about a Solomon-like figure pursuing the beloved woman and finally being reunited with her under the tree. And that's how the book ends. It's like, oh, of course these books are what they are. This is all about humanity's quest for wisdom and life and there's two ways and two women. And yeah, it's cool. So if we can do just that in the video Eden to Solomon Setting up the Solomon books each are kind of working off a different theme. Yeah, so we're not so you left Joe about Oh, thus far. Okay. Yeah. Well, so here's Joe Do you remember Joe a Solomon was wiser than all the sense of the East? Yeah, and so one of the hyperlinks that Job is activating is Job is the

greatest of all of the sins of the East. His friends are also the sins of the East. None of them end up being able to figure out the truth of what's really happening with Job. Job himself can't figure out wisdom. There's a whole poem in the book of Job about how humans don't have access to God's wisdom They need to live by the fear of the Lord and trust So Job becomes like a Solomon like character who can't ends up only at the end of the book all they can do is trust He won't be able to play the role of God with God's wisdom advantage point So all four of the books are tied in to the Solomon story in different ways. Yeah. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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1.5% 1.5% 1.5% I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a lot of sense as a man. Correct. But if I'm a woman meditating at all of this, it feels, it almost would start to feel like,

oh, this wasn't really written for me. Yeah. Like, because the metaphor becomes really, really beautiful, but it's rooted in man's relationship with his other. And I'm almost kind of curious, like, what? If a woman had designed this. Yes, yes. You have a whole narrative. Yeah. I hear that.

So in other words, what you're saying, it's an important observation to make that this governing narrative with these male representatives and iconic women is framed on one level from the male perspective, right? It's the woman that represents a choice. Yeah. There are sometimes where it gets reversed or you have a... However, there are multiple books in the Hebrew Bible that reverse it.

And tell the story using the same archetypal patterns, but from the woman's perspective. And this is the important role of the book of Ruth, of the book of Esther, and of the book of the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is mostly the voice of the book of Ruth, of the book of Esther, and of the book of the song of songs. The song of songs is mostly the voice of the woman about her experience in pursuing the man. So it becomes an Adam and Eve Solomon and Chiba type of story, but now it's from from Eve and Chiba's perspective about their pursuit of the lover.

So it seems to me the authors of the Hebrew Bible understand this, they're aware of it. So they have also created complementary contributions in the Hebrew Bible that let you know this isn't just for men, even though that governing narrative, the eating narrative has like the two eaves or Solomon, the two women. These men, these archetypal men, like the two eaves or Solomon the two women. These men, these archetypal men like the Adam or the Solomon

are there an icon for the reader who could be male or female based on their own choices and situations in life. However, I should say that. I say all that I'm a man. That's how I experience the Hebrew Bible. So there's been really important development in modern biblical scholarship. It goes by different names. Some people call it feminist readings or womanist. But there are important scholars, and it's not some of it's driven by different interests. But I think there's really important contribution here in that it's important that men who have given themselves to Study the scriptures have their own assumptions and biases pointed out to them And to hear how women experience this narrative. Is am I speaking to what you're identifying at all? Yeah, no, that's really helpful

I want to dig in more and I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to do this about the significance of this metaphor. Yeah, we've just been talking about the metaphor. But why choose this metaphor? Yes. Of the pursuing the other, the human other, who is essential for us to rule together. Together. That's right. Yeah. Why has that become the metaphor for pursuing God's wisdom? Correct. Yep. And in the song of songs, it's recapturing the Eden ideal is depicted in the erotic pursuit

of two leathers. Yeah. Yeah. Who come together under the tree. Yeah. So, yeah, man, this is actually this is new horizon for me. I just, I've been waiting, I've been putting song with songs on hold. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. For a couple of years. For years, you've been telling me like, yeah, just buying books, stacking the videography and just waiting. So I just gave myself a week to just take the deep dive and prep for this conversation. And actually, I'm convinced that Rabbi Akiba was right on when he said that when you open the scroll of the song of songs, you are stepping into the holy of Holies of the Hebrew Bible.

It's the whole thing in Genesis 4 verse 1, Adam knew his wife. Yeah, it's sexually loaded word. Yeah, it can be applied to sexual intimacy. That their humanity's pursuit of wisdom and life can be set on analogy to humanity's pursuit of sexual pleasure. There's some relationship between knowing and sexual pursuit and desire and fulfillment. There's something interconnected for the biblical authors. They want us to see those too as interconnected, which is why song of songs I think needs

to be restored fully to the wisdom literature. They're not different things. Is that what we're going to go next or where's next? Where's next? I just thought real quick we could just profile each of the four books in a little more detail. Because think in the video, in the video I want us to reframe the stories of tree in Eden about the choice of wisdom. Then I want us to develop house, the Solomon story, develops all that, and then like what we

just did, and then I think it'd be helpful to profile. Here's a way to approach what's going on in each of the wisdom books. And we did that in brief, but we'll do it in a little more detail. Kind of fill it out. Some things that we could do.

In reality, it'll probably be what, 45 seconds, or a minute, you know, for each of the four books. Right, so. But it'd be fun to imagine what's the profile. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we're gonna look at a book of the Bible directly connected to the wisdom of Solomon,

the book of Proverbs. Book of Proverbs is designed as this retroflection on Genesis one-3. You go back and you look and you say, oh, wow! I can now see new things in Genesis 1-3 through the lens of Proverbs that were there all along just waiting to be activated. Today's show is produced by Dan Gummel, the music by the band Tents. The Bible project is a non-profit, we're in Portland, Oregon, and we believe the Bible

is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We make videos, this podcast, other resources to help people see the unified story. All of our resources are for free because of the generous support of many people like you. So thanks for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Allison to Sarthino. I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. And I first heard about the Bible project at my church. They showed the Heaven and Earth's video, and I was hooked. I used the Bible project mostly listening to the podcast, but we also use it for a small group when we start a new book of the Bible. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus, or a crowd-funded project by people like me.

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