Solomon - Scriptural Dossier

This teaching is about King Solomon or King Shlomo. The scripture references for this teaching are 1 Kings 1-11. King Shlomo's name comes from the Hebrew word for peace, and his reign was generally peaceful and prosperous. He was the third king of Israel, succeeding his father King David. He built the original temple of Yahweh and became extremely wealthy. He asked Yahweh for wisdom and was known as the wisest man in all of Israel. He wrote many proverbs, songs, and books, including Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. The story starts with King David nearing the end of his life, and his son Adonijah assuming himself to be king. Bathsheba reminds David of his promise that Solomon would be the next king. So this teaching is going to be all about King Solomon or King Shlomo. And if you'd like to read along with us as we go through the story of King Shlomo, make sure to go to 1 Kings 1-11 in your scriptures as we'll be referencing all those chapters mainly, plus a few more outside of this range as we go through this teaching. And as always, if you'd like to get the show notes and the draw slides that you see on your screen right now, you can click on the link down below in the description, whether you're watching on a video platform or listening on an audio podcast platform, just click on the link down below. That'll take you directly to the post on our website, godhonesttruth.com. And there you can get the live video if we're going live, the on-demand version if afterwards. You can also get the draw slides. You can get the notes that we took for this subject all right there conveniently in one place. So go to godhonesttruth.com and click on the post for King Shlomo or in the link in your description right down below. Now, the first instance we see of the name King Shlomo and the appearance of King Shlomo is in 2 Samuel 5-14, and it reads, and these were the names of those born to him in Yerushalayim, Shemua and Shovav and Nathan and Shlomo. Born to who? They were born to David. These were the children that were born to King Dawid in Yerushalayim. And this is the first mention we have in scriptures of King Shlomo. Now, if you'll recognize the word, most of you have heard the name Solomon, and that's the modern-day angle-sized version of Shlomo, but in the Hebrew, it's Shlomo. And you may automatically recognize some semblance to another Hebrew word, and that word is Shalom. If you're watching on video, here you can see on your screen on the right-hand side, you have the Hebrew word Shalom, and then on the left-hand side, you have the word Shlomo. King Shlomo actually is derived from that Hebrew word Shalom, and Shlomo is Strong's H8010, and Shlomo literally means, like, peaceful or peaceable. And that kind of characterized his reign that he had as king, for the most part. We'll get into some of the finer details, but for the most part, King Shlomo's reign was a peaceful one, a prosperous one. Now for all you nerds out there like me, here is your Strong's definition entry, the Jasper's Dictionary of the Targums entry, and just seeing as this is a Hebrew lexicon entry for the word Shlomo, and here is your Brown, Driver, Briggs definition. So again, meaning peaceful or peaceable, that's what Shlomo means. Now King Shlomo was also referred to as another name in scripture. We get that from 2 Samuel 12, 24-25, and this is the actual birth of Shlomo, and it reads, And Dawid comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went into her, and lay with her. So she bore him a son, and he called his name Shlomo. And Yahweh loved him, and sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and called his name Yedidiah, because of Yahweh. Now the second name, Yedidiah, or Yedidiah, or Jedidiah, as in some modern translations, this name means Beloved of Yah, Beloved of Yahweh, but it wasn't his actual name, it was more like a nickname. All throughout scripture, all throughout various writings on it, he's always called Shlomo, or Solomon, but Yedidiah comes from Strong's H3041, and again, it means Beloved of Yah, or Beloved of Yahweh. Here is your Strong's definition, Brown, Driver, Briggs definition, and Yesenius' Hebrew lexicon definition for Yedidiah, or Jedidiah. Now some things to know about King Shlomo, or some highlights, anyways, before we really get into the meat of it. He was the third king of Israel, and he succeeded his father, the famous King Dawid, as king of Israel. He was the tenth son of Dawid, and the second son of Bathsheba. Now if you remember, the first child that Bathsheba and Dawid had died because of their adulterous affair, and King Shlomo was the second son born to Dawid and Bathsheba. He ruled as king for 40 years. Now this is kind of interesting to kind of start thinking about right here. When we looked at King Shaul, when we looked at King Dawid, we noticed that they reigned for 40 years. I think there's a slight discrepancy with King Shaul. Some say it was 42, others say it was 40, but you can't help but notice the similarities here, this number 40 with King Shaul, King Dawid, and King Shlomo. Very very interesting stuff. Now King Shlomo had a lot of women in his life. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines is what the scriptures tell us. We'll get more into that here later on when we get into the actual scriptures. Scripture also records him as having one son and two daughters. Now most people, including myself, think this is not all the children he had, this is just what was recorded in scripture. I mean if you're a man with 700 wives and 300 concubines, you're bound to have more than just three children. Okay? It makes sense that you would have a whole bunch of children, otherwise there might be something medically wrong there. So yeah, me and a whole lot of other people think that he probably had more than just these three mentioned in scripture, but when you get into the actual verses, only three are mentioned, one son and two daughters. And his son actually took the kingship over after King Shlomo, but we'll hit on that as we go through scriptures too. He built the original temple of Yahweh. If you remember, Dawid wanted to, but Yahweh told him no because he was a man of blood, man of war. Even though he was a man after God's own heart, he was still a man who shed blood. King Shlomo, however, was a king of peace for the most part, so he was allowed to build the temple of Yahweh, the original temple. And when King Shlomo took the throne, he was very young. Scripture talks about him being very young, though it doesn't actually say the actual age. I've heard reports of him being 12 years old. Some say he was 18. Others say he was probably about 20. Regardless, he was still very, very young when he took the throne of Israel and reigned for 40 years. During his reign, he became extremely wealthy and prosperous. And as you read through the scriptures from 1 Kings 1-11, you'll see this, and we'll get into some of those in just a minute. But there was no time in all of Israel that was like the time of the reign of Shlomo as far as the wealth and the prosperity of the nation of Israel. Not even today is that level of wealth and prosperity seen within Israel. And Shlomo asked Yahweh for wisdom. Now Yahweh appears to Shlomo twice during his life. We'll read those here a little bit later on, but the first time that Yahweh appears to Shlomo, Yahweh asked him, what shall I give you? What shall you ask for? And Yahweh is pretty much offering Shlomo a blank check for whatever he wanted. Well Shlomo tells him that I just want the wisdom and the knowledge of how to rightfully rule your people, oh Yahweh. And Yahweh is so impressed by this that he grants him his wish of wisdom, but he grants him so much more, even the things that he does not ask for like great riches. It is said that Shlomo was the wisest man in all the scripture in all of Israel up until Yeshua. And in the Brit Hadashah, we're told that one greater than Shlomo has come, referencing Yeshua. He's recorded as having spoken 3,000 proverbs, 1,005 songs. He's credited with two of the Psalms, Psalms 72 and Psalms 127. He's also credited with the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, and of course, the song of Solomon. Now there's another book out there called the Wisdom of Solomon, and that's up for discussion as to who actually wrote it, should it be in the Bible or not, okay, it's not. But that's a subject for another time, just so you know, there's another book out there that kind of just set that to the side. So now we'll get into the actual story of Shlomo and his life, his reign, the things that happened and things that went on. Starting out in 1 Kings chapter 1, if you're following along with us at home, we start out by seeing that King Dawid is nearing the end of his life. He's getting old and he's about to die, right? And because of this, because he's getting near the end of his life and he's very old, he just cannot stay warm, no matter how many blankets and stuff they put on him, he can't stay warm. So they go out and they look for a young woman to come in and keep him warm. So they find this beautiful young woman to come in and lay with him, keep him warm, but they didn't do anything other than that. We'll put it that way. She was just there to comfort him and tend to him and keep him warm. And her name was Abishag. That's going to be important here in just a minute. One of King Dawid's son called Adonai, Adonaiahu, there we go, assumed himself to be king. Now he was the older brother or one of the older brothers of Shlomo. So he sees King Dawid getting old and about to die and Adonaiahu just assumes that he's the one that should be taking over next. So he goes out with the people that support him and his friends and stuff and they throw a big feast, a big party celebrating him becoming and being the king. However, he doesn't invite everyone. He doesn't invite some of the more important people like Shlomo or Bathsheba or Nathan the prophet. Of course, he doesn't invite King Dawid because he's bedridden at this point, right? But anyways, we're told that most likely King Dawid knew about this and what was going on, but King Dawid did not do anything about it. He did not speak against it. He did not take actions against what was going on with Adonaiahu. He just let it be. He was silent about it. So the prophet Nathan comes in and he goes to Bathsheba and he tells her what's going on and he tells Bathsheba that she needs to go to King Dawid and remind him of his promise that Shlomo was to be the next king. So Bathsheba goes in to King Dawid and she reminds him that he made this promise about Shlomo being the next king. We don't have that promise recorded in scripture, but apparently it's something that actually did happen. So Bathsheba reminds him of this. She goes in and it's very interesting what Bathsheba does during this that we'll look at next in just a moment. But then Nathan the prophet comes in and he tells King Dawid what's going on with Adonaiahu, which King Dawid probably already knew about already, but prophet Nathan comes in and tells him what's going on and David remembers his promise that he made regarding Shlomo as being king. So he tells the people there and the prophet Nathan to make it official, go put him on the king's mule and anoint him and they make it official that Shlomo is to be king after Dawid. They take him. They do all these things that King Dawid told them to do and Shlomo is anointed as the rightful king. And so after this happens, Adonaiahu learns about what just happened, that the real king, King Dawid, just named Shlomo as the next official king. And Adonaiahu is still at this party. He's having fun. He learns about this and he gets terrified. This is like treason, usurping the throne kind of thing at this point now. So he's afraid for his life. He runs to the temple and he grabs the horns of the altar and he stays right there because he's so terrified about what could happen to him now that Shlomo is officially named the new king. And he refuses to come down from holding on to the horns of the altar, thinking that's going to save his life. So they tell King Shlomo about what's going on with Adonaiahu and King Shlomo sends a messenger and tells Adonaiahu that if there's no evil found with you, then your life will be spared and you will not die. I will not have you killed. And that's what happens. Shlomo lets him go. Adonaiahu is still living and there was, at least until this point, there was no evil found with him regarding Shlomo. So at this point, a little bit of a wave coming to the throne. But so far in chapter one, everything's gotten settled at this point. One thing I'd like to note, if you're reading in your scriptures, okay, I didn't read the whole chapter for the sake of time, but you can do that on your own, is that when Bathsheba comes in to King Dawid, then when Nathan comes in to King Dawid, and then when Adonaiahu comes in to Shlomo, each of these three instances, these three people do something that would be very, very odd in our time. Let's look at this in 1 Kings 1 verses 16, 23, and 53. And here in verse 16, it says that Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the sovereign. Verse 23, it says, so they informed the sovereign saying, here is Nathan the prophet. And when he came in before the sovereign, he bowed down before the sovereign with his face to the ground. Then in verse 53, it says, and Sovereign Shlomo said, and they brought him, Adonaiahu, down from the slaughter place, and he came and fell down before Sovereign Shlomo. And Shlomo said to him, go to your house. So each of these three instances here with these three people has them coming in before the king, okay, King Dawid and King Shlomo, right? And they bowed down before the king. Again, to someone like us in the modern age, this would seem extremely weird, something we probably would not do, at least here in America. There are other cultures around the world, even today, that bow before other people. Probably not like this, like not always to the ground, but they will still bow, right? Most notably, you notice people doing this in Asian countries like Japan. You also notice this with a lot of Catholics when they're going to the pope. But we would still kind of think it odd, but this was something that was commonly done during the times of Scripture. We see this with Jacob and Esau. When Jacob is fleeing for his life and he comes back towards his home and he meets up with Esau, it said that Jacob bows himself to the ground seven times before Esau. We see it throughout various kings in the Tanakh. And we see it here specifically tonight with Bathsheba and Nathan and Adonai Yahu. They bow down before the king. All right, this is called prostration, and it's a way back then that they showed respect. That's all they're doing here when they're bowing down before the king, they're showing and giving respect. This is something that was done with generally Semitic cultures like that. And when you get later on into like Greek cultures, that is completely not done. You only do that to the various gods, right? That's the Hellenistic mindset. But with the Semitic and especially the Hebraic mindset, bowing down like this is actually a form of giving respect. And some translations actually translate it this way, that Bathsheba came and bowed down and gave respect to King David. That's how they would translate it. Unfortunately, we kind of get lost in translation with some translations that we come across. For instance, in the Wycliffe Bible, which predates the King James. Here it says, in verse 16, that Bathsheba bowed herself and worshipped the king. Then in verse 23, that Nathan entered in the sight of the king and had worshipped him lowly to the earth. Then in verse 53, talking about Adonai Yahu, it says, came before King Solomon and worshipped King Solomon. This is where the confusion comes in because we think of worship as something only to be done to Yahweh, right? In the way that we think of worship. And in the way that we think of worship, yes, that is true. Back during the 14th, 15th, 16th centuries, even 17th centuries, back during that era, worship meant something different than what we think of as today. And that's why they were translated in translations like the Wycliffe, King James sometimes too. They translate this as worship instead of bow down. They translate it as worship instead of give respect to. Because back then when they were doing these translations, that's what worship meant, was to give respect. Not like worship like we think of it nowadays in the 21st century. And that's where the, if you do a word study on this, where our word worship comes from is from the compound word worth-ship, right? Worth-ship. Or worth-respect. And I speak of today's day and age, but even in today's day and age in some cultures, these people in these cultures will refer to people in prominent positions like judges, mayors, governors, things like that, they will reference them as your worship. They're not worshiping these people as gods, right? They're giving them respect. Here in America, we don't say that. We have something similar. Like we go into court for whatever reason and we address the judge, we say something like your honor. Very, very similar statement, but it has the exact same meaning. To give respect. That's all that back during those times what worship actually meant. But you look in the Hebrew scriptures where it actually says this word and it's shahab. It's Strong's H7812. And literally it means to kneel down, to bow down, to prostrate yourself on the ground. But the concept is giving respect, to give homage and do obeisance, things like that. It's to give respect. It's not worshiping them like they're gods. Now if you look into the Greek text, the Brit Hadashah, the word there, the equivalent, is proskuneo. When you look into history also and look into people like Alexander the Great, when Alexander the Great went to pretty much all the known world at that time, conquering it, it was culturally speaking there was relative ease when he went to the Greek territories. But then when he got into the Middle East and the Semitic cultures, they had this thing of bowing down as a form of respect for someone of higher rank, someone in authority. And this was a culture shock to most of the Greeks that were with Alexander the Great. Now Alexander the Great in an act of diplomacy started adopting this and he was actually chastised by some of the Greeks that were with him for doing that. Because in the Greek mindset, you only bowed down to the gods, right? That's all you did. You only bowed down to the gods. That was their way of thinking as far as bowing down. But in the Semitic cultures, to include the Hebraic culture of the Israelites, bowing down like this was a form of respect, to show honor and respect. And that's all they were doing. They weren't worshipping human beings, they were just showing them respect when they bowed down like this, prostrated themselves before someone of higher rank or someone in authority like the king. Getting long on this, but just wanted to kind of give you an extra point, extra piece of information and education here that a lot of people don't know about or kind of overlook. But yeah, that's bowing down, that's prostration. You find it all throughout scripture, actually. So, if you look in the original text and you see the word shahad, or in the Greek prostaneo, just know that it's meaning to give respect, to show honor to. Then we go on to the second, I'm sorry, second chapter of 1 Kings. And David has a talk with Shlomo and he's instructing him on how to go through his life and to make sure to walk in the ways of Yahweh, do right, all this good stuff. He also instructs Shlomo in how to act toward both David's enemies and David's friends, which that will come into play here in just a moment near the end of chapter 2. And then, like every human being does, David dies and this firmly establishes and solidifies Shlomo as king. Then Adonaiahu, remember him from chapter 1? He goes to Bathsheba, he doesn't go to Shlomo, he goes to his mother Bathsheba and asks Bathsheba to go and entreat on his behalf in front of King Shlomo and ask Shlomo for Abishag so that Adonaiahu can marry Abishag and she'll become his wife. Remember, Abishag was the girl who came in to keep King Dawid warm. Well, Bathsheba does this, she goes to Shlomo and she asks for Abishag on behalf of Adonaiahu. And King Shlomo takes great offense at this, so much so that he ends up having Adonaiahu killed. Now, you may ask, why was there so much offense taken for this? Abishag wasn't Shlomo's wife. It doesn't record Abishag as being the wife of Shlomo. But some commentators have insinuated that since Abishag went and took care of King Dawid and kept him warm and served him and stuff like that, that she was almost considered like a concubine of King Dawid. And that by Adonaiahu asking for Abishag to be his wife, it's almost like another attempt at the throne. And this is kind of how Shlomo responds to Bathsheba, it's like, why don't you just ask me for the throne too? But it's almost like Adonaiahu was trying to usurp the throne again by asking for King Dawid's concubine or what could have been considered one of King Dawid's concubines. So King Shlomo takes great offense at this and has Adonaiahu killed. Then it goes on and says that Shlomo banishes Abiathar for supporting Adonaiahu, but he doesn't have him killed. Back when Adonaiahu was having his party and he gathered all his supporters for the party, Abiathar was one of the people at this party, one of the supporters of Adonaiahu. Now that Shlomo is in power, he banishes him but doesn't kill him. Then Shlomo has Yoab killed because he did support Adonaiahu. And then Shlomo places Shimei under house arrest, under the penalty of death, telling him you don't leave this place, you do not cross this river, otherwise when you do, you will die. Now Shimei is one of the enemies that Dawid was instructing Shlomo about at the end of his life. Then Shlomo goes to Shimei and banishes him, puts him under house arrest, but doesn't kill him because he worked as a priest carrying the ark and whatnot. So he banishes him from house arrest. However, Shimei then goes on to leave his property, he crosses the river that Shlomo tells him not to cross, and Shlomo has him killed. He had fair warning, he had the chance to live, but he didn't obey, and then he dies. Then we get on into chapter 3 and we see that Shlomo marries the daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt. And this is something important to keep in mind. When Shlomo had 700 wives and 300 concubines, it's not because he had a lot of free time. A lot of marriages back then, and I'm assuming this is probably going to be like with King Shlomo as well, they were diplomatic in purpose. If you're the king, you marry the daughter of the ruler of some other country so that you have almost like an alliance between your two countries and therefore peace. You're not going to go and attack the other country because they're like family now and vice versa. They're not going to attack you because you're almost like family. And this is most likely what Shlomo was doing for the most part, is that all these wives and concubines he had were like political alliances and affiliations that were done for probably political reasons. But the first one we're told about here is the marriage to the Pharaoh of Egypt and marrying his daughter. So then when, this is all before the time of the temple, so Shlomo and others are going to these various altars and whatnot to offer, sending offerings, and he goes to Gibbon and there at Gibbon, Yahweh appears to Shlomo and this is where he asks him, what is it that you would ask for? Name it and it shall be yours. So Shlomo asks only for wisdom in ruling Yahweh's people. And like we mentioned before, because he asked this and because it impressed Yahweh so much, Yahweh not only gave him wisdom, but also the things that he did not ask for, like great wealth and riches and prosperity. And this wisdom that Shlomo was given really comes into play throughout his life for the most part. He did make some mistakes that we'll get into here in a minute, grievous mistakes. But Shlomo was well known for his wisdom. One instance of this is the famous story of the two prostitutes that come to Shlomo. The story goes that two prostitutes come to Shlomo and one says that she had given birth to a baby and then a few days later the other prostitute that was living with her in the house also gave birth to a baby, but that the second prostitute had accidentally rolled over on her child in the middle of the night and killed it. As a result, the second prostitute swapped out her dead baby for the living baby to make it seem as though the first prostitute's baby had died. So they come in to King Shlomo for judgment and ruling and neither one is saying, oh, I'm the one that has the dead baby, right? So they bring in the live baby. They can't come to a mutual agreement by themselves. So King Shlomo tells them to bring him a sword, so they bring up the sword and King Shlomo tells them to cut the baby in half and give half of the baby to the first prostitute and half of the baby to the second prostitute. The second prostitute says, yay, we'll do that. I'll take half and you'll take half. First prostitute says, no, you can just let her have it. Please don't kill the child. And that's how Shlomo was able to decide who the actual mother of the child was. So the baby was given to the first prostitute. This is an example of one of the great wisdom of Shlomo, but something you might notice from this as well, something I noticed as I was going through this, and this bears further study, granted. During the story, you do not see that these two prostitutes are ever chastised or punished for actually being prostitutes. Nowadays, if it came into court, I mean, I'm not a lawyer or a judge, but I would think if you admitted in court to being a prostitute, that might be another charge. I don't know. It just seems out of place. Maybe it wasn't recorded. If they were actually punished in some way for being prostitutes, it just wasn't recorded in scripture, but you don't get it recorded anyways. Then going on into chapter four of first Kings. And here we see how Shlomo is setting up the governance of the kingdom of Israel. It says that he set up this person over here to rule this and this person over there. And then in first Kings 4.7, here's something very interesting to take note of. Okay. First Kings 4.7, and Shlomo had 12 governors over all Israel who provided food for the sovereign and his household. Each one made provision for one new moon of the year. Did you get that? 12 governors, each for one new moon of the year. This is showing that even going back to very, very early times, we can see that the calendar of Yahweh has 12 months. Why is this important? Because the calendar that we have today, the Gregorian calendar, which most people use around the world today, that's changed over time. And at one point in our history, the Romans had like an eight day week. And we know that in scripture, it's always a seven day week. And the Romans also had a 10 month calendar. Now eventually they realized that this was untenable and they had to change it. And now we have 12 months in the calendar that descended from that. Some remnants of that, if you'll think about it, we look at September, okay? And that prefix sept, what's that supposed to mean? That's supposed to indicate seven, okay? September's not the seventh month, it's the ninth month. Because they had two months way back when. Likewise, October, octo, meaning eight, but October's the 10th month. Likewise, December, deci, meaning 10. That December's not the 10th month, December's the 12th month. And that's why these names are the way they are nowadays. Because it used to be 10 months, then they had to add two months. However, we see directly here, for your own eyes to see, or if you're listening on a audio podcast, for your own ears to hear, that in scripture, the calendar of Yahweh always had 12 months. That's why we should trust scripture instead of the creations of man. And then it also tells us in scripture about how the administration of Shlomo used all this large amount of food every day. It says that the administration used 30 cores of flour, 60 cores of meal, 10 fatted cattle, 20 pastured cattle, 100 sheep, plus deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fowl. And that was every day. That's how much food they went through every day. Now another thing to take note of too is that once they were all prosperous and the kingdom was being built up, that it tells us that King Shlomo had 40,000 horses and 12,000 horsemen. Now this is important on multiple levels. One we'll get into here in just a moment, but it's important for a second reason as well that we're not going to get into today. But if you're taking notes, definitely make sure to note this down, that he had 40,000 horses and 12,000 horsemen. And that people came from all over the area there in the Middle East to hear the wisdom of Shlomo and see his great riches and the prosperity of Israel. Now one thing we'd like to remind you of real quick is what the prophet Samuel told the people of Israel would happen if they got a king, because the people were, back then the people were begging for a king so they could be like the other nations, right? And Samuel warned them what was going to happen if they won, if they got a king. First Samuel 8, 9 through 17, and now listen to their voice, but you shall certainly warn them and shall make known to them the ruling of the sovereign who does reign over them. And Samuel spoke, this is the ruling of the sovereign who does reign over you. He shall take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen. And they shall run before his chariots and appoint commanders over his thousands and commanders over his fifties, or to plow his ground and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons and equipment for his chariots. And the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive trees he is going to take and give them to his servants. And a tenth of your grain and your vintage he is going to take and give it to his officers and servants. And your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys he is going to take and use for his own work. A tenth of your sheep he is going to take and you are going to be his servants. Now haven't we seen that already? I mean this is what Samuel warned them about. We've already read that King Shlomo had all these horses and was using all this food. And we're going to get into it in just a moment. Now granted this was a prosperous time during the reign of King Shlomo, but it still holds true that Samuel had warned them correctly about what was going to happen. And we get into 1 Kings chapters 5 through 8. And here Shlomo institutes compulsory labor of the people of Israel. But it also says that he doesn't, he didn't make slaves of them. But it was compulsory labor. Why was this done? Because they were building the temple. Shlomo finally gets to start construction of the temple. In total it took 11 years to build the temple. It was four years for him to get the foundation taken care of and built. And then another seven years from the foundation up. He also spent 13 years, about the same time, building his own house, which we can probably assume was his palace. After this was done he brought the ark and the tabernacle and all the utensils that were used within the tabernacle up to the temple. And then the temple is finished and they hold this big dedication service where all the people come, all the administrators come, Shlomo's there, and they dedicate the temple. Now one thing that's interesting to look at is that if you ever think about prayer, right, and you think, well, should we be doing public prayer in front of everyone, like in a church setting or at a football game or the beginning of a senate session, you know, what have you. But public prayer. Where is that in scripture? Because we hear Yeshua warning us about being like the Pharisees and the hypocrites and babbling on like the Gentiles or pagans. And not to keep doing that, thinking your prayers will be heard, but to pray in private and then your father who sees you in private will reward you openly. But then you start thinking about, well, is public prayer okay? Well here's one example from scripture in 1 Kings chapter 8 of a public prayer. King Shlomo, in the dedication service here for the temple, prays publicly before everyone there. This is an example of public prayer straight from scripture. And then once the temple was built and dedicated and they were throwing this big feast for the dedication, they held the festival, it says in scripture, they held the festival for seven days and then another seven days for 14 days in total. Well, the first seven days was most likely for the dedication of the temple and then the second seven days was most likely for Sukkot because it says the festival. Some place I saw said that the first seven days that mentions was Hanukkah. Okay, I can kind of see how they get that because Hanukkah means dedication or rededication and this is where they were dedicating the temple. So it was a Hanukkah in that sense, but it wasn't the Hanukkah because the Hanukkah had not happened yet. It was many hundreds of years down the road. Then we get into 1 Kings chapters 9 through 10. Then Yahweh appears to Shlomo for a second time and advises him to continue to walk in the ways of Shlomo, doing right, judging righteously, and things like that. And we see next that Shlomo faithfully goes to the temple three times a year that males are supposed to when the temple's standing and offers up a sending offering just like he's supposed to. Then the Queen of Sheba comes to Shlomo to see if what she's been told about Shlomo is true and she sees all this and she says, wow, this is amazing. Not even the half of it has been told to me. So she gives him gifts and stuff and sends him things from her country and he gives her gifts and stuff and says that he gave her whatever she asked for. And then she goes back to her country. For some reason, the Queen of Sheba has garnered a lot of interest over the years. And there's only a very, very small section about her in scripture. She's mentioned by Yeshua in reference to Shlomo later on in Brit Hadashah. But here where she's actually living, there's very, very little. It never says in scripture that Shlomo married the Queen of Sheba. It never says in scripture what her skin color was, though most people portray her as having dark black African skin. But it never says what ethnicity she is. We don't know where the land or country of Sheba is. We just don't know. There's some writings of Josephus and some other writings that say that Sheba and where she comes from was south of Egypt in Africa. But again, that's not scripture, so it's just an assumption. So we don't really know a lot about the Queen of Sheba other than she came to Shlomo, was impressed, gave him gifts, he gave her gifts, she went home. That's about it. Scripture does not record Shlomo marrying the Queen of Sheba. Is it possible? And it just wasn't recorded in scripture? Yeah. I mean, it's possible. We see all the women that Shlomo married, and she was from a different country. So maybe he did marry her for a political alliance. But again, it's not recorded in scripture, so we cannot say definitively that he did marry her. But we're told under King Shlomo, that under his rule, that Israel prospered greatly. So much so that silver was looked at as kind of nothing, just silver, you know. We see in 1 Kings 10, 27, it reads, And the sovereign made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedars as plenty as the sycamores which are in the low country. So there was so much silver there, they were so prosperous, that silver was just like a rock that was laying around, that's how common it was. It was almost like nothing. I would have to assume that there was inflation, but I don't know. Then we get into 1 Kings 11, and this is where things kind of start going downhill. 1 Kings 11, verses 1-3, And sovereign Shlomo loved many foreign women, from the nations of whom Yahweh had said to the children of Israel, You do not go into them, and they do not go into you, for they shall certainly turn away your hearts after their mighty ones. Shlomo clung to these in love, and he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. Couple things to notice about real quick. Number one, he had a large family, right, 700 wives and 300 concubines. Number two, notice also here that even though he had all these wives and concubines, he's never chastised for it, and it's never said that he done wrong by marrying multiple women. What does scripture say that he done wrong here? That he went after foreign women who turned his heart away. In fact, Yahweh told the nation of Israel, do not go into these foreign women, and do not let them come into you. And the Brit Hadashah is the concept of being unequally yoked. But that's where Solomon went wrong, was marrying foreign women. It wasn't the number of women, it was the foreign women. And something else just to go over real quick that a lot of people may not know about is we know what a wife is. We're very well, it's very well understood even in our day and age what a wife is, but a lot of people don't know what a concubine is. And we hear this all throughout scripture actually, well at least in the Tanakh and more specifically in the first part of the Tanakh. But unfortunately, some people think of concubines as like a sex slave or someone that they, that a man just puts in a closet or hides away for his own pleasure whenever he gets a chance, right? That's not what a concubine is, okay? A concubine is the Hebrew word pilegesh that comes from Strong's H6370. And pretty much in a nutshell, what a concubine is, is a wife, okay? There was the regular wives and there was concubines, but the concubines were also considered and treated as wives because they were just a wife. But the main difference is that back then when you got married, a man would pay a bride price to the woman's father or family in order to get married. And the woman's family usually, or the woman herself, would bring in a dowry and that's how marriages worked. Concubines usually were women who got married to a man but without bringing in a dowry. And sometimes there was not even a contract, but they were still married, they were still husband and wife. And there's multiple references to this in scripture. I did not include those for the sake of time. But yeah, a concubine was just like a regular wife, but she did not bring in any dowry. So she had no property in common, I guess you could say, with the husband. But she was just, she was another wife. So instead of saying that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, in today's day and age, we would say he had 1,000 wives. So that would be our terminology for pretty much the same kind of situation. And even when you look throughout the Torah, when you look in Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Joshua, and especially when you look at the laws regarding marriage between husband and wife, you do not find the word concubine or pelegesh anywhere in those books in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, or Joshua. You only find the word wife. We know there were still concubines and people taking concubines during that time, but the regulations for how a man is to treat his wife, that's all it is. Because a concubine is a wife, it was just, did not bring in the dowry and sometimes did not have contracts, the ketubah. But a concubine was still a wife. Then we go on in 1 Kings 11, 4-7. And it came to be, when Shlomo was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other mighty ones, and his heart was not perfect with Yahweh his Elohim, as was the heart of his father Dawit. And Shlomo went after Ashtoreth, and after Milcom. This Shlomo did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and did not follow Yahweh completely, like his father Dawit. Then Shlomo built a high place for Chemosh and for Molech. And if you remember, Molech is the one that all the pagans, the Gentiles, would sacrifice their children to. That's that horrid Molech. But these foreign women, scripture tells us, that's why Shlomo went down the wrong road. Because he went after foreign women, and he loved foreign women. And they caused him to go after other gods besides Yahweh. Now something to note here too, it says here in scripture that Shlomo's heart was not perfect with Yahweh, like the heart of his father Dawit. Now I don't think anyone would call King Dawit a perfect man, a perfect and sinless man. So it's not meant in that sense, because we do know that King Dawit committed adultery with Bathsheba, physical, literal adultery. However, we notice with his son Shlomo, that he committed metaphorical adultery with other gods. You read through scripture and you start noticing when Yahweh is talking about his nation or his people and how they commit adultery, he's referring to his nation and his people going after other gods. That's referenced as adultery. Because when you turn away from Yahweh and you go after other gods, that's like committing adultery in your marriage. And this is what Shlomo did. King Dawit, his father, committed actual physical, literal adultery, and King Shlomo committed metaphorical adultery with other gods. First Kings 11, 9-10. Therefore, Yahweh was enraged with Shlomo because his heart had turned away from Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this word not to go after other mighty ones, but he did not guard what Yahweh had commanded. So that's it. Shlomo did this horrid and grievous thing against Yahweh. And then we're told that Yahweh pronounces judgment and punishment upon Shlomo and his reign. It even tells Shlomo that the reign will be taken from him. But it says that he won't do it during the days of Shlomo for the sake of his father, Dawit. However, while Shlomo is still alive, Yahweh raises up various adversaries against Shlomo to be thorns in his side because of what Shlomo had did. And then we're told that Yerubbam, or Jeroboam, someone comes to Yerubbam or Jeroboam and tells him that the reign will be taken from King Shlomo and that Yerubbam or Jeroboam will be given ten of the tribes, but the other tribe or other tribes will remain in Jerusalem for the sake of Yahweh. While Shlomo learns this out and he tries to kill Yerubbam or Jeroboam, however, he doesn't succeed. And then we hear Shlomo dies and he dies after reigning for 40 years as king. First Kings 11, 42-43. In the days that Shlomo reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was 40 years. So Shlomo slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of Dawid his father, and Rehobam his son reigned in his place. Or Rehobam. And if you continue on you see what's happening within Israel after the death of King Shlomo. The prophecy comes true. The nation of Israel splits into two. There's a civil war. You have the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judea. The northern kingdom comprising 10 of the tribes, and then the southern kingdom comprised of Levi, Judah, and parts of Benjamin if I'm not mistaken. But anyway, that's where the split comes in. That's where you have the two kingdoms of Israel, the north and the south. Then as you read on you eventually find out that both are taken into captivity, but it's only the southern kingdom that is returned, the remnant of Yahweh, the Judeans. But this is all in fulfillment of what was prophesied concerning King Shlomo. So now let's look at a few verses from the Brit Hadashah concerning King Shlomo. There's not that many so it won't take that long. The first one is Matthew chapter 6 verses 28 through 29. This is Yeshua speaking. So why do you worry about clothing? Note well the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and I say to you that even Shlomo in all his esteem was not dressed like one of these. So here Yeshua is telling us don't be anxious, don't worry, you'll be taken care of and provided for. Now you can just look at the plants and the flowers and they're taken care of even more so than Shlomo was. And Shlomo was very well taken care of, he was very well prosperous, both in wealth and women. And then Matthew 12, 42. The sovereignness of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Shlomo And look, a greater than Shlomo is here. So we read back in 1 Kings and it says there was no one as wise as Shlomo and everyone came to hear the wisdom of Shlomo. However, then we get up to the Messiah and Yeshua himself declares that he is greater than Shlomo, even wiser than Shlomo. Like I said, real short about the Brit Hadashah because there's not much mention of Shlomo there but we do hear some of the words of our Messiah right there regarding Shlomo and even a quick reference to the Queen of Sheba. So in summary of this teaching today, Shlomo's name means peaceful or peaceable. He had somewhat of a bumpy start with his older brother almost taking the throne and then certain people that were killed off because of the treason and the usurpation. So he had a little bit of a bumpy start but not too, too much. We see that Yahweh appeared to Shlomo and asked him for whatever it is that he wanted to have and then Shlomo asked for wisdom in ruling Yahweh's people. Shlomo is regarded as the richest and most prosperous person in all of scripture and the second wisest in all of scripture. Shlomo was the man that built the original temple. Remember, King Dawid wanted to but Yahweh wouldn't let him because he was a man of war. Then Shlomo, his son, was prophesied to build it and Shlomo did build it in 11 years. Shlomo is recorded as having spoken 3,000 proverbs, 1,005 songs. He's credited with two of the Psalms, Psalm 72 and Psalm 127, the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, and of course, the Song of Solomon. He loved many foreign women who eventually turned his heart away from Yahweh towards other false gods. At the end of his reign, he was riddled with adversaries and thorns in his side. After he died, his reign was taken from him and the country split into two because of what he had did and that's just the God honest truth. If you'd like to read for yourself about the story of King Shlomo, you can find that out in 1 Kings 1-11. It's only 11 chapters. I'm not going to say it's short because there is a lot of detail in there, especially when you get into the building of the temple. But read that tonight, we'd still be going. So that's why I went over what exactly Shlomo did during his life, things about him, instead of actually just reading verse for verse all the scriptures. But if you'd like to do that, again, it's 1 Kings 1-11. Thank you for joining us for another production from God Honest Truth Ministries. We hope that we have been of service to you, and if you have any feedback, then please reach out to us by email. And make sure to visit our website at GodHonestTruth.com for more information, resources, and contact. God Honest Truth Ministries www.GodHonestTruth.com