'But I tell you that not
even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these
flowers' (Matthew 6: 29). These words of Jesus show how Solomon was remembered
for many centuries as the king who became splendidly wealthy, a merchant-king
and a spectacular builder.
When the very full Biblical
accounts of the life and reign of David are compared with the very much shorter
accounts of Solomon, this gives us some indication of the attitude of the
writer of Israel's history to both kings. The writer had access to court
records dating back to the time of Solomon, as 1 Kings 11: 41 indicates:
'Everything else that Solomon did, his career and his wisdom, are all recorded
in The History of Solomon.' That very ancient book was lost, but the writer of
the books of Kings used some of the information in it in his account of
Solomon. But when we look at the account, we find that Solomon's forty years of
material success and international diplomacy and fame are referred to very
sketchily; in the eleven chapters of 1 Kings which refer to Solomon, five cover
the varied events of his life and reign and five are concerned with the one
event which the writer considered to be of real significance-the building and
dedication of the Temple.
As we have seen, the first
chapter of the book is concerned with the rivalry between Solomon and his
brother, when Solomon was chosen to be king. There was no occasion when Solomon
was accepted by all of Israel, as David had been. The writer's main interest in
this account of Solomon is in whether Solomon remained faithful to the final
command given to him by his father David-'do what the LORD your God orders you
to' (1 Kings 2: 3). In 1 Kings 4 there is a very condensed account of the
wealth, stability and administration of Israel during the reign of Solomon whom
God had blessed because 'Solomon loved the LORD and followed the instructions
of his father David' (1 Kings 3: 3). From this account and from other verses in
this section of 1 Kings we can make the following summary of Solomon's
achievements as the most powerful ruler in that area of the Middle East at that
time:
(i) he was a shrewd and
successful merchant-king, establishing and developing trade with other
countries and able to exploit the situation which he had inherited from his
father; he exploited copper deposits in the area of Edom which had been
conquered by David; he organized international trade in war horses;
(ii) he established a navy
of merchant ships to further trade and developed a port at Ezion Geber on the
Gulf of Aqaba, where the copper refineries were;
(iii) he linked his trading
activities with a very ambitious building programme, not only for Jerusalem but
for other cities such as Megiddo where the war horses were kept; he bartered
wheat and oil for timber from Tyre; the most famous and important of his
buildings was the Jerusalem Temple, but he put up other large buildings, such
as the royal palaces, during a programme which lasted for twenty years;
(iv) he reorganized the
internal administration of Israel but in doing so he ignored the old tribal
boundaries; the reorganization was aimed at the collection of food supplies and
taxes to maintain his schemes and enterprises;
(v) he was a shrewd
diplomat, bringing the daughters of foreign rulers into his harem of wives, to
strengthen political ties with the neighbouring areas;
(vi) his court displayed
levels of culture and sophistication which had not been seen in Israel before;
(vii) he gained a reputation
for wisdom of a certain kind, in settling disputes, composing proverbs, and
also in exploiting business deals.