1 Kings 11:1, commentary and pictures

Solomon took hundreds of foreign idol-worshiping wives alongside Pharaoh's daughter from Moab, Ammon, Edom, Sidon, the Hittites and many other nations, practicing polygamy contrary to God's law. He married their princesses to seal political and commercial alliances for power, wealth and greatness, hoping his wisdom and example would turn them to the true God. That hope proved vain, for instead of converting them he gradually yielded passion over principle until he joined them in idol worship and corrupted his own character. His example broke down Israel's separation, spread polygamy, mingled pagan rites and human sacrifice with true worship, and began the downfall that made Israel a prey to those same nations. His fall therefore stands as a warning that even the wisest cannot safely depart in the smallest degree, marry unbelievers, or seek worldly alliance to advance God's work, but must remain a distinct people dependent on God to the end.

Meaning of Strange Women

The strange women were foreign idol-worshipers from Egypt, Phoenicia and Sidon, Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Hittites and many other places. They were beautiful and attractive women taught to practice cruel and degrading rites, including licentious rites and human sacrifices to idols. The verse describes loving many such women together with the daughter of Pharaoh, naming Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites. Their number reached hundreds taken from Egypt, Phoenicia, Edom, Moab and many other places.

Taking many wives in this way was polygamy directly opposed to the law of Jehovah. It was a sinful practice contrary to God's arrangement. It mingled error with truth and betrayed sacred trust, corrupting religion through paganism countenanced and sustained by groves and idol shrines built for the wives.

The marriage to Pharaoh's daughter came first, and then the barrier was broken further by taking many other heathen princesses as wives on forbidden ground. Although the Egyptian wife was converted, her conversion did not justify the forbidden union and did not excuse forming it. Solomon could have resisted the harm his choice set in motion.

These marriages violated the law forbidding marriage with heathen nations. They disregarded God's provisions and barrier for keeping Israel separate and distinct from idolatrous nations. They were part of alliance with heathen nations and a breach of the holy separation God had established for Israel.

Motives for Foreign Marriages

Political ambition and desire for power and self-aggrandizement drove the forming of unholy political and commercial alliances with nation after nation, and those alliances were often sealed by marrying heathen princesses. Association with idolaters then corrupted faith, one false step led to others, and the protections God had established for Israel were broken down by turning from allegiance to God. For a time compassionate mercy overruled the terrible mistake and its evil forces, which a wise course could still have checked in large measure.

The alliances brought abundant gold and silver, and luxury, self-indulgence and the favor of the world were regarded as greatness, with infatuation even with beauty, but prosperity became ruin. The world drew the heart away from God, duties to God and to the kingdom were neglected, and the warning remains that the same corrupting influences still make people vulnerable when worldly partnerships and support are sought even to advance God's work.

The reasoning was that such alliances would bring the nations to a knowledge of the true God and draw them into close touch with Israel, and that wisdom and the power of example would lead the wives from idolatry to worship of the true God. There was flattering self-confidence in being strong enough to resist the influence of heathen associates. That hope was vain and fatal, for disregard of God's law could not lead others to revere and obey its sacred precepts. Reliance on human alliances and personal plans set God's commands aside for the customs of surrounding peoples in an attempt to carry out the Lord's purpose in an own way, disregarding God's provisions for keeping Israel separate from idolatrous nations.

Yielding to the temptations connected with prosperity and honored position brought forgetfulness of God and of the conditions of success. Sight of the Source of power and glory was lost as inclination gained the ascendancy over reason with growing self-confidence. There was failure to trust God and to accept counsel, with corruption through human praise and pride in own wisdom and reliance on self, and the apostasy came so gradually as to wander far almost unawares while conforming more and more to surrounding customs. Wisdom, riches and honor had been promised on condition of walking in the ways of the Lord and keeping His statutes and judgments, yet there was departure by going to other nations to secure facilities and workmen for building the temple when it could have been built with what the Lord had provided. That idolatrous connection with the world greatly displeased God, and departure brought a share in the sorrows that follow such departure.

The wider causes of the apostasy included the spread through the kingdom of covetousness and self-seeking with grasping, selfish principles. Grasping after high wages fostered covetousness, luxury and extravagance. Corruption spread, the poor were oppressed, and the spirit of self-sacrifice in God's service was nearly lost.

Solomon's Personal Downfall

Love for many foreign women became his sin and a snare, for he failed to control lustful passion and his wives led him into idolatry. Indulgence of appetite and passion enslaved him and brought him under God's displeasure, turning him from God and costing him the firmness and wisdom God had given. Yielding principle to passion separated him from God the source of his strength, showing the need to resist temptation and depend on God to the very end of life.

He was the one called Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, specially favored, honored and entrusted with great responsibility including building the temple and sacred service. Yet indulgence in lustful passion led him away from God and made him corrupt, proving that even the wise and powerful can be overcome by inward corruption and outward temptation despite position, learning and status. So it had been with Noah, Lot, Moses, Abraham and David, and so it was with David and Solomon though especially favored by God. After many years of walking uprightly with heavenly wisdom to rule with impartiality and mercy through prayer and dependence on God, he turned from God the source of his strength to reliance on self and fell a prey to temptation. His world-wide fame for wisdom and uprightness and his wise counsel to others did not keep him faithful when he went forward trusting himself.

The wisdom and remarkable powers God had given did not protect him when he turned away, but made him a more effective agent of the adversary and instrument of evil. His apostasy was so gradual that almost before he was aware he had wandered far from God. He lost sight of the necessity of implicit obedience to the plain precepts of Scripture and conformed more and more closely to the customs of the surrounding nations, yielding to the temptations connected with prosperity and honored position and forgetting God and the conditions of success. One departure from God's standard weakens moral power and makes further departures easier, and one false step leads to others step by step through political ambition, pride, self-interest and failure to seek God's guidance.

Instead of leading the women to the truth, he allowed pagan beliefs to become part of his religion and no longer treated the Lord as the only true and living God. Association with idolaters corrupted his faith, his once firm and pure character became morally weak, and he ended as an apostate, dishonoring himself, Israel and God. In his later years he turned from God's temple to worship idols in groves and places of worship he prepared and built for them, uniting with them in the worship of false gods. Through their strong influence he neglected his duties to God and to his kingdom and disregarded God's instruction given as a barrier against apostasy.

Association spoiled his after years, in contrast to the time when he was exalted to be king and humbled himself before God, acknowledging before all the people that he was but a little child in management. His departure brought the loss of his kingdom's unity and his rule as universal monarch. An Ammonitess among his wives became the mother of Rehoboam and shaped his unstable character, and neglected early training with the evil influences around him contributed to his eventual apostasy, showing the lasting harm the union with idolatrous women brought to son and kingdom. He followed a course God had forbidden and refused the counsel God sent him, and to refuse to receive the testimonies sent by God is to stand as Solomon stood, an example of not giving truth the right of way.

Corruption of Israel

The marriages bound the king to idolatrous nations and exposed him to their influence, and by marrying idolaters he broke down the protections established to preserve Israel's distinct faith and loyalty to God. Instead of drawing his wives to the true God, he accommodated their worship and built altars for their idols, mixing idolatry with Israel's religion. His desire for political power and self-aggrandizement helped bring about these alliances, and they corrupted his faith and turned him from allegiance to God into the worship of false gods.

His example introduced polygamy into Palestine where it became accepted, and joined Israel in marriage to nations that bowed at idolatrous shrines. Through alliance with heathen nations by foreign marriages, many of the children of Israel were led to violate the law of God and become contaminated with heathen principles and practices. Contact and intermarriage with idolaters weakened the people's love for God and their abhorrence of idolatry, and companionship with the world lowered religious principles.

The pure religious service instituted by God was replaced in some lives by idolatry of the darkest hue, including human sacrifices to idols and licentious heathen rites. This was a mingling of error with truth and a betrayal of sacred trust that corrupted religion through paganism, with licentious and cruel rites greatly dishonoring to God. That paganism was countenanced and sustained by groves and idol shrines built for his wives. Through intermarriage and close association with idolaters, heathen customs and worship spread until Israel's faith became confused. Love for God and sense of His holiness weakened, idolatrous mothers raised their children in heathen rites, and idolatry became common.

The idol shrines he built for his wives remained visible in Christ's time at the Mount of Offense, whose ruins remained until Shiloh, Christ, came and looked on them. This rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men began the downfall of Israel, which continued until the Jewish people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow. His example helped corrupt Israel, and choices pass an inheritance of good or evil to others, to sorrow and reproach on God's cause. What happened to ancient Israel in enticement into sin, when Satan broke down the barriers separating them from the world through forbidden association with the heathen, is the pattern by which modern Israel is led astray.

Warning to Remain Separate

Solomon's love of many foreign women became the passion that was his sin and a snare, for he failed to control lustful desire and his wives led him into idolatry. As he yielded principle to passion he turned from God the source of his strength and lost the firmness and wisdom God had given him, illustrating that even great wisdom and strength cannot preserve one who so yields. His downfall shows the need to resist temptation and to seek strength from God with watchfulness and dependence to the very end of life. Even a small departure from strict integrity is unsafe, showing the need for purity, watchfulness, trust in God and obedience to the end.

His history stands on record for all the religious world as a warning not to cherish and introduce the errors of the world that deceive and destroy simplicity of faith and mar the precious landmarks of truth. It warns that error must not be mingled with truth and that close associations that lead away from right principles must be avoided. The true and explicit narration of sin overcoming one favored of God and entrusted with great responsibility, as with Noah, Lot, Moses, Abraham and David, shows divine wisdom and justice in refusing to gloss over faults or suppress the sins of chief characters. It gives a faithful record of human frailty, struggle with evil and the sure penalty of disobedience, to teach strict regard for God's commandments and that retributive justice never fails. The record is for benefit and warning and also for encouragement to desponding hearts, proving that those who strive, waver and fall into error can through God's grace gain fresh vigor, rise above evil nature, take heart again, conquer and renew the conflict.

Joining life to unbelievers in opposition to God in forbidden marriages and other close alliances, in hope of influencing them for good, can instead entrap until faith is yielded, principle sacrificed and separation from God follows. One wrong step leads to another and binds as in chains that cannot be broken, hindering service to God and bringing sorrow and reproach on God's cause. Companionship with the world and injudicious friends lowers religious principles, and Solomon's choice of heathen wives and friendships with idolatrous nations turned his heart from God and endangered his soul while bringing polygamy and idolatry into Israel. Though chosen of God and entrusted with building the temple and sacred service, he became corrupted through human praise, pride in his own wisdom, and failure to trust God or accept counsel, revealing human weakness and turning from doing God's will.

Blessing remained while he remained separate from the world, and God's people are likewise blessed while they remain distinct and peculiar, holding the beginning of confidence steadfast to the end and standing true to principle. God desires to encircle His people with His protecting arm, blessing them above all others and preserving them in purity while closely connected with Him, but departure from Him brings a share in the sorrows of Solomon. Worldly partnerships and support must not be sought even to advance God's work, including binding to follow the wisdom of worldly men to secure help and linking with unbelievers for supposed advantage such as calling sanitariums undenominational. His alliances with unbelievers through his marriages brought abundant gold and silver, but prosperity became his ruin as the world drew him away from God. His downfall warns that people today are just as vulnerable to the same corrupting influences of wealth and worldly alliance and must remain separate from the world and its influence rather than seek worldly support.