And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.
Solomon after a promising beginning of obedience, divine favor and worldwide renown for wisdom turned in his old age from wholehearted devotion to failure to follow God fully as David his father had done. His evil was the worship of Ashtoreth and Milcom and Chemosh and Molech, building high places, groves and shrines for his foreign wives' gods on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple. Love of many heathen women, pride in prosperity and power, and political and commercial alliance with idolatrous nations led him step by step to mingle pagan worship with true religion and to sacrifice principle to worldly custom. Through that apostasy he broke his connection with heaven, changed from a just and compassionate ruler into an oppressive despot, and led multitudes of Israel into intermarriage, idolatry and national downfall. His fall is faithfully recorded to warn that even great wisdom does not protect one who yields to passion and worldliness, that the wages of sin is death, and that those who waver and fall may yet by grace rise and conquer.
Wording and Historical Setting
The verse records the apostasy of Solomon in his old age and in the later years of his reign, after a beginning marked by obedience, by heeding wise counsel, and by bringing glory to God. He had been honored with remarkable divine favor, called Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, and had gained worldwide fame for wisdom and uprightness. He had led others to honor Israel's God and had begun as a just, compassionate, and God-fearing ruler. His turning from the Lord to false worship therefore came after a promising early reign of loyalty.
To do evil in the sight of the Lord was to fail to follow Him wholeheartedly, in contrast to David who had followed Him wholly. It meant not remaining wholly faithful, loyal, and devoted to God, but turning from wholehearted obedience to what was evil in His sight. Prosperity and honored position had led Solomon to lose sight of the need to obey Scripture until he no longer followed fully as David his father had done.
The evil consisted in a heart turned after other gods, in worshiping Ashtoreth and Milcom and in building high places for Chemosh and Molech. He prepared groves and places for idols and built idolatrous shrines, high places, and images to please his idolatrous foreign wives and to sustain the worship of their gods. Those shrines were erected on the southern slopes of Olivet, on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, after he turned in his later years from God's temple. His pagan marriage alliances and alliances with idolatrous nations thus led him away from God into idolatry and damaged the wisdom and clear judgment he had once shown.
The shrines he was persuaded by his heathen wives to build stood for generations as visible evidence of his apostasy. The faithful in Israel called the place the Mount of Offense, where great misshapen images stood as mute witnesses to the apostasy of Israel's wisest king. They remained there for more than three centuries until Josiah removed and destroyed them. Solomon did not think they would outlive his reign, yet their ruins were still seen in the days of Christ when He looked upon them, so that though Solomon repented the harm he had done endured and testified against him.
Causes of Solomon's Apostasy
Love of women became the sin that drew Solomon into displeasure and idolatry and kept him from following the Lord fully. Though beloved of God, exceptionally favored, and given wisdom, he yielded principle to lustful passion and to indulgence of appetite and passion, married many women including daughters of heathen kings, and they turned his heart after other gods. In doing so he lost firmness of character, wavered between right and wrong, became corrupt, and separated himself from God the source of his strength. Even great wisdom and strength do not protect one who gives in to lust, impurity cannot stand in God's presence, and strength from God with strict integrity must be guarded by dependence on God throughout life.
Prosperity and his honored position led him to lose sight of Scripture and the need to obey God's law, to conform to surrounding customs, to forget God and the conditions of success, and to look to heathen standards of right. After a promising beginning in obedience, wisdom, and bringing glory to God, he chose his own way and became proud, self-sufficient, and self-exalted, pursuing political power, self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, greater wealth, and worldly grandeur. That ambition led him to form marriage and political alliances with heathen nations, to marry worshipers of false gods, to deal with idolaters, and to sacrifice principle and integrity at the cost of sacred trust in procuring the silver of Tarshish and the gold of Ophir. Constant indulgence weakened his moral power, association corrupted his faith, his once noble character and the mind once given to God to write Proverbs deteriorated and were degraded, and idolatry became mingled with his religious principles until he gave himself up to false worship, changed from a just, compassionate, God-fearing ruler into an oppressive despot and slave to passion, and dishonored himself, Israel, and God.
Alliances, intermarriage, commerce, and close contact with idolatrous nations — mingling Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites — corrupted his faith, weakened love for God, deadened the sense of His high and holy character, and broke down the safeguards and barriers God had erected for His people. He married women raised in heathen worship, left the temple of God to build places for their idols, countenanced and sustained their worship, and erected groves and idol shrines for his wives on what the true-hearted called the Mount of Offense. Through that union of interests his own religion was corrupted step by step by the evils of paganism in direct opposition to the law of Jehovah, and Israel's rapid spiritual decline followed as love for God lessened, abhorrence of idol worship was lost, intermarriage with idolaters became common, polygamy was countenanced, idolatrous mothers brought up children in heathen rites, and national apostasy advanced.
The fall was gradual, developing from one wrong step that made the next easier until character was progressively weakened and barriers were broken down. It began when he worshiped and offered sacrifice at high places not made sacred by the Lord's presence but dedicated to idol worship, and by his own example encouraged Israel to do the same. That mingling of the sacred and the profane removed something of the repulsion for idolatrous practices and led him to suppose the Lord was not so particular in regard to worship. Little by little his heathen wives then led him to greater departures until he made altars for them on which to sacrifice to their gods, dishonoring God and Israel and harming the nation by example and by the burdens his self-indulgence imposed.
He turned from earnest prayer and dependence on God, by which his wisdom had been obtained, to reliance on himself and to seeking wisdom from other sources. When he turned from God he became vulnerable to temptation despite divine light, privileges, gifts, and remarkable powers, and those very powers then made him a more effective agent and instrument of the adversary. In that departure he violated the law against marrying heathen women, his idolatrous wives led him away, and even the wisest king was seduced into building places for their idols and worshiping them.
One principal cause of the fall was a far-reaching influence that permeated all branches of the Lord's service and extended throughout the kingdom. The grasping pursuit of high wages demanded and received in the temple work replaced self-denial and self-sacrifice with covetousness, gave opportunity for luxury and extravagance, and helped bring corruption, loss of devotion, and turning from the Lord. That same spirit fostered oppression of the poor by the rich.
He further departed from right ways, after God had promised to bless him with wisdom, riches, and honor on condition of walking in God's ways and keeping His statutes and judgments, by going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when he could have built it with what the Lord had provided. That was an idolatrous connection with the world that greatly displeased God. While he kept separate from the world he was blessed, for God desires to encircle His people with His protecting arm, bless them above all others, and preserve them in purity while closely connected with Him, but departure as Solomon's brought sorrow.
Nature of Solomon's Evil
Solomon's wisdom and earlier devotion did not keep him faithful, for ambition for worldly grandeur led him to form marriage alliances with heathen nations, let his wives draw him from God, and build altars for their idols, so that idolatry became mingled with his religious principles and his once noble character deteriorated into apostasy. Once dedicated to God and a leader in worship, he let pagan beliefs and idolatry mingle with his religion and became an apostate who no longer treated the Lord as the only true and living God. He mingled error with truth, betrayed sacred trusts, and united his interests with satanic agencies. The idol shrines he built for his wives remained visible into Christ's time at the Mount of Offense. His history warns those who profess to serve God not to mingle error with truth or cherish worldly false doctrines, which can obscure the landmarks of truth, weaken faith, and lead them away from right principles.
Doing evil meant that through alliance with heathen nations multitudes became contaminated with heathen principles and practices, polygamy was introduced, the pure religious service instituted by God was replaced by idolatry of the darkest hue, human sacrifices were offered to idols, and licentious heathen rites were countenanced. It meant consenting to erect an idol to whom children were offered as living sacrifices and countenancing the licentious, revolting rites connected with Chemosh and Ashtoreth. In the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men the downfall of Israel began, continuing until the people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow. Through him the enemy confused Israel about true and false worship, close contact with nations that had no love for God lessened love for Him and deadened the sense of His high, holy character, refusal of obedience transferred allegiance to the enemy of righteousness, intermarriage with idolaters became common, abhorrence of idol worship was rapidly lost, polygamy was countenanced, and idolatrous mothers brought up children to observe heathen rites.
Going not fully after the Lord meant in heart and life denying his own dedication word that hearts be perfect with God, mistaking license for liberty, and trying to unite light with darkness, Christ with Belial, purity with impurity, and good with evil. He stood in disobedience by following a course of action God had forbidden instead of receiving the testimonies God sent him. He turned aside to work contrary to God's designs. God's blessing and presence remain only as long as a person looks steadfastly to Him as Teacher and Example and does the work He assigns, but when one turns aside as Solomon did God cannot cooperate or work with him.
He misused the talents God had given him and let the evils of paganism corrupt his religion step by step. Going step by step into political alliance by polygamy, which was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah, he mingled Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites greatly dishonoring to God, and he countenanced and sustained their worship, erecting groves and idol shrines for his wives on what the true-hearted in Israel called the Mount of Offense. He did not think those shrines would outlive his reign, yet their ruins were still seen in the days of Christ when Shiloh came and looked on them. The case stands as a warning to beware cherishing the errors of the world, which Satan presents in attractive style to deceive and destroy simplicity of faith and mar the precious landmarks of truth. His history warns that prosperity can lead people to trust in money and position for respect, become careless, follow their own desires, weaken their faith, and decline in religious experience.
Consequences for Solomon and Israel
The evil broke his connection with heaven and set Israel a misleading example that God could not vindicate, so God broke His covenant with him because of disloyalty. Had he heeded instruction, God would have worked through him to reveal divine power and majesty to the world, and the rending of the kingdom was the chastisement of this apostasy in his old age when his heart was not perfect like David's but turned after Ashtoreth and Milcom.
Through him the enemy confused Israel about true and false worship, lessened their love for God and deadened their sense of His high and holy character until refusing obedience they transferred allegiance to the enemy of righteousness and became an easy prey. Commerce and alliance with nations that had no love for God brought close contact that contaminated multitudes with heathen principles and practices, introduced polygamy into Palestine, and replaced the pure religious service instituted by God with idolatry of the darkest hue. Human sacrifices were offered to idols and licentious heathen rites were countenanced, abhorrence of idol worship was rapidly lost, intermarriage with idolaters became common, and idolatrous mothers brought up children to observe heathen rites. His alliances and intermarriage thus helped produce rapid spiritual decline and national apostasy, and in the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men the downfall of Israel began and continued until the people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow.
From a just, compassionate and God-fearing ruler of promise, wisdom, discretion and devotion he was changed into a selfish, proud and self-sufficient seeker of political power and self-enrichment whose self-indulgence imposed burdens through oppressive taxation, despotism and tyranny. His alliances with heathen nations, dealings with idolaters, polygamy and worship of false gods corrupted his faith, weakened his character and dishonored God and Israel, while pride and desire for greater wealth and power led him to sacrifice principle and integrity until he became a slave to passion. From being one of the greatest and most renowned kings he became a profligate, a tool and slave of others, with early justice and magnanimity changed to despotism and tyranny.
He lost firmness of character, yielded principle to lustful passion, wavered between right and wrong, and separated himself from God the source of his strength, showing the need to guard against temptation and depend on God throughout life. His wisdom had been obtained through earnest prayer and dependence on God, but when he turned to reliance on himself and sought wisdom from other sources he became vulnerable to temptation, and wisdom and gifts did not protect him. The mind once given to God to write the wisdom of Proverbs became degraded, clear judgment was damaged, faith in the living God was shaken and supplanted by atheistic doubts, happiness was marred by unbelief, principles were weakened, life was degraded, and the mind was troubled night and day with gloomy thoughts. His remarkable powers and abilities then made him a more effective agent and instrument of the adversary and of temptation, and he dishonored himself, dishonored Israel, and dishonored God.
Though he repented, the harm he had done endured and testified against him, for the shrines his heathen wives persuaded him to build for idol worship stood for generations as visible evidence of his apostasy. His unfaithfulness influenced the people by example and by the burdens his self-indulgence imposed, dishonoring God and Israel and harming the nation. That example and those unions with idolatrous women had lasting consequences in Rehoboam, whose neglected early training and surrounding influences helped shape his vacillating character and eventual apostasy.
God gave wisdom, riches and honor on condition of walking in His ways and keeping His statutes and judgments, desiring to encircle His people by His protecting arm, bless them above all other people, and preserve them in all purity while they remain closely connected with Him. God's blessing and presence remain only as long as a person looks steadfastly to Him as Teacher and Example and does the assigned work, but if they depart from Him as Solomon did they will share the sorrows of Solomon. When one turns aside to work contrary to God's designs, as in going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when it could have been built with what the Lord had provided, God cannot cooperate or work with him.
Warnings and Present Applications
The failure is faithfully kept on record because justice requires a true narration of facts for the benefit of all who read the sacred history. It stands as a warning to avoid unbelief and disobedience, declaring that the wages of sin is death and that retributive justice never fails but exacts strict regard for the commandments. It is also preserved as a lesson for later generations of how believers can be overcome and need to learn from the failures of others. At the same time it encourages desponding hearts, showing that those who strive and waver and fall into error can by grace gain fresh vigor to rise above evil nature, take heart again and conquer and renew the conflict. Seeing where Solomon struggled and fell and where others recovered ground leads on to press on and surmount obstacles.
His fall warns that even great wisdom and strength do not protect the person who yields to lustful passion. Though beloved and exceptionally favored and given wisdom, love of women became sin that led into idolatry and away from fully following God, and indulgence of lustful passion made him corrupt. He yielded principle, lost firmness of character, wavered between right and wrong, and separated himself from God the source of strength. No one is safe from corruption, and impurity cannot stand in God's presence. Strength from God and strict integrity must therefore be guarded and depended on throughout life.
The later years after a beginning of obedience warn followers of Christ to refuse conformity to the world's standard of right and to hold the standard given in Scripture. Christ is to be honored by studying and obeying His teachings, beware of departing from simplicity of faith, and guard constantly against every worldly influence that weakens moral power. Gradual apostasy came through pride, self-sufficiency, self-exaltation, and desire for political power and self-aggrandizement, leading to alliances with heathen nations, marriage to worshipers of false gods, conformity to worldly customs, and looking to heathen standards until sight of the law was lost. Association with idolaters corrupted faith, constant indulgence weakened moral power, and one false step made the next easier until the barriers erected for the people were broken down and integrity and sacred trust were sacrificed for the silver of Tarshish and the gold of Ophir.
His history warns those who profess to serve God not to mingle error with truth or to cherish worldly false doctrines. Step-by-step political alliance by polygamy, directly opposed to the law, mingled Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, countenanced and sustained worship with licentious and cruel rites, and erected groves and idol shrines on what the true-hearted called the Mount of Offense. Errors that appear attractive can corrupt faith and damage the precious landmarks of truth, so those who know the word must neither cherish nor introduce them. Satan presents such errors in attractive style to deceive, to obscure the landmarks, to weaken faith, and to destroy simplicity of faith.
Blessing comes while God's people remain separate, distinct, and peculiar, closely connected with Him under His encircling protecting arm, blessed above all other people and preserved in all purity. Solomon was blessed while he kept separate from the world, having received wisdom, riches, and honor on condition that he walk in the ways of the Lord and keep His statutes and judgments, but he broke that condition and departed and suffered sorrow. His departure to gain something included marrying idolatrous women and going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when he could have built it with what had been provided, an idolatrous connection with the world that greatly displeased God. If His people depart as Solomon did they will share the sorrows of Solomon. The same departure happens when brethren declare sanitariums and other institutions undenominational, link up with unbelievers, and do not follow the way of the Lord instead of remaining forever a peculiar people holding the beginning of confidence steadfast to the end. To do so is to fail to stand through institutions established for proclaiming it as representatives of His special message of truth in the last days.
Solomon after a promising beginning of obedience, divine favor and worldwide renown for wisdom turned in his old age from wholehearted devotion to failure to follow God fully as David his father had done. His evil was the worship of Ashtoreth and Milcom and Chemosh and Molech, building high places, groves and shrines for his foreign wives' gods on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple. Love of many heathen women, pride in prosperity and power, and political and commercial alliance with idolatrous nations led him step by step to mingle pagan worship with true religion and to sacrifice principle to worldly custom. Through that apostasy he broke his connection with heaven, changed from a just and compassionate ruler into an oppressive despot, and led multitudes of Israel into intermarriage, idolatry and national downfall. His fall is faithfully recorded to warn that even great wisdom does not protect one who yields to passion and worldliness, that the wages of sin is death, and that those who waver and fall may yet by grace rise and conquer.
Wording and Historical Setting
The verse records the apostasy of Solomon in his old age and in the later years of his reign, after a beginning marked by obedience, by heeding wise counsel, and by bringing glory to God. He had been honored with remarkable divine favor, called Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, and had gained worldwide fame for wisdom and uprightness. He had led others to honor Israel's God and had begun as a just, compassionate, and God-fearing ruler. His turning from the Lord to false worship therefore came after a promising early reign of loyalty.
To do evil in the sight of the Lord was to fail to follow Him wholeheartedly, in contrast to David who had followed Him wholly. It meant not remaining wholly faithful, loyal, and devoted to God, but turning from wholehearted obedience to what was evil in His sight. Prosperity and honored position had led Solomon to lose sight of the need to obey Scripture until he no longer followed fully as David his father had done.
The evil consisted in a heart turned after other gods, in worshiping Ashtoreth and Milcom and in building high places for Chemosh and Molech. He prepared groves and places for idols and built idolatrous shrines, high places, and images to please his idolatrous foreign wives and to sustain the worship of their gods. Those shrines were erected on the southern slopes of Olivet, on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, after he turned in his later years from God's temple. His pagan marriage alliances and alliances with idolatrous nations thus led him away from God into idolatry and damaged the wisdom and clear judgment he had once shown.
The shrines he was persuaded by his heathen wives to build stood for generations as visible evidence of his apostasy. The faithful in Israel called the place the Mount of Offense, where great misshapen images stood as mute witnesses to the apostasy of Israel's wisest king. They remained there for more than three centuries until Josiah removed and destroyed them. Solomon did not think they would outlive his reign, yet their ruins were still seen in the days of Christ when He looked upon them, so that though Solomon repented the harm he had done endured and testified against him.
Causes of Solomon's Apostasy
Love of women became the sin that drew Solomon into displeasure and idolatry and kept him from following the Lord fully. Though beloved of God, exceptionally favored, and given wisdom, he yielded principle to lustful passion and to indulgence of appetite and passion, married many women including daughters of heathen kings, and they turned his heart after other gods. In doing so he lost firmness of character, wavered between right and wrong, became corrupt, and separated himself from God the source of his strength. Even great wisdom and strength do not protect one who gives in to lust, impurity cannot stand in God's presence, and strength from God with strict integrity must be guarded by dependence on God throughout life.
Prosperity and his honored position led him to lose sight of Scripture and the need to obey God's law, to conform to surrounding customs, to forget God and the conditions of success, and to look to heathen standards of right. After a promising beginning in obedience, wisdom, and bringing glory to God, he chose his own way and became proud, self-sufficient, and self-exalted, pursuing political power, self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, greater wealth, and worldly grandeur. That ambition led him to form marriage and political alliances with heathen nations, to marry worshipers of false gods, to deal with idolaters, and to sacrifice principle and integrity at the cost of sacred trust in procuring the silver of Tarshish and the gold of Ophir. Constant indulgence weakened his moral power, association corrupted his faith, his once noble character and the mind once given to God to write Proverbs deteriorated and were degraded, and idolatry became mingled with his religious principles until he gave himself up to false worship, changed from a just, compassionate, God-fearing ruler into an oppressive despot and slave to passion, and dishonored himself, Israel, and God.
Alliances, intermarriage, commerce, and close contact with idolatrous nations — mingling Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites — corrupted his faith, weakened love for God, deadened the sense of His high and holy character, and broke down the safeguards and barriers God had erected for His people. He married women raised in heathen worship, left the temple of God to build places for their idols, countenanced and sustained their worship, and erected groves and idol shrines for his wives on what the true-hearted called the Mount of Offense. Through that union of interests his own religion was corrupted step by step by the evils of paganism in direct opposition to the law of Jehovah, and Israel's rapid spiritual decline followed as love for God lessened, abhorrence of idol worship was lost, intermarriage with idolaters became common, polygamy was countenanced, idolatrous mothers brought up children in heathen rites, and national apostasy advanced.
The fall was gradual, developing from one wrong step that made the next easier until character was progressively weakened and barriers were broken down. It began when he worshiped and offered sacrifice at high places not made sacred by the Lord's presence but dedicated to idol worship, and by his own example encouraged Israel to do the same. That mingling of the sacred and the profane removed something of the repulsion for idolatrous practices and led him to suppose the Lord was not so particular in regard to worship. Little by little his heathen wives then led him to greater departures until he made altars for them on which to sacrifice to their gods, dishonoring God and Israel and harming the nation by example and by the burdens his self-indulgence imposed.
He turned from earnest prayer and dependence on God, by which his wisdom had been obtained, to reliance on himself and to seeking wisdom from other sources. When he turned from God he became vulnerable to temptation despite divine light, privileges, gifts, and remarkable powers, and those very powers then made him a more effective agent and instrument of the adversary. In that departure he violated the law against marrying heathen women, his idolatrous wives led him away, and even the wisest king was seduced into building places for their idols and worshiping them.
One principal cause of the fall was a far-reaching influence that permeated all branches of the Lord's service and extended throughout the kingdom. The grasping pursuit of high wages demanded and received in the temple work replaced self-denial and self-sacrifice with covetousness, gave opportunity for luxury and extravagance, and helped bring corruption, loss of devotion, and turning from the Lord. That same spirit fostered oppression of the poor by the rich.
He further departed from right ways, after God had promised to bless him with wisdom, riches, and honor on condition of walking in God's ways and keeping His statutes and judgments, by going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when he could have built it with what the Lord had provided. That was an idolatrous connection with the world that greatly displeased God. While he kept separate from the world he was blessed, for God desires to encircle His people with His protecting arm, bless them above all others, and preserve them in purity while closely connected with Him, but departure as Solomon's brought sorrow.
Nature of Solomon's Evil
Solomon's wisdom and earlier devotion did not keep him faithful, for ambition for worldly grandeur led him to form marriage alliances with heathen nations, let his wives draw him from God, and build altars for their idols, so that idolatry became mingled with his religious principles and his once noble character deteriorated into apostasy. Once dedicated to God and a leader in worship, he let pagan beliefs and idolatry mingle with his religion and became an apostate who no longer treated the Lord as the only true and living God. He mingled error with truth, betrayed sacred trusts, and united his interests with satanic agencies. The idol shrines he built for his wives remained visible into Christ's time at the Mount of Offense. His history warns those who profess to serve God not to mingle error with truth or cherish worldly false doctrines, which can obscure the landmarks of truth, weaken faith, and lead them away from right principles.
Doing evil meant that through alliance with heathen nations multitudes became contaminated with heathen principles and practices, polygamy was introduced, the pure religious service instituted by God was replaced by idolatry of the darkest hue, human sacrifices were offered to idols, and licentious heathen rites were countenanced. It meant consenting to erect an idol to whom children were offered as living sacrifices and countenancing the licentious, revolting rites connected with Chemosh and Ashtoreth. In the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men the downfall of Israel began, continuing until the people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow. Through him the enemy confused Israel about true and false worship, close contact with nations that had no love for God lessened love for Him and deadened the sense of His high, holy character, refusal of obedience transferred allegiance to the enemy of righteousness, intermarriage with idolaters became common, abhorrence of idol worship was rapidly lost, polygamy was countenanced, and idolatrous mothers brought up children to observe heathen rites.
Going not fully after the Lord meant in heart and life denying his own dedication word that hearts be perfect with God, mistaking license for liberty, and trying to unite light with darkness, Christ with Belial, purity with impurity, and good with evil. He stood in disobedience by following a course of action God had forbidden instead of receiving the testimonies God sent him. He turned aside to work contrary to God's designs. God's blessing and presence remain only as long as a person looks steadfastly to Him as Teacher and Example and does the work He assigns, but when one turns aside as Solomon did God cannot cooperate or work with him.
He misused the talents God had given him and let the evils of paganism corrupt his religion step by step. Going step by step into political alliance by polygamy, which was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah, he mingled Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites greatly dishonoring to God, and he countenanced and sustained their worship, erecting groves and idol shrines for his wives on what the true-hearted in Israel called the Mount of Offense. He did not think those shrines would outlive his reign, yet their ruins were still seen in the days of Christ when Shiloh came and looked on them. The case stands as a warning to beware cherishing the errors of the world, which Satan presents in attractive style to deceive and destroy simplicity of faith and mar the precious landmarks of truth. His history warns that prosperity can lead people to trust in money and position for respect, become careless, follow their own desires, weaken their faith, and decline in religious experience.
Consequences for Solomon and Israel
The evil broke his connection with heaven and set Israel a misleading example that God could not vindicate, so God broke His covenant with him because of disloyalty. Had he heeded instruction, God would have worked through him to reveal divine power and majesty to the world, and the rending of the kingdom was the chastisement of this apostasy in his old age when his heart was not perfect like David's but turned after Ashtoreth and Milcom.
Through him the enemy confused Israel about true and false worship, lessened their love for God and deadened their sense of His high and holy character until refusing obedience they transferred allegiance to the enemy of righteousness and became an easy prey. Commerce and alliance with nations that had no love for God brought close contact that contaminated multitudes with heathen principles and practices, introduced polygamy into Palestine, and replaced the pure religious service instituted by God with idolatry of the darkest hue. Human sacrifices were offered to idols and licentious heathen rites were countenanced, abhorrence of idol worship was rapidly lost, intermarriage with idolaters became common, and idolatrous mothers brought up children to observe heathen rites. His alliances and intermarriage thus helped produce rapid spiritual decline and national apostasy, and in the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men the downfall of Israel began and continued until the people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow.
From a just, compassionate and God-fearing ruler of promise, wisdom, discretion and devotion he was changed into a selfish, proud and self-sufficient seeker of political power and self-enrichment whose self-indulgence imposed burdens through oppressive taxation, despotism and tyranny. His alliances with heathen nations, dealings with idolaters, polygamy and worship of false gods corrupted his faith, weakened his character and dishonored God and Israel, while pride and desire for greater wealth and power led him to sacrifice principle and integrity until he became a slave to passion. From being one of the greatest and most renowned kings he became a profligate, a tool and slave of others, with early justice and magnanimity changed to despotism and tyranny.
He lost firmness of character, yielded principle to lustful passion, wavered between right and wrong, and separated himself from God the source of his strength, showing the need to guard against temptation and depend on God throughout life. His wisdom had been obtained through earnest prayer and dependence on God, but when he turned to reliance on himself and sought wisdom from other sources he became vulnerable to temptation, and wisdom and gifts did not protect him. The mind once given to God to write the wisdom of Proverbs became degraded, clear judgment was damaged, faith in the living God was shaken and supplanted by atheistic doubts, happiness was marred by unbelief, principles were weakened, life was degraded, and the mind was troubled night and day with gloomy thoughts. His remarkable powers and abilities then made him a more effective agent and instrument of the adversary and of temptation, and he dishonored himself, dishonored Israel, and dishonored God.
Though he repented, the harm he had done endured and testified against him, for the shrines his heathen wives persuaded him to build for idol worship stood for generations as visible evidence of his apostasy. His unfaithfulness influenced the people by example and by the burdens his self-indulgence imposed, dishonoring God and Israel and harming the nation. That example and those unions with idolatrous women had lasting consequences in Rehoboam, whose neglected early training and surrounding influences helped shape his vacillating character and eventual apostasy.
God gave wisdom, riches and honor on condition of walking in His ways and keeping His statutes and judgments, desiring to encircle His people by His protecting arm, bless them above all other people, and preserve them in all purity while they remain closely connected with Him. God's blessing and presence remain only as long as a person looks steadfastly to Him as Teacher and Example and does the assigned work, but if they depart from Him as Solomon did they will share the sorrows of Solomon. When one turns aside to work contrary to God's designs, as in going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when it could have been built with what the Lord had provided, God cannot cooperate or work with him.
Warnings and Present Applications
The failure is faithfully kept on record because justice requires a true narration of facts for the benefit of all who read the sacred history. It stands as a warning to avoid unbelief and disobedience, declaring that the wages of sin is death and that retributive justice never fails but exacts strict regard for the commandments. It is also preserved as a lesson for later generations of how believers can be overcome and need to learn from the failures of others. At the same time it encourages desponding hearts, showing that those who strive and waver and fall into error can by grace gain fresh vigor to rise above evil nature, take heart again and conquer and renew the conflict. Seeing where Solomon struggled and fell and where others recovered ground leads on to press on and surmount obstacles.
His fall warns that even great wisdom and strength do not protect the person who yields to lustful passion. Though beloved and exceptionally favored and given wisdom, love of women became sin that led into idolatry and away from fully following God, and indulgence of lustful passion made him corrupt. He yielded principle, lost firmness of character, wavered between right and wrong, and separated himself from God the source of strength. No one is safe from corruption, and impurity cannot stand in God's presence. Strength from God and strict integrity must therefore be guarded and depended on throughout life.
The later years after a beginning of obedience warn followers of Christ to refuse conformity to the world's standard of right and to hold the standard given in Scripture. Christ is to be honored by studying and obeying His teachings, beware of departing from simplicity of faith, and guard constantly against every worldly influence that weakens moral power. Gradual apostasy came through pride, self-sufficiency, self-exaltation, and desire for political power and self-aggrandizement, leading to alliances with heathen nations, marriage to worshipers of false gods, conformity to worldly customs, and looking to heathen standards until sight of the law was lost. Association with idolaters corrupted faith, constant indulgence weakened moral power, and one false step made the next easier until the barriers erected for the people were broken down and integrity and sacred trust were sacrificed for the silver of Tarshish and the gold of Ophir.
His history warns those who profess to serve God not to mingle error with truth or to cherish worldly false doctrines. Step-by-step political alliance by polygamy, directly opposed to the law, mingled Israel in marriage with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, and Ammon, countenanced and sustained worship with licentious and cruel rites, and erected groves and idol shrines on what the true-hearted called the Mount of Offense. Errors that appear attractive can corrupt faith and damage the precious landmarks of truth, so those who know the word must neither cherish nor introduce them. Satan presents such errors in attractive style to deceive, to obscure the landmarks, to weaken faith, and to destroy simplicity of faith.
Blessing comes while God's people remain separate, distinct, and peculiar, closely connected with Him under His encircling protecting arm, blessed above all other people and preserved in all purity. Solomon was blessed while he kept separate from the world, having received wisdom, riches, and honor on condition that he walk in the ways of the Lord and keep His statutes and judgments, but he broke that condition and departed and suffered sorrow. His departure to gain something included marrying idolatrous women and going to other nations to secure workmen and facilities for building the temple when he could have built it with what had been provided, an idolatrous connection with the world that greatly displeased God. If His people depart as Solomon did they will share the sorrows of Solomon. The same departure happens when brethren declare sanitariums and other institutions undenominational, link up with unbelievers, and do not follow the way of the Lord instead of remaining forever a peculiar people holding the beginning of confidence steadfast to the end. To do so is to fail to stand through institutions established for proclaiming it as representatives of His special message of truth in the last days.