And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.
He built shrines, altars, high places, images and groves for all his foreign wives so they could burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship. Those shrines stood on the southern slopes of the Mount of Olives opposite the temple of Jehovah, where degrading rites before Chemosh and Molech greatly dishonored God. His fall was gradual, from beloved, wise and honored builder of the temple to one who broke God's protective boundaries, bound himself by political polygamous alliances to idolatrous nations, and was enslaved by indulged appetite and passion until his wisdom was perverted. By pleasing his wives and mingling idolatry with his religion he turned from wholehearted loyalty to the true God, became an idolater and tyrannical ruler, and helped introduce idolatrous customs into Israel that weakened love for God and began the nation's downfall. His history stands as a warning to watch against temptation, remain a distinct people separate from the world, and not mingle error with truth by joining with God's enemies to gain favor or advantage.
Place and Lasting Memorial
Likewise doing for all his foreign wives meant building shrines, altars, high places, images and groves for them so they could burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship. Those shrines stood on the southern slopes of the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah. By pleasing his wives in this way he allowed idolatry to become mingled with his religious principles and turned from wholehearted loyalty and service to the true and living God.
The worship carried on there was degrading heathen rites before Chemosh and Molech. Those rites were licentious and cruel practices greatly dishonoring to God. The great, misshapen images stood there for upward of three centuries as mute witnesses to the apostasy of Israel's wisest king. They remained opposite Jerusalem for generations as lasting evidence of his apostasy, even after he repented, until they were removed and destroyed by Josiah, who demolished them centuries later.
Ruins still remained into the time of Christ, still to be seen and remaining visible in His day as a lasting memorial and sign of apostasy and departure from God's ways. Faithful, true-hearted Israelites called the place the Mount of Offense. It was a melancholy sight Christ looked upon when He came.
Steps Toward Apostasy
He began as Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, honored with remarkable tokens of divine favor and manifestations, with wisdom, riches, honor and uprightness that gained worldwide fame, and he was entrusted with building the temple on condition that he walk in God's ways and keep His statutes and judgments. Despite those manifestations and that work, he turned from the worship of God to the worship of idols. His fall was gradual, for he lost sight of the need to obey God's commands and increasingly followed the customs of the surrounding nations. He began by breaking the protective boundaries God had given Israel, and one false step led to another until he became devoted to false worship.
That first step was his earlier example of sacrificing in high places not made sacred by God's presence but dedicated to idols, which removed from the people something of the repulsion they should have felt toward idolatrous practices. By mingling the sacred and the profane he was educated to suppose the Lord was not so particular in regard to the worship of His people, and to make still greater departures from God and His work. Little by little he was then led by his heathen wives to make altars for them to sacrifice to their gods. Through step-by-step political alliances by polygamous marriages with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, Ammon and other heathen nations, in desire for greater wealth and power, he bound himself to idolatrous women in violation of the law against marrying heathen peoples. Polygamy was common at the time, yet it was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah. His kingdom gained material riches but lost moral integrity as he passed the boundary God had set to protect Israel's holy character.
Though God had given him wisdom and strength, his uncontrolled love of women and indulgence of appetite, lustful passion and desire weakened his character, enslaved him to impulse, separated him from God and turned him from God. By yielding his principles he lost firmness of character and wisdom, and his indulgence led him into conduct that displeased God and into corruption. In his prosperity he misused the gifts entrusted to him and followed his own desires in supporting his foreign wives' worship of their gods. Baleful influences permeated his kingdom and were among the principal causes of his apostasy, permeating all branches of service and extending throughout the kingdom. Extravagance and covetousness spread, selfish principles and loss of self-denial and self-sacrifice were cherished, high wages gave opportunity for luxury and extravagance, the poor were oppressed by the rich, and the spirit of self-sacrifice in God's service was well-nigh lost. That far-reaching corruption was set in operation by the employment of a man of grasping spirit, whose selfish principles were cherished by his associates and led to demands for higher wages.
He departed from God by turning to other nations to secure facilities and workmen for building the temple when the Lord had already provided what was needed. In marrying idolatrous women and entering that idolatrous connection with the world, God was greatly displeased with him. He stood in a course of action God had forbidden and refused to receive the instruction and testimonies God sent him. To refuse what God sends is to stand as he stood.
Nature of His Fall
After a morning of great promise his life was darkened, for in his later years he turned from the worship of Jehovah to bow before the idols of the heathen in places he had prepared for them. He had begun as Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, honored with remarkable tokens of divine favor and manifestations, whose wisdom, uprightness, riches and honor gained worldwide fame and led others to ascribe honor to the God of Israel, and who had built God's temple; yet despite all this he left God's temple to worship idols in groves and places of worship made for his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their own gods. His marriages bound him to idolatrous women, and their influence drew him away to prepare those idol shrines.
By pleasing his wives and building altars, high places, groves and shrines for all of them to burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, which he countenanced and sustained, he allowed idolatry to become mingled with his religious principles. In this he turned from wholehearted loyalty and service to the true and living God, mingled pagan worship and error with truth, and betrayed sacred trusts, letting the evils of paganism corrupt his religion. His history therefore teaches that God's people must not mingle error with truth, for attractive errors will mar the precious landmarks of truth and damage the foundations of faith.
When he turned from God and relied on himself, his God-given wisdom and power did not protect him but were perverted. He turned away to seek wisdom from other sources, fell to temptation and became vulnerable, and the very gifts that had made him wise made him a more effective agent of the adversary and of evil.
By building those high places he became an idolater and a slave to impulse, for his wives' idolatrous worship drew him away from allegiance to God when he broke the safeguards God had set for Israel. In his prosperity he misused the gifts entrusted to him and followed his own desires in supporting that worship, and his apostasy helped change him from a just and compassionate ruler into a tyrannical one who led the people astray. Money and position cannot ensure respect or make care in religious life unnecessary, for prosperity can foster self-exaltation, weaken simple faith, and lead to spiritual decline away from wisdom and righteousness.
By his own bitter experience in erecting altars to heathen gods he learned the emptiness of a life that seeks its highest good in earthly things and how vain is their promise of rest to the spirit. This left him with gloomy and soul-harassing thoughts night and day, no longer any joy of life or peace of mind, and a future dark with despair.
He turned aside to work contrary to God's designs by making the same idolatrous provision for all his strange wives. God greatly blesses every step taken in accordance with the light He gives when men place themselves in line to do the very work He assigns them, His signature is upon their work, and He will be with them still if they continue to look steadfastly to Him as teacher and example. But if men turn aside as Solomon did, the Lord cannot cooperate with them.
Corruption of the Nation
His alliances, intermarriage and close association with idolaters corrupted his faith, weakened his moral character and turned him from allegiance to God to the worship of false gods. By breaking the safeguards God had set for Israel he allowed the heathen worship of his foreign wives, in burning incense and sacrificing to their gods, to help introduce idolatrous customs into Israel. That association and polygamy led him from faithfulness, and his apostasy helped change him from a just and compassionate ruler into a tyrannical one who led the people astray. Their idolatrous practices made intermarriage with idolaters common in Israel, weakened the people's love for God and their rejection of idolatry, and led some to replace the worship God had instituted with heathen rites, unto national apostasy.
His heathen alliances brought idolatrous worship into Israel as the ways of God were rejected for human ways and pure worship was replaced with idolatry. This corruption spread among the people and helped begin Israel's downfall, which continued until the people fell under the nations whose practices they had followed. His union with idolatrous women helped lead to an apostasy whose effects were seen in Rehoboam, whose Ammonite mother and neglected early training shaped a wavering character that eventually turned from God. By building altars to please his heathen wives he allowed their worship of other gods to take root in Israel.
Warning for God's People
His indulgence of love for women drew him into providing for idolatry, and though gifted with wisdom and strength he failed to master passion, yielded principle, turned from God, and lost firmness of character and wisdom. His fall shows the need to watch against temptation, to guard integrity, and to depend on God for strength to the end of life.
From a beloved, wise ruler he became one enslaved by passion, after political alliances and desire for greater wealth and power carried him past the boundary set to protect Israel's holy character, so that his kingdom gained material riches but lost moral integrity. His course warns God's people in every age, especially the young, that joining with God's enemies can corrupt the soul and lead away from hope and happiness and heaven.
He built groves and idol shrines for all his foreign wives to burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship through step-by-step political alliances by polygamous marriages with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, Ammon and other heathen nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites greatly dishonoring to God. Polygamy, though common at that time, was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah, and its introduction led Israel to mingle in marriage with idolaters. The shrines outlived his reign, and their ruins were still to be seen in the days of Christ on the place the true-hearted in Israel called the Mount of Offense, a melancholy sight Christ looked upon when Shiloh came, which Solomon never expected. His history stands on record for all the religious world as a warning to those who know the word of the living God not to mingle error with truth and to beware cherishing the errors of the world, which are presented in attractive style to deceive and destroy simplicity of faith, for if introduced they will mar the precious landmarks of truth and damage the foundations of faith.
He was favored with wisdom and with riches and honor on condition that he walk in the ways of the Lord and keep His statutes and His judgments, and while he kept separate from the world he was blessed. He departed from the right way by marrying idolatrous women and entering an idolatrous connection with the world, turning to other nations to secure facilities and workmen for building the temple when the Lord had already provided what was needed, and God was greatly displeased with that connection. The verse teaches that if God's people remain closely connected with Him and remain a distinct people separate from the world, He will encircle them with His protecting arm, bless them above all other people, and preserve them in purity, but if they depart from Him they will share the sorrows of Solomon. They are to depend on God in faith instead of binding themselves to follow the wisdom of worldly men in order to secure gifts, trusting God to open the hearts of wealthy unbelievers to give freely without conditions or restrictions, because all the gold and silver and cattle are the Lord's, and between God and mammon there can be no union.
He began to depart from the Lord in order to gain something, by linking with unbelievers and accommodating all his strange wives in burning incense and sacrificing to their gods. The same departure happens when God's people call His sanitariums and other institutions undenominational, hide the third angel's message and the Seventh-day Sabbath, compromise the principles of God's special message of truth to gain favor with the world, and fail to remain forever a peculiar people holding the beginning of confidence steadfast unto the end as His representatives in the last days.
God greatly blesses every step taken in accordance with the light He gives when men place themselves in line to do the very work He assigns them, His signature is upon their work, and He will be with them still if they continue to look steadfastly to Him as their teacher and their example. But if they turn aside as Solomon did to work contrary to God's designs, the Lord cannot cooperate with them.
Though favored of God and entrusted with great responsibility, he was overcome by temptation and committed sin in providing for the incense and sacrifices of his strange wives to their gods, and the sin is told in simple, naked truth without glossing or suppression, because justice requires a faithful narration of facts. This unvarnished record is evidence of the authenticity of Scripture. It is written for the benefit and warning of all who read it, to teach the lesson God intends, to show the sure punishment that follows transgression of God's law, to leave no excuse for those who would cite the sins of holy men to excuse their own crimes, and to encourage desponding hearts by showing where favored men struggled and fell and where through God's grace they could gain fresh vigor to rise above their evil nature, renew the conflict, and press on to conquer.
He built shrines, altars, high places, images and groves for all his foreign wives so they could burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship. Those shrines stood on the southern slopes of the Mount of Olives opposite the temple of Jehovah, where degrading rites before Chemosh and Molech greatly dishonored God. His fall was gradual, from beloved, wise and honored builder of the temple to one who broke God's protective boundaries, bound himself by political polygamous alliances to idolatrous nations, and was enslaved by indulged appetite and passion until his wisdom was perverted. By pleasing his wives and mingling idolatry with his religion he turned from wholehearted loyalty to the true God, became an idolater and tyrannical ruler, and helped introduce idolatrous customs into Israel that weakened love for God and began the nation's downfall. His history stands as a warning to watch against temptation, remain a distinct people separate from the world, and not mingle error with truth by joining with God's enemies to gain favor or advantage.
Place and Lasting Memorial
Likewise doing for all his foreign wives meant building shrines, altars, high places, images and groves for them so they could burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship. Those shrines stood on the southern slopes of the Mount of Olives, opposite the temple of Jehovah on Mount Moriah. By pleasing his wives in this way he allowed idolatry to become mingled with his religious principles and turned from wholehearted loyalty and service to the true and living God.
The worship carried on there was degrading heathen rites before Chemosh and Molech. Those rites were licentious and cruel practices greatly dishonoring to God. The great, misshapen images stood there for upward of three centuries as mute witnesses to the apostasy of Israel's wisest king. They remained opposite Jerusalem for generations as lasting evidence of his apostasy, even after he repented, until they were removed and destroyed by Josiah, who demolished them centuries later.
Ruins still remained into the time of Christ, still to be seen and remaining visible in His day as a lasting memorial and sign of apostasy and departure from God's ways. Faithful, true-hearted Israelites called the place the Mount of Offense. It was a melancholy sight Christ looked upon when He came.
Steps Toward Apostasy
He began as Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, honored with remarkable tokens of divine favor and manifestations, with wisdom, riches, honor and uprightness that gained worldwide fame, and he was entrusted with building the temple on condition that he walk in God's ways and keep His statutes and judgments. Despite those manifestations and that work, he turned from the worship of God to the worship of idols. His fall was gradual, for he lost sight of the need to obey God's commands and increasingly followed the customs of the surrounding nations. He began by breaking the protective boundaries God had given Israel, and one false step led to another until he became devoted to false worship.
That first step was his earlier example of sacrificing in high places not made sacred by God's presence but dedicated to idols, which removed from the people something of the repulsion they should have felt toward idolatrous practices. By mingling the sacred and the profane he was educated to suppose the Lord was not so particular in regard to the worship of His people, and to make still greater departures from God and His work. Little by little he was then led by his heathen wives to make altars for them to sacrifice to their gods. Through step-by-step political alliances by polygamous marriages with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, Ammon and other heathen nations, in desire for greater wealth and power, he bound himself to idolatrous women in violation of the law against marrying heathen peoples. Polygamy was common at the time, yet it was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah. His kingdom gained material riches but lost moral integrity as he passed the boundary God had set to protect Israel's holy character.
Though God had given him wisdom and strength, his uncontrolled love of women and indulgence of appetite, lustful passion and desire weakened his character, enslaved him to impulse, separated him from God and turned him from God. By yielding his principles he lost firmness of character and wisdom, and his indulgence led him into conduct that displeased God and into corruption. In his prosperity he misused the gifts entrusted to him and followed his own desires in supporting his foreign wives' worship of their gods. Baleful influences permeated his kingdom and were among the principal causes of his apostasy, permeating all branches of service and extending throughout the kingdom. Extravagance and covetousness spread, selfish principles and loss of self-denial and self-sacrifice were cherished, high wages gave opportunity for luxury and extravagance, the poor were oppressed by the rich, and the spirit of self-sacrifice in God's service was well-nigh lost. That far-reaching corruption was set in operation by the employment of a man of grasping spirit, whose selfish principles were cherished by his associates and led to demands for higher wages.
He departed from God by turning to other nations to secure facilities and workmen for building the temple when the Lord had already provided what was needed. In marrying idolatrous women and entering that idolatrous connection with the world, God was greatly displeased with him. He stood in a course of action God had forbidden and refused to receive the instruction and testimonies God sent him. To refuse what God sends is to stand as he stood.
Nature of His Fall
After a morning of great promise his life was darkened, for in his later years he turned from the worship of Jehovah to bow before the idols of the heathen in places he had prepared for them. He had begun as Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord, honored with remarkable tokens of divine favor and manifestations, whose wisdom, uprightness, riches and honor gained worldwide fame and led others to ascribe honor to the God of Israel, and who had built God's temple; yet despite all this he left God's temple to worship idols in groves and places of worship made for his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their own gods. His marriages bound him to idolatrous women, and their influence drew him away to prepare those idol shrines.
By pleasing his wives and building altars, high places, groves and shrines for all of them to burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, which he countenanced and sustained, he allowed idolatry to become mingled with his religious principles. In this he turned from wholehearted loyalty and service to the true and living God, mingled pagan worship and error with truth, and betrayed sacred trusts, letting the evils of paganism corrupt his religion. His history therefore teaches that God's people must not mingle error with truth, for attractive errors will mar the precious landmarks of truth and damage the foundations of faith.
When he turned from God and relied on himself, his God-given wisdom and power did not protect him but were perverted. He turned away to seek wisdom from other sources, fell to temptation and became vulnerable, and the very gifts that had made him wise made him a more effective agent of the adversary and of evil.
By building those high places he became an idolater and a slave to impulse, for his wives' idolatrous worship drew him away from allegiance to God when he broke the safeguards God had set for Israel. In his prosperity he misused the gifts entrusted to him and followed his own desires in supporting that worship, and his apostasy helped change him from a just and compassionate ruler into a tyrannical one who led the people astray. Money and position cannot ensure respect or make care in religious life unnecessary, for prosperity can foster self-exaltation, weaken simple faith, and lead to spiritual decline away from wisdom and righteousness.
By his own bitter experience in erecting altars to heathen gods he learned the emptiness of a life that seeks its highest good in earthly things and how vain is their promise of rest to the spirit. This left him with gloomy and soul-harassing thoughts night and day, no longer any joy of life or peace of mind, and a future dark with despair.
He turned aside to work contrary to God's designs by making the same idolatrous provision for all his strange wives. God greatly blesses every step taken in accordance with the light He gives when men place themselves in line to do the very work He assigns them, His signature is upon their work, and He will be with them still if they continue to look steadfastly to Him as teacher and example. But if men turn aside as Solomon did, the Lord cannot cooperate with them.
Corruption of the Nation
His alliances, intermarriage and close association with idolaters corrupted his faith, weakened his moral character and turned him from allegiance to God to the worship of false gods. By breaking the safeguards God had set for Israel he allowed the heathen worship of his foreign wives, in burning incense and sacrificing to their gods, to help introduce idolatrous customs into Israel. That association and polygamy led him from faithfulness, and his apostasy helped change him from a just and compassionate ruler into a tyrannical one who led the people astray. Their idolatrous practices made intermarriage with idolaters common in Israel, weakened the people's love for God and their rejection of idolatry, and led some to replace the worship God had instituted with heathen rites, unto national apostasy.
His heathen alliances brought idolatrous worship into Israel as the ways of God were rejected for human ways and pure worship was replaced with idolatry. This corruption spread among the people and helped begin Israel's downfall, which continued until the people fell under the nations whose practices they had followed. His union with idolatrous women helped lead to an apostasy whose effects were seen in Rehoboam, whose Ammonite mother and neglected early training shaped a wavering character that eventually turned from God. By building altars to please his heathen wives he allowed their worship of other gods to take root in Israel.
Warning for God's People
His indulgence of love for women drew him into providing for idolatry, and though gifted with wisdom and strength he failed to master passion, yielded principle, turned from God, and lost firmness of character and wisdom. His fall shows the need to watch against temptation, to guard integrity, and to depend on God for strength to the end of life.
From a beloved, wise ruler he became one enslaved by passion, after political alliances and desire for greater wealth and power carried him past the boundary set to protect Israel's holy character, so that his kingdom gained material riches but lost moral integrity. His course warns God's people in every age, especially the young, that joining with God's enemies can corrupt the soul and lead away from hope and happiness and heaven.
He built groves and idol shrines for all his foreign wives to burn incense and sacrifice to their gods, countenancing and sustaining their worship through step-by-step political alliances by polygamous marriages with Phoenicia, Egypt, Edom, Moab, Ammon and other heathen nations bowing at idolatrous shrines with licentious and cruel rites greatly dishonoring to God. Polygamy, though common at that time, was directly opposed to the law of Jehovah, and its introduction led Israel to mingle in marriage with idolaters. The shrines outlived his reign, and their ruins were still to be seen in the days of Christ on the place the true-hearted in Israel called the Mount of Offense, a melancholy sight Christ looked upon when Shiloh came, which Solomon never expected. His history stands on record for all the religious world as a warning to those who know the word of the living God not to mingle error with truth and to beware cherishing the errors of the world, which are presented in attractive style to deceive and destroy simplicity of faith, for if introduced they will mar the precious landmarks of truth and damage the foundations of faith.
He was favored with wisdom and with riches and honor on condition that he walk in the ways of the Lord and keep His statutes and His judgments, and while he kept separate from the world he was blessed. He departed from the right way by marrying idolatrous women and entering an idolatrous connection with the world, turning to other nations to secure facilities and workmen for building the temple when the Lord had already provided what was needed, and God was greatly displeased with that connection. The verse teaches that if God's people remain closely connected with Him and remain a distinct people separate from the world, He will encircle them with His protecting arm, bless them above all other people, and preserve them in purity, but if they depart from Him they will share the sorrows of Solomon. They are to depend on God in faith instead of binding themselves to follow the wisdom of worldly men in order to secure gifts, trusting God to open the hearts of wealthy unbelievers to give freely without conditions or restrictions, because all the gold and silver and cattle are the Lord's, and between God and mammon there can be no union.
He began to depart from the Lord in order to gain something, by linking with unbelievers and accommodating all his strange wives in burning incense and sacrificing to their gods. The same departure happens when God's people call His sanitariums and other institutions undenominational, hide the third angel's message and the Seventh-day Sabbath, compromise the principles of God's special message of truth to gain favor with the world, and fail to remain forever a peculiar people holding the beginning of confidence steadfast unto the end as His representatives in the last days.
God greatly blesses every step taken in accordance with the light He gives when men place themselves in line to do the very work He assigns them, His signature is upon their work, and He will be with them still if they continue to look steadfastly to Him as their teacher and their example. But if they turn aside as Solomon did to work contrary to God's designs, the Lord cannot cooperate with them.
Though favored of God and entrusted with great responsibility, he was overcome by temptation and committed sin in providing for the incense and sacrifices of his strange wives to their gods, and the sin is told in simple, naked truth without glossing or suppression, because justice requires a faithful narration of facts. This unvarnished record is evidence of the authenticity of Scripture. It is written for the benefit and warning of all who read it, to teach the lesson God intends, to show the sure punishment that follows transgression of God's law, to leave no excuse for those who would cite the sins of holy men to excuse their own crimes, and to encourage desponding hearts by showing where favored men struggled and fell and where through God's grace they could gain fresh vigor to rise above their evil nature, renew the conflict, and press on to conquer.