KINGS 1 מלכים א

David’s last advice to his son was on how to be a good king and to punish David’s enemies. Adonijah comes to Bathsheba and asks to marry Abishag. Solomon suspects this request is to strengthen Adonijah’s claim to the throne and has Benaiah put him to death. He then takes away Abiathar’s priesthood as punishment for supporting Adonijah, thus fulfilling the prophecy made to Eli at the start of 1 Samuel.

Joab hears what is going on and himself claims sanctuary, but when he refuses to come out of the tabernacle, Solomon instructs Benaiah to kill him there. He then replaces Joab with Benaiah and Abiathar with Zadok. Solomon then instructs Shimei, the Benjaminite who cursed David as he was fleeing from Absalom and whom David has instructed Solomon to punish, to move to Jerusalem and not to leave.

One day, two of Shimei’s slaves run away to Gath and Shimei pursues them. When he returns to Jerusalem, Solomon has him put to death for leaving Jerusalem and for earlier cursing David. Solomon is finally established as king.

Solomon makes an alliance with Egypt and marries Pharaoh’s daughter. After this, he continues the ancient practice of traveling between the high places and offering sacrifices. When he is at Gibeon, God speaks to him in a dream and offers him anything he asks for.

Hiram I, king of Tyre, sends an embassy to Jerusalem, hoping to continue the good relationship he had with David. Solomon writes back stating his intention to fulfill David’s vow of building a temple. Hiram agrees to supply him with wood in exchange for provisions for his palace, and the two sign a treaty. Solomon and Hiram put together groups of men to transport the logs and cut stone.

By this point it has been 480 years since the Exodus, and Solomon begins to build the Temple. It takes him seven years. He also builds himself a palace, which takes him thirteen years. Once the Temple building is finished, Solomon hires a Tyrian half-Naphtalite named Huram to create the furnishings of the Temple.

Once everything is finished, Solomon has the things which David prepared for the Temple brought in. He then organizes a ceremony during which the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Tablets of the Law, into the Temple. A cloud fills the Temple, preventing the priests from continuing the ceremony.

Solomon explains that this is the presence of God, and takes the opportunity to make a dedication speech, in which he expresses thanksgiving that he could build the Temple, and sees it as the fulfillment of God’s promise to Moses. He then begins to pray, emphasizing his humility in building the Temple and asking God to act as he has promised to in relation to various functions of the Temple.

Solomon’s first prayer to God as he became king was to ask for the wisdom to lead his people well. God is pleased he asks for this and grants him not only this, but also wealth, honor and, if Solomon keeps his commandments as well as David did, long life. Solomon returns to Jerusalem and holds a feast in front of the Ark of the Covenant.

Solomon’s newfound wisdom soon gets put to the test when two prostitutes come to Solomon with an issue. During the night, it seems, one of them had rolled over in their shared bed onto her son, killing him, resulting in a situation where the son of one of them is alive and the other is dead, but they cannot agree which is which. Solomon calls for a sword and threatens to cut the living child in two and give a half to each woman.

While the mother of the dead child is happy to let the child die, saying that if she can’t have him the other one can’t either, the mother of the living child pleads that he be given to the other woman as long as he isn’t killed. Solomon now knows who the child’s true mother is and gives him to her alive. This judgment amazes the Israelites, and Solomon gains a reputation for his wisdom.

Solomon uses his wisdom to appoint a cabinet and reorganize the governance of Israel at a local level. In accordance with God’s promises to both David and Solomon, the nation of Israel prospers and Solomon’s provisions increase. Equally, Solomon’s wisdom continues to increase in all areas.

Solomon gives 20 towns in Galilee to Hiram as thanks for his help in supplying the wood in exchange for provisions for his palace, but the towns are virtually worthless. He begins building and improvement works in various cities in addition to his major projects in Jerusalem and puts the remaining Canaanites into slavery. He also fulfills his religious duties and builds a navy.

The Queen of Sheba hears of Solomon’s wisdom and travels to Jerusalem to meet him with her large and gold-laden caravan. Solomon satisfies her with his wisdom and wealth, and she praises him, saying she did not fully believe the stories about Solomon until she came to see him. The Queen gives Solomon 120 talents and a large amount of spices and precious stones.

To compete with this, Hiram sends a large amount of valuable wood and precious stones. Solomon also gives the Queen gifts and she returns to her country. Solomon by now has 666 talents of gold, and decides to make shields and cups out of gold. He also maintains trading relations with Hiram, from whose country he receives many exotic goods. Overall, Israel becomes a net exporter of golden goods.

Solomon amasses 700 wives and 300 concubines, many from foreign countries, including from countries God told the Israelites not to intermarry with. Solomon begins to adopt elements from their religions, including worship of the goddess Astarte and the evil Ammonite god Moloch, thus breaking the commandment ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me‘.

He builds shrines in Jerusalem to Moloch and Chemosh, an evil Moabite god. God informs Solomon that because he has broken this commandment, the entire kingdom except one tribe will be taken away from his son.

At the same time, Solomon begins to amass enemies. When Joab committed genocide against the Edomites, a young prince named Hadad managed to escape Egypt, where he became a favourite at Pharaoh’s court, with Pharaoh giving him his own sister-in-law’s hand in marriage and incorporating him into palace life.

When Hadad hears Joab and David are dead, he returns to Edom. Another enemy is Rezon the Syrian, a survivor of the defeat of the Zobahite army during David’s reign, who allies himself with Hadad and causes havoc for Israel from his base in Damascus.

Before Solomon can deal with these enemies, he must quash a revolt at home. He appoints one of his officers, Jeroboam, to supervise the building of the palace terraces and reconstruction of the city walls. When this turns out well, he puts him in charge of the workforce of the Tribe of Joseph.

Kings is “history-like” rather than history in the modern sense, mixing legends, folktales, miracle stories and “fictional constructions” in with the annals, and its primary explanation for all that happens is God’s offended sense of what is right; it is therefore more fruitful to read it as theological literature in the form of history.

The theological bias is seen in the way it judges each king of Israel on the basis of whether he recognizes the authority of the Temple in Jerusalem (none do, and therefore all are “evil”), and each king of Judah on the basis of whether he destroys the “high places” (rivals to the Temple in Jerusalem); it gives only passing mention to important and successful kings like Omri and Jeroboam II and totally ignores one of the most significant events in ancient Israel’s history, the battle of Qarqar.

The major themes of Kings are God’s promise, the recurrent apostasy of the kings, and the judgment this brings on Israel:

• Promise: In return for Israel’s promise to worship Yahweh alone, Yahweh makes promises to David and to Israel – to David, the promise that his line will rule Israel forever, to Israel, the promise of the land they will possess.
• Apostasy: the great tragedy of Israel’s history, meaning the destruction of the kingdom and the Temple, is due to the failure of the people, but more especially the kings, to worship Yahweh alone (Yahweh being the God of Israel).
• Judgment: Apostasy leads to judgment. Judgment is not punishment, but simply the natural (or rather, God-ordained) consequence of Israel’s failure to worship Yahweh alone.

Solomon consolidated his kingdom by liquidating his opponents ruthlessly as soon as he acceded to the throne. Once rid of his foes, he established his friends in the key posts of the military, governmental, and religious institutions. Solomon also reinforced his position through military strength.

In addition to infantry, he had at his disposal impressive chariotry and cavalry. The eighth chapter of 2 Chronicles recounts Solomon’s successful military operations in Syria. His aim was the control of a great overland trading route. To consolidate his interests in the province, he planted Israelite colonies to look after military, administrative, and commercial matters.

Such colonies, often including cities in which chariots and provisions were kept, were in the long tradition of combining mercantile and military personnel to take care of their sovereign’s trading interests far from home. Megiddo, a town located at the pass through the Carmel range connecting the coastal plain with the Plain of Esdraelon, is the best-preserved example of one of the cities that Solomon is said to have established.

Material evidence for Solomon’s reign, as for that of his father, is scant. Although some scholars claim to have discovered artifacts that corroborate the biblical account of his reign in the early 10th century BCE, others claim that the archaeological record strongly suggests that the fortified cities and even the Temple of Jerusalem actually emerged more than a century later. In the latter view, the kingdom of Solomon was far from the vast empire that the biblical narrative describes.

Tirzah: Jeroboam had moved the capital city to Tirzah (1 Kings 14:17). Next, Baasha became king of Israel after assassinating Nadab (1 Kings 15:27-16:22).

Mount Carmel: Great evil often brings great people to oppose it. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount Carmel, where he would prove that they were false prophets. There Elijah humiliated these prophets and then executed them (1 Kings 17:1-18:46).

Jezreel: Elijah returned to Jezreel. But Queen Jezebel, furious at the execution of her prophets, vowed to kill Elijah. He ran for his life, but God cared for and encouraged him. During his travels, he anointed the future kings of Aram and Israel as well as Elisha, his own replacement (1 Kings 19:1-21).

Ramoth Gilead: The king of Aram declared war on Israel and was defeated in two battles. But the Arameans occupied Ramoth Gilead. Ahab and Jehoshaphat joined forces to recover the city. In this battle, Ahab was killed. Jehoshaphat later died (1 Kings 20:1-22:53).