Deeper Commentary
1Ki 9:1 It happened, when Solomon had finished the building of the
house of Yahweh, and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was
pleased to do-
His building of the temple was "all Solomon's desire which he
was pleased to do" (1 Kings 9:1). There is a semantic connection between
the Hebrew words for "desire" and "pleased" - the point of which is to
emphasize that Solomon's work for God was only an expression of his own
zest for self-fulfilment; he served God in ways which only confirmed his
own natural inclinations. Appreciating the spirit and blood of Christ, his
own weakness, the grace of God, and the subsequent desire to live a life
of self sacrifice, of carrying a cross in ways we wouldn't naturally
chose- this was all foreign to Solomon. And is it so foreign to us?
Solomon's materialism and self-fulfilment are sure warnings to our age.
1Ki 9:2 that Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had
appeared to him at Gibeon-
Clearly God was aware that Solomon was going wrong, refusing to realize
the conditional nature of the promises made to David about his son, and
not personally applying the wisdom given to him in the first vision. So
God's response to Solomon's arrogant, mistaken prayer of 1 Kings 8 was in
fact to appear to him and warn him that he needed to be obedient, or else
the promises would not in fact apply to him. The clear implication was
that Solomon's statements in his prayer that the promises were fulfilled
in him... were wrong.
1Ki 9:3 Yahweh said to him, I have heard your prayer and your
supplication, that you have made before Me. I have made this house holy,
which you have built, to put My name there forever; and My eyes and My
heart shall be there constantly-
It has been argued that the Hebrew olahm, "forever", really
means 'a period'. But I am unpersuaded of that argument in every case.
Rather I would think that the context in this case requires that we
understand God to be saying that He would indeed dwell in the temple
"forever", and His particular sensitivity would be found in that place,
His eyes and heart. But as He makes clear in :4-7, that was all
conditional upon obedience. This highlights the tragedy- that eternity was
at stake. So much depends upon human freewill decisions; for that is how
much He respects us and our freedom of choice.
1Ki 9:4 As for you, if you will walk before Me, as David your father walked,
in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I
have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances-
This was a hard act to follow, for David was chosen as being a man
after God's own heart. Solomon considered that he was acceptable with God
just because of his father, whereas Go wanted him to personally attain his
father's spirituality. We note in passing God's high estimation of David,
despite David's serious but out of character failings.
God constantly warned Solomon about the conditionality of the promises, before the building started (2 Sam. 7:14), during it (1 Kings 6:11-13) and immediately after completing it (1 Kings 9:2-9). Solomon reinterprets this conditional promise in Prov. 20:7: "A righteous man walks in integrity; blessed are his children after him". Solomon has here his own agenda of self justification in view. The man who 'walked in integrity' is without doubt David (s.w. 1 Kings 9:4; Ps. 26:1,11; 101:2). Solomon assumed that because his father had walked in integrity, then he as his child would automatically be blessed. But he was choosing to misunderstand the conditional nature of the promises to him in 1 Kings 9:4; if he walked himself in integrity "as David your father walked", then he would be the prophetically blessed son of David.
1Ki 9:5 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel
forever, according as I promised to David your father saying, ‘There shall
not fail you a man on the throne of Israel’-
This is the same quotation made in Ps. 132:12. But God is picking up
on Solomon's claim in 1 Kings 8:24 that God had already fulfilled this. He
is pointing out that this promise was conditional, and Solomon had
overlooked that. The promise of "a man" suggests one individual; but
Solomon was wrong in assuming this referred to himself.
1Ki 9:6 But if you turn away from following Me, you or your children, and
don’t keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you,
but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them-
This is what Solomon did finally do, and already at this stage he had
married Gentile women, whom the law of Moses had warned would lead his
heart away from Yahweh to "other gods". But that apparently inevitable
process could still be arrested- if Solomon responded in humility to this
appeal. We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal
ends in :9. But there is silence; see on :9.
Solomon was fully representative of Israel (1 Kings 11:1,5-7 cp. 33; 8:52; and note the ye... thee confusion of 1 Kings 9:4-7 AV); his prayer was their prayer (2 Chron. 6:21); his worship was theirs (2 Chron. 1:3,5). And his apostacy was also theirs.
1Ki 9:7 then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given
them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out
of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples-
Solomon had wrongly reasoned in 1 Kings 8 that the grandeur of the
temple would attract Gentiles to become proselytes to Yahweh. But God
warns him that the very opposite could happen, and the ruined temple would
become the biggest possible disadvertisment for Yahweh and His people.
Solomon had prayed, and in that prayer taught Israel, that if they sinned
even in captivity, then all they had to do was pray towards the temple and
they would be forgiven. He saw in that building some kind of atonement for
sins. He lost sight of the importance of the blood that made atonement; he
replaced the blood of Christ with a work of his own hands. God’s
response to the dedication of the temple here corrects what
Solomon has just said. He says that if Israel sin then He will cast the
temple too out of His sight; which is rather different to how Solomon
instructed the people to gain forgiveness for the sake of the temple if
they were in dispersion. He saw the temple as a talisman- the need for
real, meaningful change and repentance and spiritual mindedness to enable
the dwelling of God went unperceived. He failed to perceive the real
possibility of the eternal potential he and Israel could miss. They really
could be cast out of God's sight in condemnation. Jonah recognized “I am
cast out of Your sight” (Jon. 2:4), the very language
of condemnation used at his time (2 Kings 17:20; 21:2; 23:27;
Jer. 7:15).
1Ki 9:8 Though this house is so high, yet shall everyone who passes by it
be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, ‘Why has Yahweh done
thus to this land, and to this house?’-
This is God's commentary upon the implications in Solomon's prayer
that the temple and God's presence within it was to be eternal (see on 1
Kings 8:34,48). Solomon had willfully misinterpreted the promises to David
to mean that the temple was the fulfilment of the promise that the seed
would build an eternal house. That house David had built was not the house
in view, and could easily be destroyed and even become a curse rather than
a blessing- if Solomon were disobedient.
1Ki 9:9 and they shall answer, ‘Because they forsook Yahweh their God, who
brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other
gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought
all this evil on them’-
We wait with eager ears to hear Solomon's response when the appeal
ends; but there is silence. Solomon had blanked out from his perception
any idea that he might fail or was less than perfect. His narrative was
that he was the son of David, and the promises about David's son were now
fulfilled in him. And he refused to allow anything, not even an appeal
from God, disturb that internal narrative.
1Ki 9:10 It happened at the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had
built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king’s house-
Psalm 127 is prefaced with the information that it is a Psalm for Solomon-
perhaps given by some nameless prophet (Gad? Nathan?) to warn him of where
he was going. Verse 1 reminds him that God must be the builder of any
house, or else the builders labour in vain. There is good reason to think
that Solomon utterly failed to appreciate this. The records stress time
and again that
Solomon built the temple (1 Kings
6:2,14; 9:10,25; 10:4; 1 Chron.6:10,32; 2 Chron. 8:1,12; 9:3; Acts 7:47);
yet the house referred to in the Davidic promises was to be built by God,
through David's Messianic Son, the Lord Jesus. Zechariah prophesied at the
time of the rebuilding of the physical temple. It is significant, in this
context, that Zech. 6:12 reminds Israel that the true temple of God will
be built by the Branch, the Lord Jesus.
1Ki 9:11 (now Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar trees
and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), that then king
Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee-
As noted on :1, all this building work was Solomon's "desire" or
will, not necessarily God's; and he was really doing what he
wanted in his fulfilment of his architectural fantasies, as he admits in
Ecclesiastes, rather than serving God's will. For God had made it clear to
David that a fancy temple with gold and cedar was not at all His will or
desire. The gift of Israelite cities to a Gentile was not what a true king
of Israel should have done, who valued the promises of Israel's eternal
inheritance of the promised land. Solomon had come to see all God's
promises as fulfilled in him and his amazing city and temple in Jerusalem.
And so he devalued the rest of the promises, especially their future,
eternal dimension.
1Ki 9:12 Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had
given him; and they didn’t please him-
Solomon's sacrifice of principle, as explained on :11, didn't achieve
his intended aim of getting Hiram even more onside with him. Sacrifice of
principle and the true hope of Israel never works out. These cities were
inhabited by Canaanites whom Israel hadn't subdued at the time of this
'gift' (2 Sam. 24:7; 2 Chron. 8:2), and so Solomon was giving to Hiram a
bunch of problems. These cities were not really under Solomon's authority
anyway, he had not subdued the Canaanites there, so passing them to Hiram
was giving him a noose around his neck rather than a true present.
1Ki 9:13 He said, What cities are these which you have given me, my
brother? He called them the land of Cabul to this day-
"Cabul" can mean 'pawned', and the idea may be that although in some
sense they did belong to Solomon, effectively they didn't because they
were inhabited by Canaanites. Hence Hiram returned them to Solomon (2
Chron. 8:2), with all the damage in relationship that goes with returning
a rejected gift. 2 Chron. 8:2 says that after this Solomon colonized the
cities and sent Israelites to live there. But as will be noted on 1 Kings
9:21, this was not particularly in obedience to the Divine commands to
subjugate the Canaanites, but rather than Solomon was desperate for huge
amounts of slave labour with which to fulfil his building projects.
1Ki 9:14 Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold-
The sense is that he "had sent" this money to Solomon. It seems
Solomon became so obsessed with his building projects that he borrowed
this money to finance them, and then tried to pay off the debt by giving
Hiram the worthless cities of Cabul which were not at all any recompense.
We see therefore that all was not quite as opulent and prosperous in
Solomon's kingdom as may appear. See on :21.
1Ki 9:15 This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to
build the house of Yahweh, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of
Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer-
Solomon figuratively chastised the people with whips in the form of the
excessive tax he raised in order to build store cities (1 Kings 9:15,19),
in which to store all his accumulation. Surely this is behind the Lord's
parable of the rich fool, devoid of wisdom in practice, who built ever
bigger barns because of his lack of understanding about the future
Kingdom. The Hebrew for "store cities" (2 Chron. 8:6) is also
translated "to heap up", strengthening the connection with the rich fool
(Lk. 12:15-28). That parable stresses the self-centeredness of the fool-
just circle all the occurrences of the word "I". A similar over-use of
personal pronouns in Ecc. 2:4-8 makes the same point. Ecc. 2:26 records
how Solomon reflected that the sinner "heaped up" treasures- using the
same word as for his "store cities". He saw his error, but wasn't
bothered to do anything about it.
1Ki 9:16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it
with fire, and slain the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it
for a present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife-
The LXX interprets this as a marriage gift, and the Hebrew for
"present" implies this. We know from Jud. 1:15 that it was not unknown for
the father of the bride to give a dowry payment to the groom. Gezer was a
Philistine city, and it has been suggested that they had sailed to the
coast of Egypt and were acting as pirates, also pillaging the Egyptian
coastline. Hence Pharaoh's attack upon them.
1Ki 9:17 Solomon built Gezer, and Beth Horon the lower-
Gezer had been a Philistine or Canaanite city (:16), and as with the
colonization of the wilderness outpost of Tamar (:18)and the Canaanite
held cities in Galilee (2 Chron. 8:2; 1 Kings 9:13), this building of
cities in these areas would only have made sense if Israelites were then
sent to live there. This would therefore have resulted in a huge forced
deportation of Israelites away from their homes and tribal areas to
populate remote areas surrounded by recently vanquished Canaanites. This
would not have been popular.
1Ki 9:18 and Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land-
See on :17. Baalath was in Dan near Gezer (Josh. 19:44), and was
built and then populated by Israelites for defensive reasons. Tadmor (AV)
is now an oasis in the Syrian desert, on the caravan route from Damascus
to the Euphrates. There was no point in building it as a city unless it
was to be inhabited by Israelites. But this would have been unpopular, as
it meant uprooting Israelites out of their homes and tribal areas and
sending them to live in remote outpost. This would have meant Solomon
again despised the tribal allotments, which to God were significant. He
did the same in his arrangement of the tax administration of the nation,
as explained on 1 Kings 4.
1Ki 9:19 and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and the cities for
his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen-
The building of store cities by slave labour is exactly what Pharaoh
did to the Israelites (Ex. 1:11). The impression is given that he followed
Egypt in this way, as well as marrying Pharaoh's daughter and
incorporating Egyptian stylism into the temple building, as noted on 1
Kings 8. His love of horses and chariots likewise reflects his love of
Egypt, despite it being forbidden for Israel's king in Deuteronomy.
Solomon's lack of sensitivity to God's word led him to be tragically
insensitive to people; in short, he showed no love. The way Solomon raised
a "levy" or tribute from Israel, whereby the men of Israel had to serve
him one month out of three and 'bear burdens', with 3,300 taskmasters over
them (1 Kings 5:13-15), who 'bore rule' over (Heb. 'trampled down') the
people (1 Kings 5:16)... is all reminiscent of Samuel's warning about the
kind of King which Israel would have. And the language also recalls their
bondage in Egypt; note that the levy was also in order to build treasure
cities for Solomon, just as Pharaoh did. The Hebrew word
for "levy" in 1 Kings 5:13 strictly means 'a burden causing to faint', and
is rendered "taskmaster" in the record of Israel's suffering in Egypt (Ex.
1:11). One even wonders if Solomon's father-in-law- who also happened to
be a Pharaoh of Egypt- influenced him (consciously or unconsciously) to
act like the Exodus Pharaoh.
And that which Solomon
desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all
the land of his dominion-
Solomon loved building (Ecc. 2:4-6)- he built cities and
buildings because it was “the desire of Solomon which he desired” (1 Kings
9:19 AVmg.), i.e. one of his dominant desires. So when we read that it was
the desire of Solomon to build the temple (1 Kings 9:1,11), he was merely
serving God in a way that naturally appealed to him anyway. And when he
had finished that desire when the temple was completed (9:1), he was in
the same position as when in Ecclesiastes he describes how he indulged
every desire up to the very end, and then was left with the emptiness of
vanity.
The fortification of Lebanon was because of the threat from Rezin in Damascus (1 Kings 11:24).
1Ki 9:20 As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the
Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of
the children of Israel-
Of the seven nations earlier listed as inhabiting Canaan, only these
five had apparently survived. Two had been absorbed into the Israelite
population or destroyed. They were clearly distinct from the "children of
Israel". Instead of trying to absorb them into Israel or destroy them,
Solomon was so desperate for workers that he capitalized on that situation
and demanded they provide him with slaves for his building works, as
opposed to the Israelite labour which was classified as 'servants' (:22).
1Ki 9:21 their children who were left after them in the land, whom the
children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, of them Solomon
raised a levy of bondservants to this day-
This suggests that Solomon made the same mistake as Israel in earlier
days- he was a satisficer, he himself married into those tribes, and he
wasn’t obedient to the clear covenant of the land which was binding upon
him.
1Ki 9:22 But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but
they were the men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his
captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen-
This sounds very much like the fulfilment of Samuel's warning as to
how a human king would abuse the Israelites. He made the Canaanites slaves
(:21), but he made the Israelites his servants, to the point of whipping
them with whips, as they later complained after his death. The difference
between being his slaves and his servants was therefore not that
significant.
Solomon had obsessive tendencies. We know that he became addicted to
finding pleasure in women, and Ecc. 2 shows him racing down the road of
obsession with architecture, alcohol, food, gold etc. The historical
narratives so often mention his gold and silver (e.g. 2 Chron.
9:13-21,24,27). This repetition reflects Solomon's obsession. The same
fact explains the record's repetition of Solomon's enthusiasm for horses
(1 Kings 10:25-29; 4:26,28; 9:19,22; 2 Chron. 1:14,16,17; 8:6,9;
9:24,25,28). Yet amassing of gold, silver and horses was explicitly
forbidden for the King of Israel (Dt. 17:17). There is a powerful point to
be made here: we can deceive ourselves that God is blessing us, when
actually we are breaching explicit commands. Would Solomon had understood
the concept of self-examination.
1Ki 9:23 These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, five
hundred and fifty, who bore rule over the people who laboured in the work-
The number of these overseers varies from 3,300 when the temple was
being built (1 Kings 5:16) to 550 in 1 Kings 9:23 and then 250 in the
Chronicles record. I suggested on 1 Kings 9:14,21 that all was not well in
Solomon's apparently opulent kingdom. His building obsessions had led him
to borrow money from Hiram to find it, and to excessively tax both Israel
and the Canaanites amongst them to provide workers. And so the decreasing
numbers of overseers may reflect his declining human resources, despite
making every effort to try to pressgang more labourers he got fewer and
fewer on the jobs in practice.
1Ki 9:24 But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out of the city of David to her
house which Solomon had built for her: then he built Millo-
If this is the woman of the Song of Solomon, then we can deduce they
had a stormy relationship. It apparently ends at the end of Song 8 (see
notes there), and yet with the hints of resumption. So perhaps it was not
a blessed marriage, and Solomon ended up building her a separate house to
live in outside his immediate citadel.
1Ki 9:25 Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar
which he built to Yahweh three times a year, burning incense with them, on
the altar that was before Yahweh. So he finished the house-
"Three times a year" surely refers to the three main feasts,
Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. No longer were the "high places" like
Gibeon used, but worship was centralized in Jerusalem. This was indeed as
the law of Moses intended, but Solomon appears to have used this as part
of his policy of centralization of power in Jerusalem which we discussed
on 1 Kings 4. We note that Solomon seems to have officiated as a priest as
David did. David had done this kind of thing, but from careful reflection
upon the spirit of the law, whose letter he says in Ps. 119 he studied
constantly. And David came to this sense through careful reflection upon
God's grace to him, and through the experience of Uzzah's death as a
result of taking 'living the spirit of the law' too far. But Solomon does
it from a wrong assumption that he is the Messianic king-priest.
1Ki 9:26 King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside
Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom-
The navy appears to have either been owned by Hiram or at least
included his ships (2 Chron. 8:18). It is spoken of as Solomon's in the
same way as he is spoken of as being the personal builder of the temple,
when clearly his subordinates did the actual work. See on :27.
1Ki 9:27 Hiram sent in the navy his servants, sailors who had knowledge of
the sea, with the servants of Solomon-
Transporting ships overland was relatively common; there are several
accounts of Alexander the Great doing so. Perhaps Hiram had transported
his ships there overland through Israel, and Solomon decided to have them
build ships for him at their port of departure, so that his traders could
accompany the men of Tyre. The ships were perhaps "sent" in the form of
wooden structures which were then assembled at the port.
1Ki 9:28 They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and
twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon-
Chronicles says 450, but perhaps the 30 talents difference were paid to
Hiram for his transport services, as the navy of :27 appears to have
either been owned by Hiram or at least included his ships (2 Chron. 8:18).
"Ophir" may have been a generic name for areas to the east, including
southern Arabia (famed for gold in Ps. 72:15; Ez. 27:22) and India; Ophir
was in Arabia according to Gen. 10:29. Sheba was nearby and was famed for
gold, so it was through this trading that the Queen of Sheba heard of the
wisdom of Solomon. The next verse (1 Kings 10:1) goes on to speak of her,
connecting her with this gold trade with Ophir.
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