Commentaria in III Regum
Chapter 11
Solomon in old age, enticed by foreign women, worships their idols. Wherefore, verse 11, God threatens him with the loss of the kingdom, and verse 14 raises up against him as adversary Adad the Edomite, and verse 23 Razon the Syrian; finally verse 26 Jeroboam the Hebrew, to whom God through Ahias, tearing his cloak into twelve parts, of which he gave ten to him, promises the kingdom of the ten tribes, so that only the two remaining, namely Juda and Benjamin, should adhere to Solomon’s son, namely Roboam.
1. Now king Solomon loved many strange women, besides the daughter of Pharao, and women of Moab, and of Ammon, and of Edom, and of Sidon, and of the Hethites: 2. Concerning which the Lord had said to the children of Israel: You shall not go in unto them, neither shall any of them come in to your women: for they will most certainly turn away your hearts to follow their gods. To these was Solomon joined with a most ardent love. 3. And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. 4. And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5. But Solomon worshipped Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites. 6. And Solomon did that which was not pleasing before the Lord, and he did not fully follow the Lord, as David his father. 7. Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. 8. And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. 9. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his mind was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10. And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not follow strange gods: but he kept not the things which the Lord commanded him. 11. The Lord therefore said to Solomon: Because thou hast done this, and hast not kept my covenant, and my precepts which I have commanded thee, I will rend thy kingdom, and will give it to thy servant. 12. Nevertheless in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but out of the hand of thy son I will rend it. 13. Neither will I take away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to thy son, for the sake of David my servant, and Jerusalem which I have chosen. 14. And the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Adad the Edomite, of the king’s seed, in Edom. 15. For when David was in Edom, and Joab the general of the army was gone up to bury them that were slain, and had killed every male in Edom, 16. (For Joab remained there six months, and all Israel, till there was not a male left in Edom,) 17. Adad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go into Egypt: now Adad was a little child. 18. And they arose out of Madian, and came into Pharan: and they took men with them out of Pharan, and came into Egypt to Pharao the king of Egypt: who gave him a house, and appointed him victuals, and assigned him land. 19. And Adad found great favour before Pharao, so that he gave him to wife the own sister of his wife Thaphnes the queen. 20. And the sister of Thaphnes bore him his son Genubath, and Thaphnes brought him up in the house of Pharao: and Genubath dwelt with Pharao among his sons. 21. And when Adad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the general of the army was dead, he said to Pharao: Let me depart that I may go into my own country. 22. And Pharao said to him: Why, what wantest thou with me, that thou seekest to go to thy own country? But he answered: Nothing: yet I beseech thee let me go. 23. God also raised up an adversary against him, Razon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his lord Adarezer king of Soba: 24. And he gathered men against him, and he became a captain of robbers when David slew them of Soba: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt there, and made him king in Damascus. 25. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon: and this is the mischief of Adad, and his hatred against Israel: and he reigned in Syria. 26. Jeroboam also the son of Nabat, an Ephrathite of Sareda, a servant of Solomon, whose mother was named Sarua, a widow woman, lifted up his hand against the king. 27. And this is the cause of his rebellion against him, for that Solomon built Mello, and filled up the breach of the city of David his father. 28. Now Jeroboam was a valiant and mighty man: and Solomon seeing the young man to be ingenious and industrious, made him overseer over the tributes of all the house of Joseph. 29. So it came to pass at that time, that Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahias the Silonite, clad with a new garment, found him in the way: and they two were alone in the field. 30. And Ahias taking his new garment, wherewith he was clad, divided it into twelve parts: 31. And he said to Jeroboam: Take to thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Behold I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give thee ten tribes: 32. But one tribe shall remain to him for the sake of my servant David, and Jerusalem the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel: 33. Because he hath forsaken me, and hath adored Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Chamos the god of Moab, and Moloch the god of the children of Ammon: and hath not walked in my ways, to do justice before me, and my precepts and judgments, as David his father did. 34. Yet I will not take away the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, who kept my commandments and my precepts. 35. But I will take away the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give thee ten tribes. 36. And to his son I will give one tribe, that there may remain a lamp for my servant David before me always in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen that my name might be there. 37. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign over all that thy soul desireth, and thou shalt be king over Israel. 38. If thou wilt hearken to all that I shall command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do what is right in my eyes, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with thee, and will build thee up a faithful house, as I built to David: and I will deliver Israel to thee. 39. And I will afflict the seed of David for this, but not for ever. 40. Solomon therefore sought to kill Jeroboam: but he arose, and fled into Egypt to Sesac the king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon. 41. Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom: behold they are all written in the book of the acts of the days of Solomon. 42. And the days that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel, were forty years. 43. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Roboam his son reigned in his stead.
1. NOW KING SOLOMON LOVED MANY STRANGE WOMEN,—Gentiles, namely, and Chanaanites, who worshipped their own gods and idols, and led Solomon their husband to worship them. See here how dangerous it is to marry unbelieving or heretical wives.
2. CONCERNING WHICH THE LORD HAD SAID TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL: YOU SHALL NOT GO IN UNTO THEM.—This law is extant in Exodus 34:16, and speaks only of the Chanaanites, as is plain there, such as were the Sidonian and Hethite women: wherefore Solomon sinned against the law in taking them. The law permitted the Hebrews to take to wife women of other nations, provided she first, having abjured idols, were converted to the true God and the religion of the Hebrews. In this also Solomon sinned; because he took them while persisting in their idolatry; whence he was drawn by them to worship idols. So Abulensis.
3. AND HE HAD SEVEN HUNDRED WIVES AS QUEENS, AND THREE HUNDRED CONCUBINES,—that is, a thousand in all. “Queens” are called the chief wives, who were daughters of kings and princes, and therefore used royal state and name: “concubines” were the secondary wives, being of plebeian birth, although St. Jerome, epistle 132, calls them “harlots.”
Miserable was this fall of Solomon, a most wise and most holy man, in which he fell into six grave crimes. The first was that against the law he took foreign and idolatrous women. The second, that he took too many, namely a thousand. For the law, Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 17, commanded the king and said: “He shall not have many wives.” The third, that he gave them power to worship their idols, nay built them shrines on the Mount of Olives. The fourth, that he himself adored them. The fifth, that by his example he drove many Hebrews to worship them. The sixth, that he laid enormous tributes on the people, because to adorn and magnificently maintain so many queens immense wealth was needed. And this is the grievous yoke of which in the following chapter the Hebrews complain to Roboam his son, and therefore from him make a schism. In Solomon one may see how true is that old saying: