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44. King Solomon.
The kind of mind the
young Solomon brought to the throne was reflected in a dream he had at
the beginning of his reign. God said to him: ‘Ask what you want me to
give you!’ Solomon said: ‘I am still young and without experience: may
you give me an obedient heart, that I may rule your people and
understand what is good and what is evil.’
Such a little prayer pleases good children who read it. They also want
to pray: I am still young, give me an obedient heart, that I may
understand what is good and what is evil. God said: ‘Because you ask for
these things, and not for long life, nor for riches, nor for victory
over your enemies, behold, I will do according to your word and give you
a wise and understanding heart. And what you have not asked, I will also
give you: riches and honour and long life, if you walk in my ways and
keep my commandments.’
All this came true in abundance for the king. Solomon was the wisest and
most famous king of his time and had peace and friendship with all the
kings around him, so that Israel dwelt safely under his vines and under
his fig trees as long as he lived. Solomon was also the richest king of
his time. His riches of gold and silver and precious things were
immeasurable, which his father had left him and his subjects and his
friends, the kings, gave him.
Solomon demolished the old tabernacle and built God a magnificent temple.
Like the tabernacle, it had three sections, the courtyard, the Holy
Place and the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was, and
Solomon dedicated it with a beautiful and holy prayer.
He also built a magnificent royal palace. Everything in the temple and
palace smelled of precious cedar wood. Everything sparkled with gold and
silver and precious stone. His bodyguards wore golden shields. Did not
the queen of Arabia come a long way with great gifts to see his
splendour and hear his wisdom from his mouth? So Solomon was rich and
glorious and was also a close descendant of the Moabitess who once
gathered ears of corn in the fields of Bethlehem.
When Solomon had built the temple, he had another dream, but it was like
that of a mind that can never trust itself and is already close to
falling. - God appeared to him again as he had appeared to him the first
time. He said, ‘If you walk before me as your father David walked, with
a righteous heart and uprightness, doing all that I have commanded you
and keeping my commandments and my statutes, then I will confirm the
throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I said to your father
David, ’You shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel.
But if ye turn away from me, ye and your children, and keep not my
commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, and go and
serve other gods, and worship them, then will I cut them off from the
land which I have given them, and the house which I have hallowed unto
my name will I forsake from my presence, and Israel shall be a proverb
among all nations, and the house shall be broken down, and all that pass
by shall be astonished, and say: Why has the Lord done this to this land
and to this house? ’
This too will come true.
Solomon, wise as he was, was seduced by his happiness into security and
security into sin. Security in happiness always leads to sin. Solomon
had taken many pagan wives who were pleasing to him. This was already a
transgression of the law. When he was old, his wives turned his heart to
foreign gods, so that it was no longer whole with the Lord his God. Oh
woe, woe to the divided heart when it is no longer whole with the Lord
his God! God and the inclination to sin cannot dwell together in one
heart for long. Solomon soon forsook the Lord his God and the God of
David his father, and built altars to the idols and abominations of the
heathen and worshipped them.
So the king himself set the first example of breaking the law and the
covenant that God had made with Israel.
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