Solomon

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Solomon or Shlomo (Hebrew: שְׁלֹמֹה; Standard Hebrew: Šəlomo; Tiberian Hebrew: Šəlōmōh, meaning "peace"; Arabic: سليمان Sulayman) in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), also called Jedidiah, was the third king of the united ancient Kingdom of Israel, which at that time also included the Kingdom of Judah.

The name Solomon (Shlomo) means "peaceful," or "complete", from the Hebrew Shelomoh (Arabic Sulaiman). The name given by God to Solomon through the prophet Nathan is Jedidiah, meaning "friend of God", (2 Samuel 12:25). Solomon's case is one of the few in the Bible where the name given by God does not stay with the character. Solomon's birth is considered a grace from God, after the death of the previous child between David and Bathsheba.

According to the bible, Solomon was the builder of the first Temple in Jerusalem, also known as Solomon's Temple. He was world-renowned for his great wisdom, wealth, and power. He is described as a Israelite potentate of unequalled reach in biblical history, his empire's borders stetching from the Euphrates to the Nile. However, this king of a supposedly great empire is nowhere evident in ancient sources from his time outside of the bible.

The biblical portrait of Solomon is highly pardoxical. On the one hand, he is portrayed as a pious king of supreme, divinely-endowed wisdom. On the other, he foolishly allows his love for his foreign wives to lead him into idolatry. His sin is ultimately responsible for the the splitting of his kingdom in two and the eventual fall of both Israel and Judah into the hands of foregin invaders.

In terms of his contribution to literature, Solomon is traditionally credited with the authorship of the Song of Solomon, the Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, along with a large number of aprocryphal and pseudigpigraphal works. He is the subject of many later legends and is also in a line of the greatest Kabbalah masters.

The Biblical account

Solomon's Early Reign

Solomon is David's second son by Bathsheba. His history is recorded in 1 Kings 1–11 and 2 Chronicles 1–9. He succeeded his father (reigned circa 1005 B.C.E. to 965 B.C.E.) to the throne before David's death while still a teenager. His father chose him as his successor, passing over the claims of his elder sons. His early enthronement is hastened mainly by the prophet Nathan and Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, in consequence of the attempt of David's eldest surviving son, Adonijah, to usurp the kingship.

Supported by David's military chief Joab and the venerable priest Abiathar, Adonijah's attempt to reign is cut short when Nathan and Bathsheba prevail on David to have Solomon publicly anointed as king at the very moment when Adonijah's is celebrating his own ascendency. Sensing defeat, Adonijah seeks sanctuary in the sacred tent that houses the Ark of the Covenant, clinging to the horns of the altar. Solomon grants him clemency, if "he shows himself to be a worthy man" (1 Kings 1).

Near death, David charges Solomon to follow God's commands "as written in the Law of Moses". He also advises the young monarch to collect certain blood debts David himself has not been able to collect, especially that of Joab, David's erstwhile general who had committed several murders against David's will and who lately supported Adonijah's aborted coup. "Do not let his gray head go down to the grave in peace," David commands. After David dies, Solomon dutifully obeys his father's last wish. He also takes Adonijah's request to marry David's young concubine Abishag as evidence of his elder brother's unworthiness, and orders his death as well. "The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon's hands," the biblical author concludes. (1 Kings 2).

The rest of the biblical account of Solomon's reign is remarkably peaceful until near its close. Solomon's next action is to form an alliance with the king of Egypt, taking the pharoah's daughter as his primary wife to seal the bargain. He proceeds to an ambitious building project in Jerusalem, constructing a glorious palace for himself, expanding and fortifying the city walls, and creating the unifying religious symbol of his reign, the Temple. Until this time, a biblical writer concedes, "The people were still sacfricing at the high places" (1 Kings 3:2). Whether Solomon ever intended the Temple as the exclusive abode of Yahweh, or as a cosmopolitan center honoring the religious traditions of the various peoples over which he ruled. is a matter of much scholarly debate. (See "The Historical Solomon," below.)

Solomon's Wisdom

While his ruling concering the two women who both claimed the same child is by far the most famous of Solomon's judgements, there is no doubt the biblical authors intend his response to God's earlier promise in 1 Kings 3 to be even more emblemantic of his wisdom. "Ask for whatever you want me to give you," God offers in a dream. "Give your servant a discerning ear to govern your poeple and to distinguish between right and wrong," Solomon replies. Pleased with his non-materialistic wish, God tells him that not only will he recieve wisdom greater than any other man, but also great wealth, power and prosperity. The story of Solomon's wise ruling in the case of the two women follows immediately after this, as evidence of God's boon of great wisdom. The two women, who are both prostitutes, claim the same child. Solomon orders the babe to be brought forth and commands his aides to hack it into two equal pieces. He ultimately awards the child to the woman who offers to rescind her claim of motherhood so that the child may live.

The idea that Solomon's Wisdom is God-given is important to various Judeo-Christian beliefs. The biblical Book of Proverbs, ascribed to Solomon, is a dogmatic guideline for morality and manners in many Jewish and Christian denominations. Many believe that Solomon also wrote the biblical book of Ecclesiastes in which there is established a sense of the vanity of man's feeble accomplishments, characterized as "a striving after wind".

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do... Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun — all your meaningless days. (Eccl. 9:7-9)

These writings also support Søren Kierkegaard's Christian existentialism and the two assumptions:

• Having a personal relationship with God supersedes all set moralities, social structures and communal norms.
• Social conventions are essentially a personal aesthetic choice made by individuals.

The bible is quite specific as to the number of Solomon's writings and the extent of his wisdom: "He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world" (1 Kings 4:33-34).

Trade, Buildings and other works

During Solomon's long reign of 40 years the Hebrew monarchy reportedly gained its highest splendour. This period has well been called the Golden Age the Jewish history, a veritable precursor of the Messianic Age. "Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba" (1 Kings 4:25).

The bible describes Solomon as a great imperial potentate, who "ruled over all the kingdoms from the River [Euphrates] to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries brought tribute and were Solomon's subjects all his life". His yearly tribute income is reported as 666 talents of gold (1 Kings 10:13). While this figure may or may not be accurate, the reason for the gifts is clear, since Solomon is described as possessing no less that 40,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 mounted cavalry.

On the other hand, the biblical account also describes the tribute-giving as a two-way street. While Hiram of Tyre presents Solomon with both gold and copious amounts of valuable raw materials for his building projects, Solomon, in exchange, sends large yearly alotments of food to Trye. He even concscripts no less than 30,000 "men of Israel" to serve Hiram, as a gesture of peace. (1 Kings 5) Later Solomon cedes to Hiram twenty towns in Galilee, with which Hiram is still not satisfied (1 Kings 9).

Solomon's impressive building projects are described in conderable detail. Construction of the Temple takes seven years to complete, while Solomon's palace takes thirteen. Forced labor on a massive scale is involved, but this time not invovling "men of Israel". Instead Solomon conscripts slaves from among the non-Israelite tribes of Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (1 Kings 9). When the Ark of the Covenant is finally installed in the Temple, the king celebrates by offering 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep as a sacrifce. There follows an fourteen-day feast involving a "great congregation" of "all Israel".

The first twenty years of his reign are now finished. Not only is his kingdom firmly established, but his glory is unparalleled throughout the world. Solomon now has another dream. Once again God promises wisdom and propserity, but this time a warning is also given: "If you or your sons turn away from me... to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel and the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name."

Solomon erects many other buildings of importance in Jerusalem and in other parts of his kingdom. The bible reports that he forified the walls of Jerusalem as well as the strategic towns of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. It describes impressive water works, desert fortresses, store cities, ship bhilding projects, and large housing projects for his military, including huges stables (1 Kings 9).

Great commercial prosperity enables these works and in turn results from them. Solomon engages in extensive trade on land with Tyre, Egypt, and Arabia and by sea with Tarshish (Spain), Ophir, South India, and the coasts of Africa. The royal magnificence and splendour of his court are unrivaled. Impressed by tales of his wisdom, the wonderfully rich Queen of Sheba visits with generous gifts of gold and spices, and Solomon in turn gives her "all she desired" (1 Kings 10). According to a later Ethiopian tradition, a son was born of this union, Menelik I, who would become the first emperor of Ethiopia.

Decline and fall

The rest of Solomon's reign as described in the Book of Kings is far less bright and prosperous, as his fatal flaw, namely his weakness for women, manifests. This portion of his reign is clouded by idolatries, mainly resulting from his intermarriages, which the biblical historian denounces as contary to God's will. Besides his famous marriage to the princess of Egypt, according to 1 Kings 11:4, he accumulates 700 wives and 300 concubines. Even if the numbers are exaggerated, many of these must have been political marriages sealing alliances with nieghboring tribes and clans; the bible specifically names Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites among Solomon's wives. For their sakes, and no doubt to honor the peoples and kings they represent, Solomon offers sacrifice to their deities as well as to Yawheh of the Israelites.

The sacred historian declares that God now turns against Solomon, mobilizing the Edomite prince Hadad and the Aramean leader Rezon against him. Finally, one of Solomon's own officials, Jeroboam son of Nebat, rebels against him, with the encouragement of the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 11). Later, Jereboam would go on to become the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel, while Solomon's son Reheboam would rule over the southern Kingdom of Judah.

A less distressing end to Solomon's reign is described in the Book of Chronicles, which does not mention Solomon's idolatry or Ahijah's prophecy against him, just as it does not mention the story of Solomon's mother Bathseba's adultery with King David. It concldues: "Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then he rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king" (2 Chron. 9: 30-31).

The Historical Solomon

Solomon's Kingdom

Just how literally we should take the story of Solomon's glory boils down to a chicken-and-egg enigma. Which came first, the reality of his expansive empire, or the need of later biblical historians to explain the reality of their own times by harkening back to a Golden Age from which the kings of Judah and Israel had fallen? A theory proposed by the well known archeaologist Israel Finkelstein is that Solomon is a kind of back-dated version of the Israelite King Ahab, who in historical terms was the first real Israelite king who could lay claim to anything resembling an empire. Ahab, of course, was unacceptable to the Deuteronimic historians who composed the Books of Kings and parts of the Books of Samuel, because his wife, Jezebel, was an infamous Baal worshipper. (See below: Solomon's religion). The true extent of Solomon's kingdom, assuming he was a real monarch at all, must have been much smaller than the bible says. Finkelstein and other deconstructionists base their arguments on archaelogy as well as literary criticism of the bible. Arachealogical evidence indicates that Jerusalem in the 10 century B.C.E. was far to small to have served as an adminstrative for an empire resembling that of Solomon's. Also, some of the walls that the bible describes as being built by Solomon have been uncovered, and they seem to date for a century or so after his reign. The large stables and other structures unearthed by earlier archaelogists and cited of proof of the bible's accuracy concerning Solomon are now dated to the reign of King Ahab, two centuries laters. Moreover, the Solomon's huge building projects in Jerusalem seem either not to exist or to be from a later time. Bibical literalists answer these challenges in various ways. They reject the basic thesis of biblical criticism and accept the bible's claim to be a document of divine inspiration. There was no "Deuteronimic Historian," because Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and the Book of Kings was written under divine inspiration. Bible defenders also point out that the fact that a large building has not been found is not proof that it never existed. Finally, they challenge to dating proceedures and other archaelogical methods of the critics

Solomon's Religion

The Bible describes the young Solomon as being committed to "walk in [God's] ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses" (1 Kings 2:3). But did the Law of Moses, as such even exist in Solomon's time? This is the question seriouis students of the bible, both pious and secular, must confront. Later in the Book of Kings, it is mentioned that the Passover feast commemorating Moses and the Exodus was not celebrated by the kings of Israel or Judah until the time of King Hezekiah in the 7th century B.C.E. Many biblical scholars hold the opinion that the Law of Moses as such did not come into being on the national seen until around the time of king Josiah (6th century B.C.E.). According to this theory, the people of Israel and Judah, as well as the people of neighboring tribes, did not view their deity as the only deity, and may have the various names of the chief deities such as El, Yahweh, Chemosh, Baal, as essentially different names for the some idea. A feminine counterpart to Yawheh or El (two names the bible gives for the same Israelite deity) was also worhsipped as Astarte, Ashera, Ishtar, etc. It was only around the time of King Hezekiah and later than a "Yawheh-only" ethic came to the fore and eventually prevailed among the Jerusalem priesthood. Thus it was only natural that Solomon, to the extent that he wanted to be seen as a unversal ruler and not just a tribal chief, would honor other deities besides that of is own tribe, Judah. Such a theory, of course, calls into question the basic presumptions of the sacred history presented in the bible. Instead of Solomon's apostasy causing God's emnity and resulting in the division of his kingdom, his worship of "foreign" deities becomes a manifestation of is wisdom, manifested later in the policy of Alendar the Great, who, like Solomon, did not impose the religion of his own folk on the people of his great empire. In this view, it would have been economic, political, and military issues that truly cause Judah and Israel to go their separate ways, rather than the idolatry of King Solomon.

Solomon in the World's Religions

Solomon in Islam

See Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an

Solomon also appears in the Qur'an, where he is called Sulayman. The Qur'an refers to Solomon as the son of David, as a prophet and as a great ruler imparted by God with tremendous wisdom, favor, and mystical powers. Solomon was said to have under his rule not only people, but also hosts of invisible beings (i.e., jinn). And like his father David, Solomon is said to have been able to understand the language of the birds, and to see some of the hidden glory in the world that was not accessible to common human beings.

Surah 27 (An Naml/Ant):15 “And, indeed, We granted [true] knowledge unto David and Solomon [as well]; and both were wont to say: 'All praise is due to God, who has [thus] favored us above many of His believing servants!' And [in this insight] Solomon was [truly] David's heir; and he would say: 'O you people! We have been taught the speech of the birds, and have been given [in abundance] of all [good] things: this, behold, is indeed a manifest favor [from God]!'”

Surah 34 (Saba):12 “And unto Solomon [We made subservient] the wind: its morning course [covered the distance of] a month’s journey, and its evening course, a month’s journey. And we caused a mountain of molten copper to flow at his behest; and [even] among the invisible beings there were some that had [been constrained] to labour for him by his Sustainer’s leave – and whichever of them deviated from Our command, him would We let taste suffering through a blazing flame –: they made for him whatever he wished of sanctuaries, and statues, and basins as [large as] great watering-troughs, and cauldrons firmly anchored.”

Later legend

To Solomon are attributed, by rabbinical tradition but not internally, the Biblical books of Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. Then comes the Wisdom of Solomon, probably written in the 2nd century B.C.E. where Solomon is portrayed as an astronomer. Other books of wisdom poetry attributed to Solomon are the "Odes of Solomon" and the "Psalms of Solomon".

The Jewish historian Eupolemus, who wrote about 157 B.C.E., included copies of apocryphal letters exchanged between Solomon and the kings of Egypt and Tyre.

The Gnostic Apocalypse of Adam, which may date to the 1st or 2nd century, refers to a legend in which Solomon sends out an army of demons to seek a virgin who had fled from him, perhaps the earliest surviving mention of the later common tale that Solomon controlled demons and made them his slaves. This tradition of Solomon's control over demons appears fully elaborated in the early Christian work called the "Testament of Solomon" with its elaborate and grotesque demonology.

Solomon's mastery of demons is a common element in later Jewish and Arab legends, and is often attributed to possession of a magic ring called the "Seal of Solomon".

The ancient Imperial legend of Ethiopia, as told in the Kebra Nagast, maintains that the Queen of Sheba returned to her realm from her Biblical visit to Solomon, pregnant with his child, and giving birth to a son by the Mai Bella stream in the province of Hamasien, Eritrea. This child would eventually inherit her throne with the new rank and title of Menelik I, Emperor of Abyssinia. The dynasty he would establish would reign in Abyssinia with few interruptions until the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

The Table of Solomon was said to be held in Toledo, Spain during the the Visigothic rule and was part of the loot taken by Tarik ibn Ziyad during the Islamic conquest of Spain, according to Ibn Abd-el-Hakem's History of the Conquest of Spain.

Preceded by: David

Kingdom of Israel

Succeeded by: Rehoboam (Judah) Jeroboam (Israel)

See also

• Kingdom of Israel
• Kingdom of Judah
• David
• Kabbalah

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Solomon

• Jewish Encyclopeida (1901-1905)
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Solomon entry by Gabriel Oussani (1913)
• Web links on Solomon

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