Beth-El Baptist Church

11/12/06

Greg Tomlinson

Was King Solomon in violation of “multiplying to himself” wives seeing that God blessed him?

Before Israel was a nation in the Promised Land, God gave a warning to Israel about what would happen if they established a kingship. Among those warnings is the warning about the king “multiply wives to himself”. Although King Solomon had many wives, did he actually violate the commandment seeing that he was also provided with visions of blessing from God?

1. What do the scriptures warn about having a king?

Deuteronomy 17:14-20

There are four warnings in this text.

1. Multiply horses to himself

2. Returning to Egypt in order to multiply horses

3. Multiply wives to himself

4. Multiple silver and gold to himself

Seeing that the primary purpose of the study is with regard to wives, note the reason for not multiplying wives – turn his heart away from following God.

2. Before looking specifically at wives, what about the other three warnings?

2 Samuel 8:3-4 compare 1 Kings 4:26; 9:17-19; 10:26 – Horses

1 Kings 10:28-29; 2 Chronicles 1:16 – Egyptian horses

2 Samuel 8:10-11; 24:24 compare 1 Kings 9:11, 14, 28; 10:1-27 – silver & gold

Unlike King David, King Solomon kept and built up his military with many horses and chariots. King Solomon even acquired very much gold. Ships came in quite often with gold and silver. It was so much gold and silver that in “Jerusalem” it was as common as common stones. When David was King, the only mention of gold and silver was with respect to David’s setting it aside for the temple of God.

1 Kings 4:21-24

King Solomon had a great many servants and people that were a part of his official kingdom resulting in his dividing his kingdom into 12 sections that rotated amongst them in providing for the food for the officials of the kingdom.

3. What about these visions from God?

1 Kings 3:5-14 – After becoming King

1 Kings 6:11-14 – Before completing the temple

1 Kings 9:1-9 – After completing the temple and consecrating it

The key to these primary visions is that God was pleased with Solomon’s prayer and made a statement of conditional blessing and cursing upon him. As long as Solomon obeyed the commands of God, God would bless him. If Solomon disobeyed the commands of God, God would curse him. In particular is God’s commands regarding following after other gods (9:6)

4. What about the wives of Solomon?

1 Kings 11:1-13

1 Kings 3:1; 7:8; 9:16 – Daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt

See Deuteronomy 7:1-8; Exodus 34:12-16

See Nehemiah 10:30; 13:24-27; Ezra 9:1-3, 12; Malachi 2:11-12

There is very little information about the actual wives of Solomon. What we do know is that Solomon was not very discriminating with regards to whom he married. It seems that his marriage to the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt is used as an example of how and why Solomon got his wives. He got them because he loved many women and to create political relationships with other nations. The essential problem with the multiplying of wives is the turning away of the king’s heart from following God, which is exactly what happened to Solomon. It is because of his marriages to these foreign women that he began serving all of their gods resulting in the separation of the kingdom from the hands of David’s descendants (Rehoboam 1 Kings 12:16-19)

Compare with the wives of David

1 Samuel 18:27; 25:44 – Saul’s daughter

1 Samuel 25:3, 39, 42 – Abigail wife of Nabal descendant Caleb

1 Samuel 25:43 – Ahinoam of Jezreel a city of Israel

2 Samuel 3:2-5 - Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah – 6 wives identified here

2 Samuel 3:3 – Maacah see 2 Samuel 15:8, Numbers 7:48 – Tribe of Ephraim in Syria

2 Samuel 5:13 – More concubines and wives

2 Samuel 11:3, 26-27; 12:24 – Bathsheba wife of Uriah

Although David had multiple wives and it could be argued that he had “multiplied wives to himself”, the women that he married were apparently all from various tribes of Israel. This was in accordance to the Law of God, but not the best and wisest thing to do, especially seeing the results through Solomon of doing so.

Summary:

No other king of Israel had as many wives as Solomon. No other king is associated with a great fall because of his marriages. Ahab may have married Jezebel, a foreign woman, but later Israelites did not look at Ahab’s marriage as a reason not to marry foreign women, but at Solomon’s marriages. It seems evident that if anyone were to be associated with violating the act and the reasons God gave against “multiplying wives to himself” it would be Solomon. He married many foreign women for political purposes which ultimately led him astray from serving God with all of his heart, mind and soul.