Introduction
The fulfilment of the Davidic covenant promises lie in a ‘human’ descendant. In the first instance this descendant or ‘Son of God’ was Solomon:
I will be his father, and he shall be my son. (2 Sam.7: 14)
There is of course a qualitative and quantitative difference between the ‘sonship’ of Jesus and that of Solomon, nevertheless, the Davidic covenant model has Solomon as the first realization. This poses a problem because of Solomon’s apostasy towards the end of his reign. It is however often argued that Solomon repented before he died with the book of Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs often cited as supportive evidence and Jesus’ supposedly positive mention of Solomon in the NT.
Did Solomon Repent?
If we limit our investigation solely to the historical chronicles the conclusion must be that Solomon did not repent. On other occasions when the kings of Judah sinned it is clearly stated that they repented, or that they were acceptable to Yahweh:
Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. (2 Chron 33:12-13)
Solomon’s father David is a good example of finding acceptance despite having sinned (but then we know that David repented):
Nevertheless for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, by setting up his son after him and by establishing Jerusalem; because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. (1 Kgs 15:5)
The assessment at the end of Solomon’s reign is negative and it is found in 1 Kgs 11:9,
So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. (1 Kgs 11:9)
Solomon used polygamy as a deliberate tool of statesmanship. From a human perspective such a policy was astute as marrying into the dynasties of the surrounding Kings would ensure stability and peace for his kingdom. However, compromise always comes at a price and the political policy that he pursued would need to have been cemented with covenant agreements, including the “freedom of worship” thus enabling the foreign wives that he acquired to import their cults into Israel. Inevitably, the triumph of human reason over divine wisdom led to the downfall of Solomon. Solomon was in fact doing what the nation (God’s firstborn son) had been explicitly warned not to do – intermarry and make covenants with the surrounding nations (Deut 7:3-6).
The sons of God and the Daughters of Men
A tabular comparison of corresponding Genesis motifs demonstrates an undeniable connection to the Solomon narrative:
| Genesis | Solomon |
|---|---|
| Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen 1:26) | I will be his father and he shall be my son (2 Sam 7: 14) |
|
Tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. Ye shall be as Elohim knowing good and evil (Gen 3: 5) |
Wisdom Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil….(1 Kgs. 3: 9) |
| The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (Gen 6:2) | Solomon loved many strange women (1Kgs 11:1) |
| Namaah (Gen 4:22; the daughter of Lamech) | Namaah (1 Kgs 14: 21; the mother of Rehoboam) |
The Genesis account anticipates divine “kingship” where the king acts as God’s agent. Of particular interest in this connection is the “knowledge of good and evil” motif. In the case of Solomon, the mention of Namaah is a paralleling narrative device.
The acquisition of the “knowledge of good and evil” is initially what made Adam (God’s “son”) god-like (like elohim). This “knowledge” is associated in the Old Testament with passing judgment and therefore also has a connection with the heavenly divine council whose primary function was to implement righteous judgment. This is why David was likened to the angel of God in his function as judge—his insight was recognised as the product of divine guidance not of human reasoning:
For as an (the) angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee [cf. Emmanuel]. (2 Sam.14: 17)
The Genesis account (4:23-25) has Lamech usurping the prerogative of “discerning good and evil” and boasting that his own judgment on wrongdoers will be 77 times more severe (without mercy) than God’s. The insertion of the Lamech poem at this point in the Genesis narrative and his boast to his wives comes directly after the mention (v. 22) of Lamech’s daughter Naamah whose name means something like “pleasant one”. This linkage between a daughter and “pleasant” anticipates Gen 6:2,
The Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (Gen.6: 2)
The Lamech episode is not an independent literary unit inserted randomly in the narrative, nor is the mention of Naamah coincidental; rather it is imperative to understanding the “Sons of God” incident. Lamech was the first polygamist, thus breaking the divine wish for man to be a monogamous creature. He is also found boasting to his wives of passing judgment and avenging himself because a young man had hurt (dishonoured) him. He was proud of his disproportionate response. What had this young man done? Reading between the lines, the context implies that he had dishonoured Lamech by taking his daughter – which explains the mention of her name (the mention of females in a generation list is a very unusual feature) and also why he addressed his warning to his wives.[1]
The parallels between Solomon’s reign and Genesis are not coincidental. Solomon engaged in polygamy (like Lamech) and married an Ammonite woman with a similar name to Lamech’s daughter (because she was fair?), and therefore Solomon sinned like the sons of God in Genesis. Furthermore Solomon fulfilled all the negative stereotypes of monarchism that are warned against in 1 Sam 8:11-18, so much so that the people did indeed, “cry out in that day because of your king” [2] (v. 18):
Your father [Solomon] made our yoke heavy; now therefore, lighten the burdensome service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you. (1 Kgs 12:4)
Divine displeasure with Solomon was such that the kingdom was divided by rebellion as soon as his son Rehoboam ascended to the throne. Finally we note that the amount of wealth acquired by Solomon in one year of trading;
The weight of gold that came to Solomon yearly was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold. (1 Kgs 10:14), cf. Rev 13:18
The number six is constantly associated with Solomon’s reign and used to describe his trading, his throne, his chariot, his decorations (1 Kgs10; 16, 19, 20, 29); we are left in no doubt that his promising reign, that began with the privilege of being a “Son of God” ended with Solomon as the “Son of Adam”. Solomon’s reign was debilitated by compromise leading to apostasy and self-glorification. Solomon’s divine wisdom had degenerated into perverse human wisdom.
When Jesus mentions Solomon it is by way of comparison and contrast. The “lilies” are arrayed with more “glory” than Solomon (Matt 6:29//Lk 12:27) and a “greater” than Solomon is present (Matt 12:42//Lk 11:31) to dispense judgment (the eschatological judgment). The sayings are neutral and cannot be interpreted as an endorsement of Solomon, merely as a reference to his past “glory” and his “greatness” (juridical wisdom), which were ultimately both compromised and temporary in nature (unlike that of Christ cf. John 17:5; 5:22). Only the commencement of Solomon’s reign realized a functional messianic typology, particularly when the queen of Sheba is introduced; thereafter it rapidly deteriorates.
Conclusion
Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: “The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.” (Ezek 33:12)
Although it is not for us to judge “another man’s servant”, we should be careful in asserting that Solomon repented and refrain from holding him as a paragon of virtue when Scripture is at the very least ambivalent towards his reign. Moreover, we should hesitate at the unchallenged acceptance of attributing Solomonic authorship to Ecclesiastes and Songs.
[1] We might speculate at this point that the “young man” was a ruler with a harem. The forcible recruitment of female concubines to the royal harem was a common practice in the A.N.E.; witness the problem that Abraham had with Sarah and Isaac with Rebecca. Some interpreters have seen the “sons of God” of Gen 6:2 in the same light, as rulers: see D. J. A. Clines, “The Significance of the ‘Sons of God’ Episode (Genesis 6.1-4) in the Context of the ‘Primeval History’ (Genesis 1-11)” in his On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998 (JSOTSup 292; 2 vols; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 1:88-94.
[2] Unlike Saul this was not a king that “they had chosen”; nevertheless Solomon fulfilled all the negative attributes of oppressive kingship. Notice also that “crying out” to God is what the Israelite slaves did in Egypt.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One