Chapter Three

Solomon’s marriage; his devotion and wisdom.

1 Kings 3:1. [When the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon,] Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took as his wife the daughter of Pharaoh and brought her into the city of David, until he had built his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. Pharaoh, whose daughter Solomon married, was probably one of the last representatives of the twenty-first, Tanite dynasty, the immediate predecessor of Sheshonk-Shishak (1 Kgs 11:40), the founder of the twenty-second Egyptian dynasty. A family alliance with Pharaoh gave Solomon and his country security from Egypt, and also somewhat helped to expand Solomon’s territorial possessions (1 Kgs 9:16). From a religious perspective, in the opinion of the Rabbis, this marriage seemed to represent a certain violation of the marital prohibitions of the Law (Exod 34:16; Deut 7:3), although these prohibitions applied more strictly to the Canaanites themselves; the Rabbis thought they saw in Pharaoh’s daughter a convert to Judaism — without support in the text; in any case, she did not bring Egyptian idolatry with her into Palestine (the latter is not mentioned among the foreign cults in Jerusalem under Solomon, 11:4–7). The “city of David” is the eastern hill of Jerusalem. David had already built walls around this part of the city (2 Sam 5:7-9; compare Ps 50:20); Solomon then expanded the scope of the walls, including a larger part of the city: this is the so-called “first wall” of Jerusalem (the second wall was built by Hezekiah and Manasseh).

1 Kings 3:2. The people were still offering sacrifices on the high places, because the house of the name of the Lord had not yet been built at that time. 1 Kings 3:3. And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the ordinance of David, his father; but he also made sacrifices and burned incense on the high places. 1 Kings 9:25. A general note on the state of worship in Israel in the first years of Solomon’s reign (compare 1 Kings 9:25): in the absence of one religious and national center — the Temple, sacrifices were made in various places consecrated by certain historical events or memories (for example, in Gibeon, v. 4; (2 Chr 1:3)). Sacrifices were performed “on the high places” (Hebrew: bamot, Greek: ἐπὶ τοῖς ὑψηλοῖς, Latin: in excelsis), v. 2 (compare 1 Sam 9:12; Amos 7:9; Mic 1:5; Hos 10:8; 2 Kgs 12:3): by the general custom of antiquity, the service of the Deity was performed on elevated places, natural or artificial (“bamot”), which served as a symbol of the elevation of people to God. Before the building of the Temple, such service to God by sacrifices in many different places was not considered reprehensible, which is why even the prophet Samuel performed it (1 Sam 9:14); however, the Law (Lev 17:4; Deut 12:5-6) intended to protect the Hebrews “from religious division, which could result from the arbitrary choice of different places for worship” (Professor Gulyaev, p. 146). Therefore, the sacred writer considers Solomon’s worship on the high places to not fully answer to perfect love for God (v. 3, compare the blessed Theodoret, question 12). 1 Kings 3:4. And the king went to Gibeon to offer a sacrifice there, because that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. One of the honored places of worship at that time was Gibeon, “because there was the great high place” (Hebrew: gab bama gadolah, Slavic: “high place great”). Gibeon was once the capital of the Hivites (Josh 9:2), later a Levitical city in the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18:25), north of Gibeah and one and one-quarter geographical miles from Jerusalem (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VII, 11, 7; Jewish War, II, 19, 1); according to Eusebius and the blessed Jerome (Onomasticon, 296), at four Roman miles west of Bethel; now the village of el-Dscbob with forty to fifty houses and about five hundred inhabitants (Robinson, Palestine, 351). Here, when the Hebrews entered Canaan, they erected the tabernacle of Moses and the altar (1 Chr 16:39; 2 Chr 1:3). The abundance of sacrifices at solemn occasions was customary among the peoples of the East (Herodotus, I, 50; VII, 43). “A thousand burnt offerings” — probably sacrifices in general, including the sacrificial feasts at peace offerings; according to (2 Chr 1:3), a multitude of people went to Gibeon with Solomon, and the festival lasted several days. There is certainly no indication here of priestly functions of the king, as some have thought.

1 Kings 3:5. In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night, and God said: Ask, what shall I give to you. “Appeared (nira) the Lord”: not in any form, but in the sense of revelation in general, which took place in a dream (v. 15, the blessed Theodoret, question 13).

1 Kings 3:6. And Solomon said: You have shown great mercy to your servant David, my father; and because he walked before You in truth and righteousness and with a sincere heart before You, You have kept this great mercy for him and given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is now; 1 Kings 3:7. and now, O Lord my God, You have made your servant king in place of David, my father; but I am a young child, I do not know how to go out or come in; 1 Kings 3:8. and your servant is in the midst of your people, whom You have chosen, a people so numerous that it cannot be numbered or counted; 1 Kings 3:9. therefore give your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this great people of Yours? “Wonderful are the words spoken by Solomon in his prayer. For, remembering the blessings which his father had, and praising the Giver of them, he offered a prayer also for himself; (7–9 vv.)... In these words he showed both the weakness of nature, and the imperfection of his age, and the greatness of the power given, and the danger of erring in judgment, and the necessity of prudence, and shrewdness in his request” (the blessed Theodoret, question 12). Acknowledging the mercies of the Lord to David in his life in general, and in particular in granting him a throne to pass to his son (v. 6), Solomon calls himself “a young child, knowing neither how to go out nor come in” (v. 7), of course, in relation to his inexperience compared to the importance and burden of the tasks of governing people, not to Solomon’s actual young age (according to Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VIII, 7, 8, Solomon was at this time ten years old, according to some rabbis twelve years); from comparing (1 Kgs 11:42) and (1 Kgs 14:21) it is evident that at the beginning of his reign Solomon already had a one-year-old son, Rehoboam, consequently he was at least nineteen or twenty years old, and David (1 Kgs 2:6) called him “a man wise.” The expression “not to know how to go out or come in” denotes the manner and direction of a person’s life in general (Deut 31:2; Jer 10:23; Ps 120:8 and others), but especially is used of leading in war (1 Sam 18:13; 2 Sam 3:25): here the royal power is first of all leadership of the people in war, but in v. 9 it is understood as mainly the judicial function (compare v. 16); both sides were indissolubly united in the ancient Hebrew conception (as in the Eastern concept generally) of the king (compare 1 Sam 8:6; 2 Sam 15:2-4).

1 Kings 3:10. And it pleased the Lord that Solomon asked this. 1 Kings 3:11. And God said to him: because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself a long life, and have not asked for yourself riches, and have not asked for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to know how to judge — 1 Kings 3:12. behold, I do according to your word: behold, I give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, and there will not be anyone like you after you; 1 Kings 3:13. and that which you have not asked I give to you also — both wealth and glory, so that there will be no one like you among the kings all the days of your life; 1 Kings 3:14. and if you will walk in My way, keeping My ordinances and My commandments, as your father David walked, I will lengthen your days. The Lord (instead of the Hebrew Adonai in the accepted text, v. 10, though in many texts: 1, 30, 85, 93, 96, 112, 113, 128, 145, 150, 154, 174, 250, the Lord stands) graciously accepted Solomon’s request. “The Master God, praising the request, gave both what was requested and added all else. This He also ordained in the holy Gospel; for He says: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt 6:33). These are the gifts God gave to Solomon and promised to make him worthy of every provision” (the blessed Theodoret, question 12).

1 Kings 3:15. And Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. And he went to Jerusalem and stood before the altar, before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and made peace offerings, and made a great feast for all his servants. “Waking from his sleep, Solomon remembered the dream, and, understanding that this was God’s revelation, returned to the capital, and before God’s ark made a thank offering” (the blessed Theodoret, question 13).

1 Kings 3:16. Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 1 Kings 3:17. And the one woman said: O, my lord! I and this woman live in the same house; and I gave birth in her presence in this house; 1 Kings 3:18. on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth; and we were together, and there was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house; 1 Kings 3:19. and the son of this woman died in the night, because she lay on him; 1 Kings 3:20. and she arose in the night, and took my son from beside me while your servant was asleep, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom; 1 Kings 3:21. and when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, it was not my son, whom I had borne. 1 Kings 3:22. And the other woman said: No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours. But she said: No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine. Thus they spoke before the king. 1 Kings 3:23. And the king said: This one says, My son is the living one, and your son is the dead one; and that one says, No, your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one. 1 Kings 3:24. And the king said: Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. 1 Kings 3:25. And the king said: Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other. 1 Kings 3:26. And the woman whose son was alive spoke to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, saying: O, my lord! give her the living child, and do not kill him. But the other said: Let it be neither mine nor yours; divide it. 1 Kings 3:27. Then the king answered and said: Give the living child to her, and do not kill him; she is his mother. 1 Kings 3:28. And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered; and they feared the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to execute justice. The account given here, in the thought of the sacred writer, serves as witness to Solomon’s wisdom, received by him from God (v. 12). “For what reason did the writer of this history place the account of the two prostitutes?” asks the blessed Theodoret (question 14). And he answers: “He wished to show the wisdom of the king. For indeed, it is the work of very wise understanding — to reveal what is hidden, to bring forth what is concealed, to give the decision to nature and let it render its judgment. Quickly was she revealed to be the mother, and she who was not the mother was exposed.” The event itself could have been borrowed by the sacred writer from tradition or from “the book of the acts of Solomon” (1 Kgs 11:41). The term “prostitutes” (Hebrew: zenut, v. 16) has a general sense — concerning illicit cohabitation (compare Josh 2:1). According to the Hebrew text, vv. 17–18, both women gave birth on the same day (so also Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VIII, 2, 2); on the contrary, according to the LXX, the Vulgate, and the Slavic-Russian translation, the one gave birth after the other on the third day. The wisdom of Solomon’s judgment lay not so much in its decisiveness and categorical nature, as in deep knowledge of the human heart (v. 26). In form, the king’s brief and unceremonial decision seemed too simple: “at this decision all the people secretly laughed at the king, as though he had acted in this case in a completely childish manner” (Josephus, cited work). However, the obvious incontestability of the king’s decision convinced the people of his extraordinary wisdom and aroused respectful fear of him among his subjects (v. 28).