But king Solomon loved many foreign women, besides the daughter of Pharaoh women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, Hittites;
This verse opens the chapter that ends Solomon's reign in ruin. The king who prayed at the Temple's dedication loved women from the very nations God had placed off limits. How did the wisest man alive walk into a trap he already knew about?
Older translations open this verse with "But." One writer fixes on that single word.
The contrast between the opening words of chapters 10 and 11 of the first book of Kings is very solemn. 1 Kings 10 tells us of the visit of the Queen of Sheba... She recognised the hand of God in it all and put it down to His love for His people Israel. "But" — terrible words — 1 Kings 11 tells us of Solomon's host of unholy women, drawn from Moab, Ammon, Edom... This man had prayed with such humility to the LORD at the dedication of the Temple. He became a worshipper of Ashtaroth, Milcom and other detestable foreign gods... Jerusalem was the centre of spiritual light in 1 Kings 10. In chapter 11 it is a hotbed of the worst idolatry!
These nations were not a grey area. God had already ruled on them in the law, long before Solomon was born.
Solomon also disobeyed Deuteronomy 17:17 by making many marriages with foreign women (v. 1). But Deuteronomy was not the only law he broke, though it did specifically forbid a king to make such marriages. God warned all the children of Israel against intermarrying with these godless nations (Ex. 34:12-16).
One writer looks at who these nations were, and at a ban that runs in two directions.
The list begins with the Moabites, who had led Israel into the idolatry of Baal-Peor after gaining control of them through the lust of the flesh (Num. 25:1-5). All these nations on the borders of Canaan — Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians — hated God and His people. The Hittites, named last, should have been destroyed, and never were. Solomon was openly disobeying God. God had said to His people: "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you." There was a double prohibition. We are in danger of going to the world or of letting it come in to us. The second danger may be even greater than the first... Little by little the world works its way into our homes and into our lives. Often, by the time we open our eyes to the danger, it is already too late.
One commentator turns Solomon's ruin into a rule about where failure strikes.
What! The wisest king — the wisest king — brought to utter ruin in the very area where it least suited him! So it is with the sons of Adam. You will always find that you fail most in the very point where you most pride yourself. The moment your eye is off the Lord, you break down in the area where it seemed least likely.
If wisdom cannot hold a man, one writer names what does:
Wisdom did not keep Solomon, nor will it keep any one of us, but cleaving to the Lord will.
The verse does not say Solomon arranged these marriages. It says he loved. One writer weighs the political explanation against that word.
Perhaps he told himself that some of these alliances served the good of the state. But God tells us clearly that "Solomon clung to these in love." Solomon's problem was a matter of the heart! He disobeyed and his heart was turned away.
One writer sets Solomon's fall beside his father David's.
He never had such a serious fall as David. He never committed so great a sin as his father. But look closely at how this famous man lived, and you will see a slow drift back to the world... His reign began with peace, glory and the knowledge of God, and it ends among idols and foreign women. What a difference between the beginning and the end! And how did this decline begin? Note this: it did not happen all at once. It happened little by little.
Some assume their own influence will lift the other person. One writer tests that hope against Solomon's Egyptian wife.
But some young person says, "I feel sure my influence will help my partner to be a Christian." Is that so? Does it work that way? What happened to Solomon? Did he win over his Egyptian wife?... He went from bad to worse. His wives influenced him rather than his influencing them.
- But. One word separates chapter 10 from chapter 11 — same king, same city, opposite ends.
- Known. God had already named these nations in the law. Solomon broke the rule for kings and the rule for every Israelite.
- Loved. The failure was in the heart, not in policy. He clung to these women in love, and his heart was turned away.
- Wisdom. Wisdom did not keep Solomon. Only clinging to the Lord keeps anyone, and men break down where they feel safest.
- Gradually. No single crash, just a slow drift. The world coming in to us is harder to spot than our going out to it.
of the nations of which Jehovah had said to the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in to you; they would certainly turn away your heart after their gods to these Solomon was attached in love.
This verse does more than record Solomon's marriages. It quotes the command he broke, repeats God's own reason for it, and then says that Solomon clung to these women in love.
Solomon was not guessing at God's mind. God had given this warning long before he was born. One writer shows how completely he set it aside:
As far as Solomon was concerned, these commandments might as well never have been written. Exactly what had been forbidden, that he did! It is hardly possible that he was ignorant of what God had said. It is far more likely that he had arguments in his mind, and reasons he thought were excellent. They were quite enough, in fact, to allow him to treat the ancient word given through Moses as a dead letter. Had not the times changed?... The fact remains: he met the plain directions of God's word with flat denial and disobedience. By that he started a snowball of destruction rolling. It did not stop until it had become an avalanche of judgment that swept Israel away.
Older translations put the command as two bans: do not go in to them, and do not let them come in to you. The ESV gives the sense as entering into marriage. One writer finds the second danger the greater one:
There was a double prohibition. We are in danger of going to the world, or of letting it come in to us. Perhaps the second possibility is even more dangerous than the first. Conscience towards God may hold a Christian back from openly going out to the world. But the world can seduce him far more easily by coming to him. Little by little it works its way into our homes and into our lives. Often, when we open our eyes to the danger, it is already too late. "Surely they will turn away your heart after their gods," the Lord had said. Marriage with the world will necessarily lead us to the religion of the world.
The verse ends not with politics but with affection. One writer puts Solomon's real failure in that last line:
Perhaps he reasoned that there were reasons of state behind some of these alliances. But God tells us clearly that Solomon "clung to these in love." Solomon's problem was a matter of the heart! He disobeyed, and his heart was turned away.
The heart goes first, and the idols come later. One writer explains why an empty heart never stays empty:
His heart was first turned away from the Lord, so that when he became old he gave way to the seduction of idols. Our hearts are not vacuums. If we displace the Lord from our hearts, they will soon embrace some false substitute. These wives had many substitutes that they could persuade Solomon were attractive.
One writer finds a pattern in Solomon's fall that runs through all of us:
Whatever the aim was, it broke the clear and direct word of the Lord, given in the Book of Deuteronomy, where God had foreseen these dangers... What! The wisest king — the wisest king — proving his total ruin in the very thing where it least suited him! So it is with the sons of Adam. You will always find that in the very point where you most pride yourself, you most fail. In whatever seems least possible, the moment your eye is off the Lord, in that very thing you will break down.
The slide was slow. One writer traces it from quiet allowance to open support:
It began, possibly, with Solomon's weak desire to please his idolatrous wives... It was a weak desire on Solomon's part. But it was sinful and foolish, because obedience and faithfulness to the Lord were at stake. As a wise man he perhaps looked with contempt on his wives' folly, but he did not forbid it. And, beginning with turning a blind eye to it, he ended as a willing supporter. A dreadful end it was to a small beginning.
- Command — God had said it plainly and given His reason. Solomon had excuses he thought were good enough, and treated a clear word as out of date.
- Compromise — the ban ran in both directions: don't go to the world, and don't let the world come in to you. The second creeps in, and we see it too late.
- Clinging — the verse's own verdict is love, not politics. Solomon clung to these women, and that made his failure a matter of the heart.
- Capture — a heart is never empty. Displace the Lord from it and something else moves in. That is why marriage with the world ends in the religion of the world.
- Collapse — wisdom did not shield him; he broke down at the very point he was famous for. What started as a weak wish to please ended with a king who backed idols himself.