1 Kings 11:14

Satan is a name for THE DEVIL, the great enemy of God and man. The name is much the same in Hebrew, Greek, and English, and it means "adversary." Several passages use the word of other adversaries too: see Numbers 22:22; 1 Kings 11:14, 23, 25.

As long as he cared for the LORD's interests, his fame and glory stayed unspotted. He could say, "The LORD my God has given me rest on every side. There is neither adversary nor misfortune" (1 Kings 5:4). But he forgot the honour of the LORD's Name, and the brightness of his glory was dulled. Then the LORD stirred up adversaries for him.

"When a man's ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him" (Proverbs 16:7). So Asa proved, and Jehoshaphat his son. Both these kings had quiet and rest all around, because they did the will of God… It is a solemn thing when God must enter into a dispute with any of us. But "if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged" (1 Corinthians 11:31).

But this is a little comfort to us. Indeed, I may say it is almost the only comfort we have in the story of king Solomon — that God chastised him. He did not only let the fruit of his evil, the results of his folly, show up in his family. He chastised Solomon himself, in his own lifetime. This is His way with His own people. In some cases it is almost the only hope you have that a person is a child of God: God does not let the evil pass, but deals with it now in this world. Those whom God passes over despite their evil are people who are clearly waiting to be condemned with the world. But those who are guilty and are dealt with now are the objects of God's fatherly care.

God is wise, and that young prince was kept to be a sting to king Solomon… God does not say a word about that until Solomon's failure. Then Hadad comes forward in a clear and decided way to be a scourge for the guilty king.

God stirs up enemies against Solomon from the very nations his desires had drawn him to. Edom was full of deadly hatred against Israel, because David, through Joab, had cut off all the males of that land. Hadad had escaped with a few servants. But had his hatred lessened because Solomon had taken Edomite women as wives? … One emotion in the heart of Hadad speaks more loudly than all the honours and delights of Egypt's court: hatred, hatred against Solomon. He gives up all his advantages to satisfy this hatred… Underneath it all, the world always hates the Lord's anointed. The conduct of believers, whether more or less at fault, only serves as an excuse for this hatred.

The world is like Hadad. The cross of Christ gives us our place towards it: by that cross the world is crucified to us, and we to the world (Galatians 6:14). As long as we keep that place and count the world a defeated enemy (John 16:33), it does not make a move. But make an alliance with it, and it cannot forget its defeat. It may keep up an appearance of indifference, but it will hate us no less.

When enemies rise up against us our first appeal should be to God as to why He has permitted it. The enemies themselves may have no thought of God, but they can still be His instruments to discipline His people… Hadad and Rezon appear to have troubled him for many years. Solomon could have crushed them, but in his greatness and majesty he seems to have despised them. Solomon forgot his own words in Proverbs 16:7. When a later enemy rose up, instead of exercising his conscience before God about him, he tried to kill him, as Saul had done with David.