The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings. Farrar Frederic William

position had become much more splendid owing to his alliance with the King of Egypt – an alliance of which his humbler predecessors would scarcely have dreamed. We are not told the name of his Egyptian bride, but she must have been the daughter of one of the last kings of the twenty-first Tanite dynasty – either Psinaces, or Psusennes II.195 The dynasty had been founded at Tanis (Zoan) about b. c. 1100 by an ambitious priest named Hir-hor. It only lasted for five generations. Whatever other dower Solomon received with this Egyptian princess, his father-in-law rendered him one signal service. He advanced from Egypt with an army against the Canaanite town of Gezer, which he conquered and destroyed.196 Solomon rebuilt it as an outpost of defence for Jerusalem. Further than this the Egyptian alliance did not prove to be of much use. The last king of this weak twenty-first dynasty was succeeded b. c. 990 by the founder of a new Bubastite dynasty, the great Shishak I. (Shesonk, Σεσόνχωσις), the protector of Jeroboam and the plunderer of Jerusalem and its Temple. Ker'amat, niece of the last king of the dynasty, married Shishak, the founder of the new dynasty, and was the mother of U-Sark-on I. (Zerah the Ethiopian).

      It has been a matter of dispute among the Rabbis whether Solomon was commendable or blameworthy for contracting this foreign alliance. If we judge him simply from the secular standpoint, nothing could be more obviously politic than the course he took. Nor did he break any law in marrying Pharaoh's daughter. Moses had not forbidden the union with an Egyptian woman. Still, from the religious point of view, it was inevitable that such a connexion would involve consequences little in accordance with the theocratic ideal. The kings of Judah must not be judged as though they were ordinary sovereigns. They were meant to be something more than mere worldly potentates. The Egyptian alliance, instead of flattering the pride, only wounded the susceptibilities of the later Jews. The Rabbis had a fantastic notion that Shimei had been Solomon's teacher, and that the king did not fall into the error of wedding an alien197 until Shimei had been driven from Jerusalem.198 That there was some sense of doubt in Solomon's mind appears from the statement in 2 Chron. viii. 11, that he deemed it unfit for his bride to have her residence on Mount Moriah, a spot hallowed by the presence of the Ark of God.199 That she became a proselytess has been suggested, but it is most unlikely. Had this been the case it would have been mentioned in contrast with the heathenism of the fair idolatresses who in later years beguiled the king's heart. On the other hand, the princess, who was his chief if not his earliest bride, does not seem to have asked for any shrine or chapel for the practice of her Egyptian rites. This is the more remarkable since Solomon, ashamed of the humble cedar house of David – which would look despicable to a lady who had lived in "the gigantic edifices, and labyrinthine palace of Egyptian kings"200– expended vast sums in building her a palace which should seem worthy of her royal race.

      From this time forward the story of Solomon becomes more the record of a passing pageant preserved for us in loosely arranged fragments. It can never be one tithe so interesting as the history of a human heart with its sufferings and passions. "Solomon in all his glory," that figure so unique, so lonely in its wearisome pomp, can never stir our sympathy or win our affection as does the natural, impetuous David, or even the fallen, unhappy Saul. "The low sun makes the colour." The bright gleams and dark shadows of David's life are more instructive than the dull monotony of Solomon's magnificence.

      The large space of Scripture devoted to him in the Books of Kings and Chronicles is occupied almost exclusively with the details of architecture and display. It is only in the first and last sections of his story that we catch the least glimpse of the man himself. In the central section we see nothing of him, but are absorbed in measurements and descriptions which have a purely archæological, or, at the best, a dimly symbolic significance. The man is lost in the monarch, the monarch in the appurtenances of his royal display. His annals degenerate into the record of a sumptuous parade.

      The fourth chapter of the Book of Kings gives us the constitution of his court as it was in the middle of his reign, when two of his daughters were already married. It need not detain us long.

      The highest officers of the kingdom were called Sarim, "princes," a title which in David's reign had been borne almost alone by Joab, who was Sar-ha-zaba, or captain of the host. The son of Zadok201 is named first as "the priest." The two chief secretaries (Sopherim) were Elihoreph and Ahiah. They inherited the office of their father Shavsha (1 Chron. xviii. 16),202 who had been the secretary of David. It was their duty to record decrees and draw up the documents of state. Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, continued to hold the office of annalist or historiographer (Mazkîr), the officer known as the Waka Nuwish in Persian courts.203 Azariah was over the twelve prefects (Nitzabim), or farmers-general, who administered the revenues.204 His brother Zabud became "priest" and "king's friend."205 Ahishar was "over the household" (al-hab-Baith); that is, he was the chamberlain, vizier, or mayor of the palace, wearing on his shoulder the key which was the symbol of his authority.206 Adoniram or Adoram, who had been tax-collector for David, still held that onerous and invidious office,207 which subsequently, in his advanced old age, cost him his life. Benaiah succeeded to the chief-captaincy of Joab. We hear nothing more of him, but the subsequent history shows that when David gathered around him this half alien and wholly mercenary force in a country which had no standing army, he turned the sovereignty into what the Greeks would have called a tyranny. As the only armed force in the kingdom the body-guard overawed opposition, and was wholly at the disposal of the king. These troops were to Solomon at Jerusalem what the Prætorians were to Tiberius at Rome.

      The chief points of interest presented by the list are these: —

      1. First we mark the absence of any prophet. Neither Nathan nor Gad is even mentioned. The pure ray of Divine illumination is overpowered by the glitter of material prosperity.

      2. Secondly, the priests are quite subordinate. They are only mentioned fifth in order, and Abiathar is named with Zadok, though after his deposition he was living in enforced retirement.208 The sacerdotal authority was at this time quite overshadowed by the royal. In all the elaborate details of the pomp which attended the consecration of the Temple, Solomon is everything, the priests comparatively nothing. Zadok is not even mentioned as taking any part in the sacrifices in spite of his exalted rank. Solomon acts throughout as supreme head of the Church. Nor was this unnatural, since the two capital events in the history of the worship of Jehovah – the removal of the Ark to Mount Zion, and the suggestion, inception, and completion of the building of the Temple – were due to Solomon and David, not to Zadok or Abiathar. The priests, throughout the monarchy, suggest nothing, inaugurate nothing. They are lost in functions and formal ceremonies. They are but obedient administrative servants, and, so far from protecting religion, they acquiesce with tame indifference in every innovation and every apostasy. History has few titles which form so poor a claim to distinction as that of Levitic priest.

      3. Further, we have two curious and significant phenomena. The title "the priest" is given to Azariah, who is first mentioned among the court functionaries. Solomon had not the least intention to allow either the priestly or the much loftier prophetic functions to interfere with his autocracy. He did not choose that there should be any danger of a priest usurping an exorbitant influence, as Hir-hor had done in Egypt, or Ethbaal afterwards did in the court of Tyre, or Thomas à-Becket in the court of England, or Torquemada in that of Spain. He was too much a king to submit to priestly domination. He therefore appointed one who should be "the priest" for courtly and official purposes, and should stand in immediate subordination to himself.

      4. The Nathan whose two sons, Azariah and Zabud, held such high positions, was in all probability not Nathan the Prophet, who is

195

The forty-fifth psalm is supposed by old interpreters to have been an epithalamium on this occasion, but was probably much later. Perhaps notices like 1 Kings iii. 1-3 (the Egyptian alliance), the admonition in 1 Kings ix. 1-9 and the luxury described in x. 14-29, are meant as warning notes of what follows in xi. 1-8 (the apostasy), 9-13 (the prophecy of disruption), and 14-43 (the concluding disaster).

196

Gezer is Abu-Shusheh, or Tell-el-Gezer, between Ramleh and Jerusalem (Oliphant, Haifa, p. 253), on the lower border of Ephraim. Ewald identifies it with Geshur, the town of Talmai, Absalom's grandfather. See Lenormant, Hist. anc. de l'Orient., i. 337-43. The genealogy of this dynasty is thus given by Brugsch-Bey (Gen. Table iv.), Hist. of Egypt, vol. ii.: —

197

See Deut. xxiii. 7, 8.

198

Schwab's Berakhoth, p. 252; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 25. In Sanhedrin, ff. 21, 22, there is another trace of the dislike with which the marriage (though not forbidden, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8) was regarded: "When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gabriel descended and fixed a reed in the sea. A sandbank formed around it on which Rome was subsequently built." In Shabbath, ff. 51, 52, we are told that "the princess brought with her one thousand different kinds of musical instruments, and taught Solomon the chants to his various idols."

199

No trace of any such misgiving is found in the Book of Kings.

200

"Seine Liebhaberei sind kostbare Bauten, fremde Weiber, reiche Prachtentfaltung" (Kittel, ii. 160).

201

Perhaps rather "the grandson." He was the son of Ahimaaz (comp. Gen. xxix. 5; Ezra v. 1, where son = grandson).

202

Shisha and Shavsha are perhaps corruptions of Seraiah (2 Sam. viii. 17).

203

Comp. Esth. vi. 1. LXX., Isa. xxxvi. 3, ὁ ὑπομνηματογράφος 2 Sam. viii. 17, ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων. Jerome, "a commentariis." Comp. Suet., Aug. 79, "qui e memoria Augusti."

204

It is a somewhat ominous fact that netsib means properly an ἐπιτειχισμός, a garrison in a hostile country.

205

The king's friend (2 Sam. xv. 37) seems to have been a sort of confidential privy councillor (Prov. xxii. 11).

206

Isa. xxii. 21.

207

2 Sam. xx. 24.

208

Possibly this clause is an interpolation.