...continued from Solomon

Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, an evidence at once of his pride, wealth and sensuality. He had seventy thousand servants and eighty thousand workers on stone who had 3300 supervisors:.1Kings 5:15,16.

The maintenance of his household involved immense expenditure. The provision required for one day was thirty measures of fine flour and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen and twenty oxen out of the pastures and an hundred sheep, beside harts.(a male deer usually over 5 years).and roebucks.(a male, small agile deer).and fallow deer and fatted fowl:.1Kings 4:22,23. 

Solomon's reign was not only a period of great material prosperity, but was equally remarkable for its intellectual activity. He was also the leader of his people Israel in this uprising amongst them of new intellectual life:.1Kings 4:32,33 "He spake three thousand proverbs and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall. He spake also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes.".Solomon had great comprehension of workings of.nature.

Solomon, David's son, fame was spread abroad through all lands and men came from far and near to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

God hands out wisdom to all who may ask:.James 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that gives to all men liberally and upbraides not and it shall be given him."

Among others thus attracted to Jerusalem was."the queen of the south".(Matthew 12:42), the queen of Sheba.(1Kings 10:1-13; Arabian tradition calls her 'Balkis'). Sheba was a country in Arabia Felix.('Felix' or 'happy south Arabia', bounded on the east by the Persian Gulf, south by the Arabian Sea, west by the Red Sea, now Yemen, where parts of it are famed for its fertility of land).

Deep, indeed, must have been her yearning and great his fame, which induced a secluded Arabian queen to break through the immemorial custom of her dreamy land and to put forth the energy required for braving the burdens and perils of so long a journey across a wilderness. Yet this she undertook and carried it out with safety:.1Kings 10:1-13; 2Chronicles 9:1-12. She was filled with amazement by all she saw and heard:."there was no more spirit in her":.1Kings 10:1-7..After an interchange of presents she returned to her native land.

Her visit illustrates the impression made by Solomon's fame, which led."all the Earth to seek to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart".(1Kings 4:29-31; 10:24; 2Chronicles 9:22,23); she,."hearing of his fame concerning the name of the Lord, the Creator".(1Kings 10:1).brought presents of gold, spices and precious stones.

Josephus attributes to her the introduction of the balsam for which Judaea was afterward famed:.1Kings 10:1-25. Northern Arabia was at this time ruled by queens not kings, but she came from southern Arabia or Arabia Felix.

But that golden age of Israelitish history passed away.

The bright day of Solomon's glory ended in clouds and darkness. His decline and fall from his high estate is a sad record. Chief cause of his decline was his many women and his lackadaisical drift into their idolatry.

After Solomon lived his life, at the end he arrived at some conclusions:.Ecclesiastes 1:13,14,16,17 "And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail has God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit....I communed with mine own heart.(contemplation, meditation), saying, Lo, I am come to great estate and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem, yea my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes chapter 2.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

Solomon in all he had and experienced, kept his wisdom with him and learned some things.

As he grew older he spent more of his time among his favorites. The idle king living among these idle women, for 1,000 women, with all their idle and mischievous attendants, filled the palaces and pleasure houses which he had built:.1Kings 11:3. Solomon learned first to tolerate and then to imitate their heathenish ways.

He did not cease to believe in the God of Israel with his mind. He did not cease to offer the usual sacrifices in the temple at the great feasts, as required under the old covenant. But his heart was not right with his Creator. He was out of alignment with the love ways of the Creator. His worship became merely formal. His spirit's connection with the Soul of all was waning, being cut off by increasing attention to ego concerns. He had taken a step back.

Things got worse. Now for the first time a worship was publicly set up amongst the people of the Lord which was not simply irregular or forbidden, like that of Gideon.(Judges 8:27).or the Danites.(Judges 18:30,31), but was downright idolatrous:.1Kings 11:7; 2Kings 23:13. 

This brought upon him the divine displeasure. His enemies prevailed against him.(1Kings 11:14-40).and one judgment after another fell upon the land. He 'lost it' as we would say today. And now the end of it all came and he passed on, after a reign of forty years and he was buried in the.city of David.(Bethlehem is about 5 miles south of Jerusalem and is often called the city of David.{Luke 2:4,11} because it was David's birthplace and early home:.1Samuel 17:12; the city of David also refers to Mount Zion where the city of Jerusalem sprang up from {2Samuel 5:7}, being one of the mountains on which the city of Jerusalem was built; Zion is often called 'the city of David' as it was where he dwelt:.2Samuel 5:7).

With David's son Solomon was buried the short lived glory and unity of the land and people Solomon was at first so in love with. He leaves behind him but one weak and worthless son, Roboam aka.Rehoboam, to dismember his kingdom and disgrace his name.

The kingdom of Solomon, says Rawlinson, is one of the most striking facts in the Biblical history. A petty nation, which for hundreds of years has with difficulty maintained a separate existence in the midst of warlike tribes, each of which has in turn exercised dominion over it and oppressed it, is suddenly raised by the genius of a soldier monarch to glory and greatness where an empire is established which extended from the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, a distance of 450 miles and this rapidly constructed empire enters almost immediately on a period of peace which lasts for half a century.

Of Solomon's 3,000 proverbs we have a sample in the Book of Proverbs and of his 1,005 songs we have only the Song of Solomon. He had great wisdom as shows in this decision of his. But he allowed it all to slip from him.

1Corinthians 10:12  "...he that thinks he is standing, let him take heed lest he fall.

1Kings 11:4-11 "For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other Gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father...Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord...the Lord...which had appeared unto him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other Gods, said...I will surely rend the kingdom from thee..."

The sudden rise of the empire under David and Solomon his son, extending 450 miles from Egypt to the Euphrates, collapsed quickly under Rehoboam, Solomon's son.

Period is from the beginning of the 11th to the close of the 10th century B.C.E., Solomon was about 60 at his passing.