WWUTT 449 Solomon's Wealth and Wisdom?

Solomon’s Prayer of Dedication and God’s Covenant Warning

The Lord God blessed Solomon with great wealth and great wisdom, but it would come at a great price. And may we not chase after the things that Solomon chased after when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky.

We are up to chapter 9 in our study of the book of 1 Kings, but first a little bit of review of what we looked at last week. In chapter 8, we had Solomon's prayer of dedication in the temple, asking God to bless this place that Solomon had built to his name.

And we saw an example of genuine repentance, asking that the Lord would forgive the sins of Israel when they committed sin, that they would have a genuinely repentant heart and seek the forgiveness of God.

And then examining their heart and mind, that they would see that they are mourning in their wickedness and seeking God's grace, and that he would give it to them and restore them to the land of their heritage.

And we use this as an example of how we should have genuinely repentant hearts before the Lord. Also, what we examined last week is an example of who we are to be as the very temple of God. So Solomon built a temple for God's name, that his name would dwell there, that it would be a beacon to all of the other kingdoms and lands around them, that they would see that God dwelled in that place.

So we must be that in the world. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, whom we have from God, as talked about in 1 Corinthians chapters 3 and 6. And so, since we are the temple, and God dwells within us, we must be a temple unto his name, and that we would be a living sacrifice in all that we say and do.

So we concluded with this dedication of the temple with a great time of feasting and sacrifice in Israel. That was in verses 62 through 66. Is that right? Yeah, 66, end of chapter 8. So now we're up to chapter 9, and the Lord is going to appear to him just as he did at Gibeon.

This is 1 Kings 9, verse 1. As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to build, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as he appeared to him at Gibeon.

And the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your plea which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.

But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them.

And the house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight. And Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss.

And they will say, why has the Lord done this to this land and to this house? And then they will say, because they abandoned the Lord, their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.

Therefore, the Lord has brought all this disaster on them. Let's go from here to Second Chronicles chapter seven, and we're going to read this response from God worded a little bit different, according to what is written in Second Chronicles chapter seven.

I'm going to start in verse eleven. Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord in the king's house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house, he successfully accomplished.

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command the locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people.

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.

For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me as David, your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with David, your father saying, you shall not lack a man to rule Israel.

But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you. And this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? Then they will say, because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.

Therefore, he has brought all this disaster on them. And of course, the passage out of this particular section that is the most famous is Second Chronicles chapter seven, verse 14. If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Now, this is indeed a great verse to understand when it comes to having a genuine, a genuinely repentant heart before the Lord. If we will genuinely come to him and humble ourselves and pray and seek the face of God, we no longer walk in sinfulness, but desire the righteousness of Christ.

We ask for his forgiveness. Then God will hear from heaven and will forgive our sin. But be careful about that last part and will heal their land. This verse has kind of become somewhat of a national motto whenever we get around to like the National Day of Prayer or the presidential prayer breakfast or see what the poll or something like that.

Generally, you'll hear a verse like Second Chronicles 714 attached to those national prayer sort of events. But we have not been given this land of the United States of America as though it is somehow Israel.

We're not promised or guaranteed this land, and our desire should not be for the land. We desire a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one, as is talked about in Hebrews chapter 11. So we cannot take a passage like Second Chronicles 714 and think that it applies to our current American context.

It does not. This was talked about regarding Israel and the land that God had promised them so that even when they are driven off of the land, which is foreshadowing because we know that's eventually going to come upon Israel, when they seek God's face and when they seek forgiveness, then he will restore them back to the land.

That's not going to happen in the United States of America. There's no prophecy concerning this country in which an enemy is going to come in and drive us off this land. And if we seek God's face, then he'll restore us to this land.

So we can see in Second Chronicles 714 an example of a repentant heart that we should have before God. But what we receive for our repentant heart is a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly land. So that's what we must be careful of when it comes to how we apply that particular passage.

Solomon’s Wealth, Forced Labor, and the Seeds of Apostasy

Okay, let's go back to First Kings chapter 9 once again, and I'm going to start here in verse 10. At the end of 20 years, that would put this time at about 946 BC, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and Cyprus timber and gold as much as he desired.

King Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the land of Galilee. But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. Therefore, he said, What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?

So they are called the land of Kabul. To this day, Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold. Kabul means fetter. And so it's almost as if Hiram was referring to these cities as a kind of a symbol of the tie that Hiram had with Solomon.

So he was still obliged to him and he still provided for him because then the next verses Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold. But nonetheless, Hiram didn't really care for the cities that were gifted to him.

Verse 15. And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the millow and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer.

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire and had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife. So Solomon rebuilt Gezer and lower Beth, Betharon and Baaloth and Tamar in the wilderness in the land of Judah and all the store cities that Solomon had in the cities for his chariots and the cities for his horsemen and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion.

All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the parasites, the Hivites and the Jebusites who were not of the people of Israel, their descendants who were left after them in the land whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction.

These Solomon drafted to be slaves and so they are to this day. But of the people of Israel, Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers. They were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen.

These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work, 550 who had charge of the people who carried on the work. But Pharaoh's daughter went up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her.

Then he built the millow. Three times a year, Solomon used to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the Lord, making offerings with it before the Lord. So he finished his house.

King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-Geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent with the fleet of his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea together with the servants of Solomon.

And they went to Afir and brought from there gold, 420 talents, and they brought it to King Solomon. OK, so we read previously in chapter seven that Solomon had conscripted slaves to work on the temple.

And I mentioned when we were reading there that it was not Israelite work. The conscriptions were those who were the Canaanites that had been left in the land that had not been devoted to destruction.

Instead, by the treaties that they signed with Israel, they had been made the slaves and the servants. But it was not actually Israelite slave labor that was being used in the construction of the temple.

So it's only now that we come back to the specifics of that, even though they were not given at the time that we were reading about the construction of the temple. So why is that? Now we have the mention of the Canaanites and we have mention of Pharaoh's daughter, who was Solomon's wife, going to live in her house.

These things are a little bit out of order. So why is it that they come back into chapter nine here instead of when we were first talking about them a couple of chapters ago? Well, it's because events are now shifting toward leading up to Solomon's apostasy.

That is what is coming next. And so the the fact that there were people that had not been devoted to destruction, the Canaanites still lived in the land. And prior to the building of the temple, the high places where the Canaanites had been worshiping false gods were still there.

Though God may have been worshiped in those high places, it had been ordered for the Israelites to tear the high places down. So because those high places were still there that had been constructed by the hands of the Canaanites, and we have this mention of Pharaoh's daughter, which was forbidden for the king to intermarry with somebody from a pagan land.

And these things are coming back into play in this into the story to hint toward what is going to happen next. And that is Solomon's devotion to his pagan wife and the interest in her pagan gods. And it is going to lead to Solomon's downfall to his apostasy.

The Queen of Sheba, Solomon’s Glory, and the Danger of Wealth

So we get to chapter 10 here. Now when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones.

And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. And Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. And when the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers and his burnt offerings and all that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her.

And she said to the king, the report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom. But I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me.

Your wisdom and prosperity surpassed the report that I heard. Happy are your men. Happy are your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the Lord, your God, who is delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel because the Lord loved Israel forever.

He has made you king that you may execute justice and righteousness. Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones. Never again came such an abundance of spices as these that the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.

Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a very great amount of almond wood and precious stones. And the king made of the almond wood supports for the house of the Lord and for the king's house.

Also, lyres and harps for the singers. No such almond wood has come or been seen to this day. And King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all that she desired. Whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon.

So she she turned and went back to her own land with her servants. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty six talents of gold. We actually in our Bible study on Thursday night that we have here at my home, we had factored up how much money that would have been.

It was something over eight hundred million dollars. So this is in today's currency and in modern American dollars, six hundred and sixty six talents of gold would have come up to be over eight hundred million dollars per year.

That's what Solomon was pulling in. And it may be figurative or it may be quite literal that six hundred and sixty six talents is what is referenced. We know that six is the number of man. Six six six is the number of the beast.

And and so because we're kind of leading up to Solomon's apostasy and raising up altars to false gods, there may be some significance in that particular number. I'm going to read verse 14 again because it's an incomplete sentence.

Now, the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty six talents of gold. Besides that, which came from the explorers and from the business of the merchants and from all the kings of the West and from the governors of the land.

So it was even more gold than than just that. But we have this six hundred and sixty six talent number being reserved here. King Solomon made two hundred large shields of beaten gold. Six hundred shekels of gold went into each shield and he made three hundred shekels of beaten gold.

Three minors of gold went into each shield and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon. The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with the finest gold. The throne had six steps and the throne had a round top.

Once again, we have that number six, the number of man and on each side of the seat were armrests and two lions standing beside the armrests, while twelve lions stood there, one on each end of a step on the six steps.

The like of it was never made in any kingdom. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were of silver. Silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon, for the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram.

Once every three years, the fleet of ships at Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks. So you're talking that there was so much gold in the land. There was so much wealth and so much bounty that silver was not anything.

We've got gold. So silver really did not have much value in the land at that particular time. Just to show you how wealthy Israel was at this time. Thus, King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom, and the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind.

Every one of them brought his present articles of silver and gold garments, myrrh, spices, horses and mules so much year by year. And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone. And he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shepla. And Solomon's import of horses was from Egypt and Q and the king's traders received them from Q at a price.

A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver and a horse for one hundred and fifty. And so through the king's traders, they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.

So Solomon even had a sort of an economy built up because of all the wealth that he had accumulated and just use it to accomplish more and more wealth for himself and for Israel. But it would come at a great, great price, pun intended, pun implied.

We are going to read about what price it would cost Solomon next week when we get to first Kings chapter 11. How wonderful it was that God blessed Israel in this way, and that's what we can take out of chapter 10.

We see the immense blessing of the Lord upon Solomon in both wisdom and wealth, but it would eventually seize his heart and make him stray from the Lord and chase after other gods. And we'll read about that next week.

May there be nothing on earth that leads our gaze, our eyes, our heart, mind, attention away from God and to the things of this world. Let us not desire the things of this world. It is the Apostle Paul who said that the love of money has pierced people with many pangs.

And we should not desire the things of this world because it becomes that much more difficult to keep steadfastness in the Lord, our God. So let our gaze be firmly fixed upon him. Let us ask him for a heart that keeps us steadfast, according to his word, not chasing after the things of this world, but pursuing the things of God.

Our Lord God, keep our eyes fixed upon you, looking full in your wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace. Amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.