Women with a Story to Tell: The 'Many' Wives of Solomon.

 Bathsheba’s son Solomon’s birth name was Jedeiah, ‘beloved by Yahweh’. In some ways he was like his father David, and in other ways he was not like his father. David came from the bottom of society up, Solomon was born royalty. David fought many battles and even had to fend off attempts by his sons to usurp the throne. Solomon was not a warrior but more like a sage, a wise man collecting wise sayings and writing poetry. Of course, David wrote poetry too as he composed many of the psalms for singing in the temple services. 

 In one area, Solomon doubled down on his father’s weakness. Women were not the cause, but wives led to the downfall of each. The first verse after the establishment of Solomon on the throne of Israel says this of Solomon’s practices. 

“Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt; he took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the city of David, until he had finished building his own house and the house of the LORD and the wall around Jerusalem. The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the LORD” (I Kings 3:1-2).  

 Solomon’s practices and legacy are mixed with laudable acts and lamentable acts. The quote above, a kind of introductory summation of Solomon’s reign, reveals such a divided mind. Solomon played politics sealing an alliance with Egypt by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter. However, this is a dynastic marriage which, as we will see, is not usually a marriage of love but a marriage of convenience. 

 The next three acts may not be intended to be a ledger of consecutive events, but it does seem like one. Solomon finished his own house first, and the description of the building of the Lord’s house comes later in the text. In the meantime, the people continued to sacrifice in the ever troublesome ‘high places’. Sacrifices have been made here for a long time to the Canaanite gods and Israel is susceptible to mixing their worship practices. 

 Solomon pleased God with his initial prayers. Before God, Solomon said “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness. … I am only a little child, I do not know how to go out or come in. … Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, above to discern between good and evil…. It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this” (I Kings 3:6-10). 

 Solomon reorganized the administration and secured peace treaties with all his neighbors. He concluded trade deals with Hiram king of Tyre (to get cedar for new construction) and many others; and "he had peace on all sides” (I Kings 4: 24). Then we read something that might not set well with us because it looks like the people were subject to top-down control. 

“King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts…. Solomon also had seventy thousand laborers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, beside Solomon’s three thousand three hundred supervisors who were over the work, having charge of the people who did not work” (I Kings 5: 13-16). 

Solomon then took another step toward being a despot. 

“All the people who were left (of the Canaanites)..., these Solomon conscripted for slave labor, and so they are to this day” (I Kings 9: 20-21).

 The Bible does not seem to condemn the forced labor of the Jews and the slave labor of the ‘aliens’ in the land, but it does criticize Solomon’s tendency to collect wives.

“King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh; Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the Israelites, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods’; Solomon clung to these in love” (I Kings 11: 1-2).

 It is debatable whether ‘love’ or ‘lust’ is the right word. Either way, what he did certainly messed with his head.

“Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the LORD his God…. For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not completely follow the LORD as his father David had done (I Kings 11: 3-6). 

It gets worse.

“Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods” (I Kings 11: 7-8).

Certain gods are referred to as ‘the abomination of ….” That is because the people who worshipped those gods performed child sacrifice, often described as ‘they passed their children through fire’. And so, with a thousand wives, imagine the number of shrines and altars to other gods that must have dotted the land around Jerusalem. 

So, we have 1000 women with no voices; but their husband wrote some of the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. But one has to wonder about his wisdom in having that many wives and concubines.