This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
With Jeroboam out of the way, 1 Kings launches into a long and confused summary of the reigns of the dynasties of Judah and Israel, moving back and forth fast enough that it's easy to get confused. The general theme is that all the kings are sinful and all the kings support the worship of false gods, and that as a result God abandons the kingdoms to their depravity and lets foreigners win in battle (a partial return to the traditional militarist yardstick).
In Judah, Rehoboam (whom we talked about before already) lets his people set up Asherah poles on every hill and under every tree (a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps?). There are "even male shine prostitutes" in the land now, which is particularly disgusting to the Israelites because of the threat that sex between men poses to the traditional gender order. After a few years, Judah is invaded by the Egyptians, who ransack the palace and the Temple and carry off most of Solomon's gold trinkets. Rehoboam tries to replace them, but he can only afford cheap bronze replicas.
Rehoboam's son Abijah (confusingly, Jeroboam also has a son named Abijah, which makes one wonder whether there's a mistake here somewhere) becomes king of Judah after his father and apparently does no better. The author of 1 Kings makes the ridiculous and totally false claim that God let Abijah remain as king because David was without sin in the eyes of the Lord, with the singular exception of the murder of Uriah the Hittite. God does permit a continuous civil war between Judah and Israel, however.
Abijah's son Asa is the next king of Judah. He seems to be a decent guy: he expels the shrine prostitutes, dismisses his own grandmother for idol worship, and disperses the royal treasury to make peace with Aram. (This is where the good news stops - once Asa is at peace with Aram, he convinces the foreigners to join him in making war against Israel.) His punishment for this, 1 Kings records, is that as he grew older "his feet became diseased." How awful for him.
Over in Israel, Jeroboam is replaced by his son Nadab, who is as sinful as his old man. He also has to deal with some rebels, one of whom - Baasha - succeeds in assasinating Nadab and becoming the new king of Israel. Baasha promptly murders Jeroboam's entire family. But Baasha turns out to be no better, and God sends a prophet to try and scare the king straight. (It doesn't work.)
It's rapidly becoming apparent that, unlike Judah, Israel can't even maintain political stability (both sides are united in their general sinfulness, but Judah has a functioning monarchy to oversee its depravity - is this better or worse? I'm not sure...). Baasha's son Elah becomes king, but after only a couple of years, the commander of his chariots, Zimri, stages a coup. Zimri tries to proclaim himself a king, but he's committed one of the most basic mistakes of military conspirators - he's forgotten to make sure he actually has the support of the military. The infantry refuses to recognize a charioteer as king and names a competing king, Omri. Then they march on Israel's new capital of Tirzah, where Zimri sees the approaching masses and promptly sets his palace on fire, immolating himself in the process. Yet another Biblical ritual suicide, it would seem. Omri eventually does become king, though only after killing a few other challengers to the throne. He's a pagan too, though, so God is still angry.
The last king in this sequence is Omri's son Ahab, who rules Israel for 22 years and is more evil than anyone yet. He marries a foreign girl named Jezebel (always a bad idea) and introduces Baal worship to the various other pagan faiths already in Israel. He also lets his subjects begin rebuilding the city of Jericho, which has been laying fallow since Joshua's time and was never supposed to be rebuilt.
At this point God has basically stepped out of the narrative. Aside from the occasional grumpy prophet, the only role he plays is to stand around progressively getting angrier and angrier.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Jeroboam, Pagan King of Israel: 1 Kings 12:25 - 14:20
This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
Rehoboam's rule has collapsed and he's left with Judah to preside over. The rest of Israel, exercising dubious judgement, immediately votes to let Jeroboam become their new king. He takes over the city of Shechem and proclaims his land the kingdom of Israel. Unlike Rehoboam, Jeroboam is somewhat politically savvy, reasoning that his rule will never be secure so long as people owe their ultimate fealty to God, and therefore are continually going back and forth to Judean territory in order to worship at the Temple.
The solution, obviously, is to create a new religion which won't require trips to Judah. (I'm sensing a return to the elitist view of commoners-as-dumb-sheep here.) He creates two golden calves, which I guess is twice as good as the one golden calf that Aaron made back in Exodus, and starts spreading around a story that these gods have been with the Israelites ever since they left Egypt, but have been in hiding for the last four centuries. He sets up the calves in Bethel and Dan and the people obediently start worshipping the new gods. (I was right about the sheep thing, then.)
Thoughtfully, Jeroboam also democratizes the priesthood, letting anyone - even non-Levites become priests at his new "high places" and shrines. He creates new festivals and sacrifices at the altar in Bethel.
It's at this point that God appears in the narrative again, predictably choosing sides against the king. He sends an unnamed "man of God" to stand at the altar and proclaim the new paganism evil. Jeroboam personally rides to Bethel and reaches out to strike the prophet, but at that moment, God simultaneously paralyzes and "shrivels" the king's right arm. He also strikes the altar with his other mighty godly hand, splitting it apart and sending ashes spraying in all directions. Jeroboam tries to bribe the "man of God" with food and drink and an unspecified "gift," as though this will somehow assuage God's anger. The "man of God" says he won't keep company with such despicable sinners, turns his back on the king, and walks out of Bethel.
Rather cruelly, God decides to kill the "man of God" shortly afterwards, for a considerably lesser transgression than pagan idol worship. The man of God is traveling from Bethel and meets a fellow prophet, who invites him in for dinner. The man of God says he can't, because God doesn't want him to eat any food while he's in this degraded land of Israel. The prophet says this doesn't count, because an angel told him it would be all right. But it isn't all right! The man of God sits down to eat, and the prophet immediately stands up from the table and announces that the man of God has broken God's commands and is going to die for it. The next day, sure enough, he sets out to return to his home in Judah, but while travelling, he's mauled and eaten by a lion. This is rather cruel - either the second prophet is cruelly deceptive, or God, even more questionably, has deliberately used one of his prophets in order to trap another. The second choice is particularly disturbing, theologically.
Even the second prophet seems to realize that this sorry event was most unfair. He goes out and buries the body in his own tomb, then tells his sons that when his own time comes, he wishes to be buried alongside the Judean man of God. It's a sad and troubling story.
Sad and troubling for the prophet, but not for Jeroboam, who continues undeterred. One of his sons, Abijah, falls ill, so Jeroboam decides to send his wife in a disguise to find a man of God and arrange for a magic healing to take place. (We're returning to the idea of prophet as magician, though in this case healer rather than donkey-finder.) Jeroboam's unnamed wife finds the prophet Ahijah in Shiloh, but even though he's blind, he knows exactly who she is, because God has filled him in. Because of Jeroboam's sin, Ahijah proclaims, the house of Jeroboam is also going to lose its kingship. One day God's going to get so upset, he adds, that he's going to break Israel like an uprooted plant and scatter the people from Jerusalem to the Euphrates and beyond.
God's really got it in for this monarchy idea. He fires Saul, inexplicably likes David (for the most part, anyways), grows to hate Solomon, punishes Rehoboam for the sins of Solomon, and he passionately hates Jeroboam, if the lengthy speech from this Shiloh prophet is any indication. So much for the promise of having a national state.
Rehoboam's rule has collapsed and he's left with Judah to preside over. The rest of Israel, exercising dubious judgement, immediately votes to let Jeroboam become their new king. He takes over the city of Shechem and proclaims his land the kingdom of Israel. Unlike Rehoboam, Jeroboam is somewhat politically savvy, reasoning that his rule will never be secure so long as people owe their ultimate fealty to God, and therefore are continually going back and forth to Judean territory in order to worship at the Temple.
The solution, obviously, is to create a new religion which won't require trips to Judah. (I'm sensing a return to the elitist view of commoners-as-dumb-sheep here.) He creates two golden calves, which I guess is twice as good as the one golden calf that Aaron made back in Exodus, and starts spreading around a story that these gods have been with the Israelites ever since they left Egypt, but have been in hiding for the last four centuries. He sets up the calves in Bethel and Dan and the people obediently start worshipping the new gods. (I was right about the sheep thing, then.)
Thoughtfully, Jeroboam also democratizes the priesthood, letting anyone - even non-Levites become priests at his new "high places" and shrines. He creates new festivals and sacrifices at the altar in Bethel.
It's at this point that God appears in the narrative again, predictably choosing sides against the king. He sends an unnamed "man of God" to stand at the altar and proclaim the new paganism evil. Jeroboam personally rides to Bethel and reaches out to strike the prophet, but at that moment, God simultaneously paralyzes and "shrivels" the king's right arm. He also strikes the altar with his other mighty godly hand, splitting it apart and sending ashes spraying in all directions. Jeroboam tries to bribe the "man of God" with food and drink and an unspecified "gift," as though this will somehow assuage God's anger. The "man of God" says he won't keep company with such despicable sinners, turns his back on the king, and walks out of Bethel.
Rather cruelly, God decides to kill the "man of God" shortly afterwards, for a considerably lesser transgression than pagan idol worship. The man of God is traveling from Bethel and meets a fellow prophet, who invites him in for dinner. The man of God says he can't, because God doesn't want him to eat any food while he's in this degraded land of Israel. The prophet says this doesn't count, because an angel told him it would be all right. But it isn't all right! The man of God sits down to eat, and the prophet immediately stands up from the table and announces that the man of God has broken God's commands and is going to die for it. The next day, sure enough, he sets out to return to his home in Judah, but while travelling, he's mauled and eaten by a lion. This is rather cruel - either the second prophet is cruelly deceptive, or God, even more questionably, has deliberately used one of his prophets in order to trap another. The second choice is particularly disturbing, theologically.
Even the second prophet seems to realize that this sorry event was most unfair. He goes out and buries the body in his own tomb, then tells his sons that when his own time comes, he wishes to be buried alongside the Judean man of God. It's a sad and troubling story.
Sad and troubling for the prophet, but not for Jeroboam, who continues undeterred. One of his sons, Abijah, falls ill, so Jeroboam decides to send his wife in a disguise to find a man of God and arrange for a magic healing to take place. (We're returning to the idea of prophet as magician, though in this case healer rather than donkey-finder.) Jeroboam's unnamed wife finds the prophet Ahijah in Shiloh, but even though he's blind, he knows exactly who she is, because God has filled him in. Because of Jeroboam's sin, Ahijah proclaims, the house of Jeroboam is also going to lose its kingship. One day God's going to get so upset, he adds, that he's going to break Israel like an uprooted plant and scatter the people from Jerusalem to the Euphrates and beyond.
God's really got it in for this monarchy idea. He fires Saul, inexplicably likes David (for the most part, anyways), grows to hate Solomon, punishes Rehoboam for the sins of Solomon, and he passionately hates Jeroboam, if the lengthy speech from this Shiloh prophet is any indication. So much for the promise of having a national state.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Women are Saved through Childbearing!
Procrastinator's Link of the Day™: The Church of the Orange Sky now stands in judgement against Bruce Ware, who recently delivered a malicious sermon against his sisters in Christ, claiming on behalf of the Southern Baptist church that women must submit to their husbands, and that this is God's perfect will, and that, hilariously, the model of God the Father and God the Son is a model for the male/female relationship. Somewhat less hilariously, Ware veers wildly off course into wife-beating territory with the claim that domestic violence is women's fault (at least in part), because their husbands are struggling to deal with women's rebellion against their rightful place as servants.
Some people just don't get the mutual servanthood part about Christianity. I'm pretty sure if Christianity was supposed to reinforce good patriarchal authority, our God wouldn't have come to Earth as an impoverished, ethnically marginalized carpenter. I sometimes suspect it might have been better if we had a female messiah. It shouldn't matter, but at least it would have made Ware's chauvinism a little more difficult. Why is it so important that the husband "rule" in his house? The fact that we even have to have this conversation shows that people are completely unconcerned about the teachings of Jesus, which explicitly reject defining our lives according to virtually any hierarchical relationship.
Fortunately, the New Testament offers a variety of diverse theological viewpoints, and Ware, predictably, turns to 1 Timothy to buttress his argument. This letter is a mischievous reactionary screed, which along with Jude, represents two of the most regrettable collective decisions of the entire New Testament canonization process. Seriously, when a letter claims that salvation is available to women not through Christ but through childbearing, the responsible thing to do is to point out that this is blatantly at odds with the teachings of the rest of the New Testament.
Ware, of course, doesn't agree with me. He thinks that women's job is to be barefoot and pregnant.
Fuck you, Ware.
Some people just don't get the mutual servanthood part about Christianity. I'm pretty sure if Christianity was supposed to reinforce good patriarchal authority, our God wouldn't have come to Earth as an impoverished, ethnically marginalized carpenter. I sometimes suspect it might have been better if we had a female messiah. It shouldn't matter, but at least it would have made Ware's chauvinism a little more difficult. Why is it so important that the husband "rule" in his house? The fact that we even have to have this conversation shows that people are completely unconcerned about the teachings of Jesus, which explicitly reject defining our lives according to virtually any hierarchical relationship.
Fortunately, the New Testament offers a variety of diverse theological viewpoints, and Ware, predictably, turns to 1 Timothy to buttress his argument. This letter is a mischievous reactionary screed, which along with Jude, represents two of the most regrettable collective decisions of the entire New Testament canonization process. Seriously, when a letter claims that salvation is available to women not through Christ but through childbearing, the responsible thing to do is to point out that this is blatantly at odds with the teachings of the rest of the New Testament.
Ware, of course, doesn't agree with me. He thinks that women's job is to be barefoot and pregnant.
Fuck you, Ware.
Always Dispense with the Difficult Bits in the Title...
It does less harm there than in the rest of the paper.
Following the standard Chomsky-Herman propaganda model, the Canadian press is complicit with the Canadian government in putting this cynical principle into practice, presently on the subject of Zimbabwe, where, all international observers are now agreed, Robert Mugabe has won a viciously rigged "election" and stands ready to continue his dictatorial rule over that country.
(Already, it will also intrigue readers to know, various liberal-militarist hawks at my school are discussing whether the time is ripe to start killing people in Zimbabwe.)
The long-awaited Canadian response has now been delivered, under CTV's sharp, exciting headline: "Canada announces steps against Zimbabwe." Our foreign minister, the (dis)Honourable David Emerson (who crossed the floor the day after the last election on the grounds that he didn't like being a member of a losing party), released a public statement stridently criticizing Mugabe and promising that Canada would "seriously restrict its relationship with" Zimbabwe as punishment for the stolen election.
It would, I suppose, be petty to point out that Canada continues to have "unrestricted" relationships with a wide variety of countries whose elections are routinely rigged. Our best ally in central Asia remains Pakistan, where much the same thing has been happening for some years now. I could go on.
More to the point, Emerson's "restrictions" are in fact totally bogus, a made-for-public-consumption piece of flimflam which proves once again the contempt that governments hold for their citizens even in "democratic" countries where elections aren't "stolen." Specifically, we're going to "restrict" Zimbabwe by delivering a strong diplomatic protest (which will be ignored) and refuse overflight privileges to Zimbabwean aircraft. Sounds nice, though it's totally meaningless, given that Zimbabwe doesn't fly any planes to Canada anyways. My trusty Wikipedia informs me that they have only two jets that fly internationally, and both go only to Europe.
The best part is the announcement that Canada will no longer sell any military goods to Zimbabwe. Of course, there's already a ban on Canadian military exports to Zimbabwe, so basically the new "restrictions" amount to doing everything we're already doing and nothing more.
Foreign policy is a charade performed for the domestic audience.
Following the standard Chomsky-Herman propaganda model, the Canadian press is complicit with the Canadian government in putting this cynical principle into practice, presently on the subject of Zimbabwe, where, all international observers are now agreed, Robert Mugabe has won a viciously rigged "election" and stands ready to continue his dictatorial rule over that country.
(Already, it will also intrigue readers to know, various liberal-militarist hawks at my school are discussing whether the time is ripe to start killing people in Zimbabwe.)
The long-awaited Canadian response has now been delivered, under CTV's sharp, exciting headline: "Canada announces steps against Zimbabwe." Our foreign minister, the (dis)Honourable David Emerson (who crossed the floor the day after the last election on the grounds that he didn't like being a member of a losing party), released a public statement stridently criticizing Mugabe and promising that Canada would "seriously restrict its relationship with" Zimbabwe as punishment for the stolen election.
It would, I suppose, be petty to point out that Canada continues to have "unrestricted" relationships with a wide variety of countries whose elections are routinely rigged. Our best ally in central Asia remains Pakistan, where much the same thing has been happening for some years now. I could go on.
More to the point, Emerson's "restrictions" are in fact totally bogus, a made-for-public-consumption piece of flimflam which proves once again the contempt that governments hold for their citizens even in "democratic" countries where elections aren't "stolen." Specifically, we're going to "restrict" Zimbabwe by delivering a strong diplomatic protest (which will be ignored) and refuse overflight privileges to Zimbabwean aircraft. Sounds nice, though it's totally meaningless, given that Zimbabwe doesn't fly any planes to Canada anyways. My trusty Wikipedia informs me that they have only two jets that fly internationally, and both go only to Europe.
The best part is the announcement that Canada will no longer sell any military goods to Zimbabwe. Of course, there's already a ban on Canadian military exports to Zimbabwe, so basically the new "restrictions" amount to doing everything we're already doing and nothing more.
Foreign policy is a charade performed for the domestic audience.
Rehoboam and the End of the Unified Kingdom: 1 Kings 11:14 - 12:24
This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
God doesn't play around when it comes to clashing with kings. The Israelite empire has been struggling for years with local resistance movements in Aram and Edom, where they conducted genocidal campaigns under David and Joab. In Solomon's later years, however, God raises up an enemy from within the Israelite ranks to rankle Solomon: Jereboam of Nebat, an Ephraimite in charge of the slave labour forces. Jeroboam has a seemingly chance meeting with a prophet just outside Jerusalem - a real prophet, not the "find my lost keys" kind of prophet that Saul was familiar with - who says Jeroboam will be made king of ten of the tribes of Israel. Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam but the latter escapes into exile in Egypt, which is rapidly becoming a haven for anti-imperial dissidents, sort of an ancient Middle Eastern version of Cuba or Venezuela. Then Solomon dies and leaves his eldest son Rehoboam to fight the gathering storm.
Rehoboam chooses the city of Shechem for his coronation, which is a bit of a strange choice - not a lot of good things happen in Shechem. Jeroboam returns and leads what basically amounts to a labour protest movement, calling on the king to "lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put upon" the forced labor contingents. Given the social structure of Solomon's empire, this comes perilously close to a slavery abolition movement.
Rehoboam's senior advisors are actually in favour of this move, noting that it would make Rehoboam very popular politically. Rehoboam's childhood friends, however, aren't convinced, and illogically claim that instead Rehoboam should instead be even crueller in his repression of the slaves. They also suggest he deliver some public speeches suggesting that Solomon had a small penis (the NIV helpfully euphemizes this to say that Solomon had a small "waist." Come on, now.) The king follows their advice, except for the bit about penises.
Maybe it's the lack of penis jokes that did him in, but in any event, the Israelites are unsurprisingly not impressed by their new king. All of the tribes except for Judah declare that they have no "share" in King David, and certainly have no share in King David's grandson Rehoboam, and therefore they have no intention of serving him as subjects. Rehoboam sends out his slave boss, presumably with some armed men, to try and lay down the law, but the Israelites rise up and stone them to death. 1 Kings implies that "Israel" is "in rebellion against the house of David," which I suppose is true, although in this case it seems like a perfectly legitimate cause for resistance.
When the police fail, the state usually turns to the army - and that's precisely what Rehoboam does. He mobilizes 180 000 troops from the Judeans and the Benjamites, a small tribe which apparently remains loyal to him despite everything that has happened and prepares to force everyone back to work (essentially this is the first back to work legislation, which the governments of Ontario and British Columbia will doubtless find inspiring in their relentless efforts to annihilate their citizens' civil rights). At this point, however, God intervenes on behalf of the oppressed workers, sending a prophet named Shemaiah to Rehoboam to warn him that God doesn't want any fighting to take place. Rehoboam's army obeys the word of God and dissolves.
This is a fascinating moment. The kingdom of Israel is broken - actually, both the monarchy and the state in general have been preserved as valuable institutions, but they're no longer presiding over a unified nation of Israel in the name of God. Just as God said he would do, he's split Judah from the rest of Israel and left the son of Solomon with a single tribe to rule.
Perhaps most insterestingly, though, this is a mostly bloodless coup. God's direct intervention in the story is extremely limited - indeed, the most direct action he takes is actually the moment where he intervenes to tell the army to stand down, which they do in good faith. It seems the God of the Book of Kings is no longer interested in the sort of militaristic relations that characterized the books of Samuel and Joshua and (in a sarcastic form) even Judges. This God actually seems more interested in nonviolence, at least for the time being. It's refreshing.
God doesn't play around when it comes to clashing with kings. The Israelite empire has been struggling for years with local resistance movements in Aram and Edom, where they conducted genocidal campaigns under David and Joab. In Solomon's later years, however, God raises up an enemy from within the Israelite ranks to rankle Solomon: Jereboam of Nebat, an Ephraimite in charge of the slave labour forces. Jeroboam has a seemingly chance meeting with a prophet just outside Jerusalem - a real prophet, not the "find my lost keys" kind of prophet that Saul was familiar with - who says Jeroboam will be made king of ten of the tribes of Israel. Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam but the latter escapes into exile in Egypt, which is rapidly becoming a haven for anti-imperial dissidents, sort of an ancient Middle Eastern version of Cuba or Venezuela. Then Solomon dies and leaves his eldest son Rehoboam to fight the gathering storm.
Rehoboam chooses the city of Shechem for his coronation, which is a bit of a strange choice - not a lot of good things happen in Shechem. Jeroboam returns and leads what basically amounts to a labour protest movement, calling on the king to "lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put upon" the forced labor contingents. Given the social structure of Solomon's empire, this comes perilously close to a slavery abolition movement.
Rehoboam's senior advisors are actually in favour of this move, noting that it would make Rehoboam very popular politically. Rehoboam's childhood friends, however, aren't convinced, and illogically claim that instead Rehoboam should instead be even crueller in his repression of the slaves. They also suggest he deliver some public speeches suggesting that Solomon had a small penis (the NIV helpfully euphemizes this to say that Solomon had a small "waist." Come on, now.) The king follows their advice, except for the bit about penises.
Maybe it's the lack of penis jokes that did him in, but in any event, the Israelites are unsurprisingly not impressed by their new king. All of the tribes except for Judah declare that they have no "share" in King David, and certainly have no share in King David's grandson Rehoboam, and therefore they have no intention of serving him as subjects. Rehoboam sends out his slave boss, presumably with some armed men, to try and lay down the law, but the Israelites rise up and stone them to death. 1 Kings implies that "Israel" is "in rebellion against the house of David," which I suppose is true, although in this case it seems like a perfectly legitimate cause for resistance.
When the police fail, the state usually turns to the army - and that's precisely what Rehoboam does. He mobilizes 180 000 troops from the Judeans and the Benjamites, a small tribe which apparently remains loyal to him despite everything that has happened and prepares to force everyone back to work (essentially this is the first back to work legislation, which the governments of Ontario and British Columbia will doubtless find inspiring in their relentless efforts to annihilate their citizens' civil rights). At this point, however, God intervenes on behalf of the oppressed workers, sending a prophet named Shemaiah to Rehoboam to warn him that God doesn't want any fighting to take place. Rehoboam's army obeys the word of God and dissolves.
This is a fascinating moment. The kingdom of Israel is broken - actually, both the monarchy and the state in general have been preserved as valuable institutions, but they're no longer presiding over a unified nation of Israel in the name of God. Just as God said he would do, he's split Judah from the rest of Israel and left the son of Solomon with a single tribe to rule.
Perhaps most insterestingly, though, this is a mostly bloodless coup. God's direct intervention in the story is extremely limited - indeed, the most direct action he takes is actually the moment where he intervenes to tell the army to stand down, which they do in good faith. It seems the God of the Book of Kings is no longer interested in the sort of militaristic relations that characterized the books of Samuel and Joshua and (in a sarcastic form) even Judges. This God actually seems more interested in nonviolence, at least for the time being. It's refreshing.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Solomon Goes Too Far: 1 Kings 10 - 11:13
This post is part of a revolutionary Biblical commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
We had some firm social criticism, and after a brief break to praise Solomon's wisdom, the author of 1 Kings returns to what is becoming his favorite pastime. (The Bible is like Fox News: fair, and balanced.)
Solomon receives a visit from the queen of Sheba. She has heard of Solomon's great wisdom and excellent walk with God, so she comes to visit, "to test him with hard questions." What sort of questions? Logic? Theology? Theoretical physics?
No one seems to know where Sheba is either, for that matter; Wikipedia says it was either in Ethiopia or Yemen, which aren't even on the same continent, though they are both south of Israel, which I guess counts for something. Either way, the queen of Sheba - who doesn't get a name in the narrative - is most impressed, though she seems more impressed by the wealth of the palace than by the wisdom of Solomon. She promises to deliver a positive report to her country and agrees with Solomon that God must love Solomon and Israel, in order to do such wonderful things for them.
Ah, yes, the Benjamin Franklin argument: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" No, I suppose it isn't - but then, we'd have to look at all the other empires God has therefore "aided." Like the evil Egyptians, for example. And the Romans. And all the others who oppress the ancient Jews, though I suppose we haven't got to those yet.
Solomon also profits handsomely from the visit, adding new treasures from Sheba to what the author of 1 Kings is now referring to as the king's "royal bounty." In this case, he gets 120 more talents of gold, along with "precious stones" and the largest shipment of spices ever delivered to ancient Israel.
And that's just the start! If there was any doubt that the author is contemptuous of Solomon, the next verse sweeps that doubt away:
Solomon now has an annual income in gold alone of 666 talents, i.e. about $650 million a year, which is a tidy sum, I suppose. (This doesn't include an extra set of separate revenues that Solomon collects from his trade with the states in Arabia.) All together that gives him enough excess gold that he indulges in a massive renovation project for his palace, including two hundred large gold shields (each weighing 7 pounds), three hundred "small" gold shields (about half the size for each), and a new gold-and-ivory throne complete with golden lions - "nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom." Solomon also orders all the palace's cutlery and dishes remde from gold, and throws out the old silver dishes on the grounds that Israel is now so rich they have no need of cheap silver. He sponsors yet another fleet of trading ships, which sails with its counterpart in Tyre on three-year voyages to collect cargoes of ivory, apes, and baboons.
Baboons? Cool. Though I don't know why Solomon would need baboons.
In addition to the 40 000 horses referenced before, Solomon now has a chariot army numbering twelve thousand horses and 1400 chariots. He makes silver "as common in Jerusalem as stones," plants cedar groves everywhere, and even has a flourishing international arms trade, importing chariots from Egypt and selling them at a profit to the Hittites and the Arameans. Even worse, Solomon starts importing horses along with the chariots - yet another violation of Deuteronomy 17.
That covers the horses and riches restrictions on kings, which Solomon clearly isn't concerned with. Now it's time for the restrictions on marriage, an area in which Solomon's excesses are probably much better known. Solomon, says the author, "loved foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter" - and he loved them in the hundreds. Solomon marries Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites - and his excesses become so extreme here that the author actually interjects with an explicit judgement, reminding readers that God once told the Israelites never to intermarry with foreigners. Solomon doesn't care: he has 700 wives "of royal birth" and three hundred concubines, presumably those who are not "of royal birth."
According to 1 Kings, it is the women more than anything that cause Solomon to go astray. He starts experimenting with the various religious faiths of his many wives, like Ashtoreth, Molech, and all the other fun pagan gods that the Israelites have alternately loved and hated through the years. Eventually he's persuaded to introduce religious tolerance to Israel, building ritual places for the Moabite and Ammonite faiths. He burns incense and offers sacrifices to every god imaginable.
Unsurprisingly, this makes God quite angry. He says that Solomon is going to be fired as king, just like Saul was (actually the same language is used, something about "tearing away" the kingdom from the king). But because David was righteous, God says, he will spare the royal house and let one tribe remain as a "kingdom" for future generations. I'll bet it's Judah! God also says that because Solomon was so nice in building that Temple and all, he's going to hold off on the rebellion until after Solomon dies.
What is the lesson to draw from Solomon? We could be misogynistic and suggest that his foreign wives were what did him in (indeed 1 Kings seems to think this one is the most important). It certainly doesn't appear that he was inherently an evil and despicable man - after all, one of his first acts as king (after the dubious murders conducted at the beginning of his reign, anyways) was to ask God for wisdom and guidance so that he could be just, after which he promptly built a Temple for God, the first truly permanent structure of worship in Israel.
It's tempting to stop at the "foreign women are dangerous" line, and a quick Google search suggests to me that a lot of people do, but it's worth noting that this is just the last of the many sins that the author of 1 Kings is chiefly concerned with (except for the brief reference to the Pharaoh's daughter early on). What about his massive gold hoard? Or his excess of horses? If we go by the measure of Deuteronomy 17 rather than the more limited prohibition against foreign wives, we can see that Solomon is much more corrupt than just the presence of some pagan wives can explain. And this has occurred to him despite the fact that he seems to be righteous and well-intentioned to begin with.
Indeed, it's hard to draw from 1 Kings the implication that Solomon has really become so depraved that he honestly believes in and worships all these gods - at least not without doing great injustice to the notion of Solomon as a wise man. He's known God on an intimate basis and devoted much to furthering God's position in Israel - at least as he understands it, which is in the form of permanent physical monuments to God's power. I suspect Solomon isn't a pagan so much as a politician. He sees political benefit in appealing to minorities - so he shows up to their worship services and follows along in exchange for their support for his government. Maybe I'm trying to write too much contemporary culture into ancient history, but I can see this being plausible. It certainly happens often enough today.
And for most of his life, it pays off - he's a pretty successful king by any normal material measure.
The problem, I suspect, is meant to be a systemic one. God never did want a king in Israel, and, the author of 1 Kings suggests, this is the inevitable result when frail human imperfection is combined with the potential power of a militarized and imperial state. In the short term the state can try to wed the religious and secular agendas by showering the priesthood with fancy gifts like new temples, but in the long run the goals of these two institutions are mutually exclusive.
We had some firm social criticism, and after a brief break to praise Solomon's wisdom, the author of 1 Kings returns to what is becoming his favorite pastime. (The Bible is like Fox News: fair, and balanced.)
Solomon receives a visit from the queen of Sheba. She has heard of Solomon's great wisdom and excellent walk with God, so she comes to visit, "to test him with hard questions." What sort of questions? Logic? Theology? Theoretical physics?
No one seems to know where Sheba is either, for that matter; Wikipedia says it was either in Ethiopia or Yemen, which aren't even on the same continent, though they are both south of Israel, which I guess counts for something. Either way, the queen of Sheba - who doesn't get a name in the narrative - is most impressed, though she seems more impressed by the wealth of the palace than by the wisdom of Solomon. She promises to deliver a positive report to her country and agrees with Solomon that God must love Solomon and Israel, in order to do such wonderful things for them.
Ah, yes, the Benjamin Franklin argument: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" No, I suppose it isn't - but then, we'd have to look at all the other empires God has therefore "aided." Like the evil Egyptians, for example. And the Romans. And all the others who oppress the ancient Jews, though I suppose we haven't got to those yet.
Solomon also profits handsomely from the visit, adding new treasures from Sheba to what the author of 1 Kings is now referring to as the king's "royal bounty." In this case, he gets 120 more talents of gold, along with "precious stones" and the largest shipment of spices ever delivered to ancient Israel.
And that's just the start! If there was any doubt that the author is contemptuous of Solomon, the next verse sweeps that doubt away:
Solomon now has an annual income in gold alone of 666 talents, i.e. about $650 million a year, which is a tidy sum, I suppose. (This doesn't include an extra set of separate revenues that Solomon collects from his trade with the states in Arabia.) All together that gives him enough excess gold that he indulges in a massive renovation project for his palace, including two hundred large gold shields (each weighing 7 pounds), three hundred "small" gold shields (about half the size for each), and a new gold-and-ivory throne complete with golden lions - "nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom." Solomon also orders all the palace's cutlery and dishes remde from gold, and throws out the old silver dishes on the grounds that Israel is now so rich they have no need of cheap silver. He sponsors yet another fleet of trading ships, which sails with its counterpart in Tyre on three-year voyages to collect cargoes of ivory, apes, and baboons.
Baboons? Cool. Though I don't know why Solomon would need baboons.
In addition to the 40 000 horses referenced before, Solomon now has a chariot army numbering twelve thousand horses and 1400 chariots. He makes silver "as common in Jerusalem as stones," plants cedar groves everywhere, and even has a flourishing international arms trade, importing chariots from Egypt and selling them at a profit to the Hittites and the Arameans. Even worse, Solomon starts importing horses along with the chariots - yet another violation of Deuteronomy 17.
That covers the horses and riches restrictions on kings, which Solomon clearly isn't concerned with. Now it's time for the restrictions on marriage, an area in which Solomon's excesses are probably much better known. Solomon, says the author, "loved foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter" - and he loved them in the hundreds. Solomon marries Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites - and his excesses become so extreme here that the author actually interjects with an explicit judgement, reminding readers that God once told the Israelites never to intermarry with foreigners. Solomon doesn't care: he has 700 wives "of royal birth" and three hundred concubines, presumably those who are not "of royal birth."
According to 1 Kings, it is the women more than anything that cause Solomon to go astray. He starts experimenting with the various religious faiths of his many wives, like Ashtoreth, Molech, and all the other fun pagan gods that the Israelites have alternately loved and hated through the years. Eventually he's persuaded to introduce religious tolerance to Israel, building ritual places for the Moabite and Ammonite faiths. He burns incense and offers sacrifices to every god imaginable.
Unsurprisingly, this makes God quite angry. He says that Solomon is going to be fired as king, just like Saul was (actually the same language is used, something about "tearing away" the kingdom from the king). But because David was righteous, God says, he will spare the royal house and let one tribe remain as a "kingdom" for future generations. I'll bet it's Judah! God also says that because Solomon was so nice in building that Temple and all, he's going to hold off on the rebellion until after Solomon dies.
What is the lesson to draw from Solomon? We could be misogynistic and suggest that his foreign wives were what did him in (indeed 1 Kings seems to think this one is the most important). It certainly doesn't appear that he was inherently an evil and despicable man - after all, one of his first acts as king (after the dubious murders conducted at the beginning of his reign, anyways) was to ask God for wisdom and guidance so that he could be just, after which he promptly built a Temple for God, the first truly permanent structure of worship in Israel.
It's tempting to stop at the "foreign women are dangerous" line, and a quick Google search suggests to me that a lot of people do, but it's worth noting that this is just the last of the many sins that the author of 1 Kings is chiefly concerned with (except for the brief reference to the Pharaoh's daughter early on). What about his massive gold hoard? Or his excess of horses? If we go by the measure of Deuteronomy 17 rather than the more limited prohibition against foreign wives, we can see that Solomon is much more corrupt than just the presence of some pagan wives can explain. And this has occurred to him despite the fact that he seems to be righteous and well-intentioned to begin with.
Indeed, it's hard to draw from 1 Kings the implication that Solomon has really become so depraved that he honestly believes in and worships all these gods - at least not without doing great injustice to the notion of Solomon as a wise man. He's known God on an intimate basis and devoted much to furthering God's position in Israel - at least as he understands it, which is in the form of permanent physical monuments to God's power. I suspect Solomon isn't a pagan so much as a politician. He sees political benefit in appealing to minorities - so he shows up to their worship services and follows along in exchange for their support for his government. Maybe I'm trying to write too much contemporary culture into ancient history, but I can see this being plausible. It certainly happens often enough today.
And for most of his life, it pays off - he's a pretty successful king by any normal material measure.
The problem, I suspect, is meant to be a systemic one. God never did want a king in Israel, and, the author of 1 Kings suggests, this is the inevitable result when frail human imperfection is combined with the potential power of a militarized and imperial state. In the short term the state can try to wed the religious and secular agendas by showering the priesthood with fancy gifts like new temples, but in the long run the goals of these two institutions are mutually exclusive.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Solomon's Largesse: 1 Kings 9:10-28
This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
I was wrong - the author of 1 Kings is just wildly bouncing back and forth between fawning praise and bitter criticism.
A couple days ago I noted the conditions set out in Deuteronomy for determining a bad king - too many horses, too much contact with Egypt, too much gold, too many wives. The latter half of 1 Kings 9 implicitly adds another: too much fraternization with foreigners.
Before I noted that God seemed pleased with the work done in his name, but now the author of 1 Kings sounds a note of caution. Part of the payment given to Tyre, says the writer, was a promise that 20 Galilean towns would be given to the king of Tyre as vassal properties. Solomon follows through on this promise, though Tyre seems less than grateful, since it names the new province "the Worthless Land." It's also revealed that at some point during the proceedings, Tyre also made a personal payment to Solomon in the amount of four metric tons of gold. Deuteronomy 17 said a king shouldn't own too much gold or silver. I don't know how much gold is too much, but I know that 4 tons of gold is currently worth about $115 million, which sounds like a great deal of gold to me.
Later, Solomon builds a fleet of ships which sails to Ophir and bring him a profit of 420 talents of gold - in other words, an extra $400 million or so. Gold, gold, gold for everyone!
The next paragraph starts with the rather chilling phrase, "Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces," and the city walls. The slave labour is also used to rebuild a new city given to Solomon by the Pharaoh as a wedding gift (he captured Gezer, burned it to the ground, slaughtered its Canaanite inhabitants, and then gave the smoldering ruins to Solomon as a wedding present). They were also used to build large military bases throughout Israelite territory. The slave labour allegedly included pretty much everyone in the area who wasn't an Israelite - Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, and so on, and Solomon made them into a permanent "slave labor force," according to the Bible. The Israelites remained as Solomon's "fighting men, government officials, officers, captains, and commanders."
The division of labour is interesting because it suggests that Israel has gradually transitioned from an introverted Israelite society based on Israelite labour into an empire built on slave labour, à la ancient Rome - or, more relevant to the present discussion, ancient Egypt, which also had a grand king (the Pharaoh), state religion, slave labour (in the form of the Israelites), and so on.
Adam Michnik once said that "Those who start by storming Bastilles will end up building new Bastilles." It took the Israelites quite a while, but 1 Kings seems to be suggesting that that is precisely what they have done. To the dealings with Egypt I mentioned before, we can now add an excessive personal supply of gold. The author of 1 Kings is gradually chipping away at the image of Solomon as ideal king.
I was wrong - the author of 1 Kings is just wildly bouncing back and forth between fawning praise and bitter criticism.
A couple days ago I noted the conditions set out in Deuteronomy for determining a bad king - too many horses, too much contact with Egypt, too much gold, too many wives. The latter half of 1 Kings 9 implicitly adds another: too much fraternization with foreigners.
Before I noted that God seemed pleased with the work done in his name, but now the author of 1 Kings sounds a note of caution. Part of the payment given to Tyre, says the writer, was a promise that 20 Galilean towns would be given to the king of Tyre as vassal properties. Solomon follows through on this promise, though Tyre seems less than grateful, since it names the new province "the Worthless Land." It's also revealed that at some point during the proceedings, Tyre also made a personal payment to Solomon in the amount of four metric tons of gold. Deuteronomy 17 said a king shouldn't own too much gold or silver. I don't know how much gold is too much, but I know that 4 tons of gold is currently worth about $115 million, which sounds like a great deal of gold to me.
Later, Solomon builds a fleet of ships which sails to Ophir and bring him a profit of 420 talents of gold - in other words, an extra $400 million or so. Gold, gold, gold for everyone!
The next paragraph starts with the rather chilling phrase, "Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces," and the city walls. The slave labour is also used to rebuild a new city given to Solomon by the Pharaoh as a wedding gift (he captured Gezer, burned it to the ground, slaughtered its Canaanite inhabitants, and then gave the smoldering ruins to Solomon as a wedding present). They were also used to build large military bases throughout Israelite territory. The slave labour allegedly included pretty much everyone in the area who wasn't an Israelite - Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, and so on, and Solomon made them into a permanent "slave labor force," according to the Bible. The Israelites remained as Solomon's "fighting men, government officials, officers, captains, and commanders."
The division of labour is interesting because it suggests that Israel has gradually transitioned from an introverted Israelite society based on Israelite labour into an empire built on slave labour, à la ancient Rome - or, more relevant to the present discussion, ancient Egypt, which also had a grand king (the Pharaoh), state religion, slave labour (in the form of the Israelites), and so on.
Adam Michnik once said that "Those who start by storming Bastilles will end up building new Bastilles." It took the Israelites quite a while, but 1 Kings seems to be suggesting that that is precisely what they have done. To the dealings with Egypt I mentioned before, we can now add an excessive personal supply of gold. The author of 1 Kings is gradually chipping away at the image of Solomon as ideal king.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Solomon the Architect: 1 Kings 5 - 9:9
This post is part of a revolutionary Biblical commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
Solomon decides to build the long-awaited permanent temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and even though he doesn't get a long dictation of instructions from God (as Moses did in Exodus), the Bible still takes a long time to describe his plans, which call for the finest in imported Lebanese cedar. At the center is an "inner sanctuary" in which the Ark of the Covenant will be kept. (Today, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a similar space within which it claims the Ark now rests.) Various bronze decorative items are prepared for Solomon, mostly by a famous craftsman named Huram. Finally, the Ark of the Covenant is brought to the temple by the priests and Levites.
With the temple built, Solomon turns his attention to the matter of his own palace. This is a symbolic reversal of his father David, who built his own palace and then wondered about making a house for God. Is this a subtle criticism of King David, injected by the author of 1 Kings?
Solomon's palace, like the temple itself, is an impressive structure; he calls it the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon and it's also, as the name would suggest, made of imported cedar.
What's interesting about Solomon's work is that his architecture is a multinational project. Israel's xenophobia is starting to diminish, it would seem (is this moral criticism of Solomon or some long-awaited tolerance on the part of the author? One wonders...). The cedar is purchased from Lebanon via Tyre. Huram is also from Tyre, though his mother was a Naphtali Israelite. Partly in exchange for the work and the resources, Solomon gives twenty Galilean towns to the king of Tyre.
The various Israelite royal festivities have been competing with each other in gore and blood for a while now, beginning under Saul and David. Solomon now tops them all by dedicating the new Temple in a ceremony which saw the sacrifice of "so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted." Given the penchant of the Biblical authors for counting damn near everything, this is a telling admission - especially in light of the fact that someone was on hand to count all the animals available in a second, smaller part of the ceremony which followed later, and involved the sacrifice of 22 000 cattle and 120 000 sheep and goats. Holy fucking Christ. Israel sure has a lot of spare meat available for an early agricultural society.
The Ark is placed carefully into the holiest part of the sanctuaries by the priests and then a dark cloud fills the temple. Solomon takes this as a sign that the Lord is ready to "dwell forever" in the new Temple. He therefore delivers an extremely lengthy speech, followed by an extraordinarily lengthy prayer. It's actually a really cool, well-written passage in my opinion, even if I don't think much of Solomon himself. It's so well written, in fact, that I actually find myself agreeing with my Men's Bible, in which Philip Yancey calls the prayer "majestic." God seems to agree, and he appears to Solomon in a dream again, promising him that if he is righteous God will "establish your royal throne over Israel forever."
In the last entry I speculated that the author of 1 Kings was critical of the monarchy, but at this point I have to wonder whether I was being a little idealistic, or at least jumping the gun a little (since I know for a fact that the criticism of Solomon will resume later). God seems quite pleased with his new king's deeds, despite the fact that way back in 1 Samuel he didn't seem to want a king at all. By blessing Solomon's joint architectural projects (the temple and the palace), God is simultaneously blessing the new social and political order of Israel.
Solomon decides to build the long-awaited permanent temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and even though he doesn't get a long dictation of instructions from God (as Moses did in Exodus), the Bible still takes a long time to describe his plans, which call for the finest in imported Lebanese cedar. At the center is an "inner sanctuary" in which the Ark of the Covenant will be kept. (Today, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a similar space within which it claims the Ark now rests.) Various bronze decorative items are prepared for Solomon, mostly by a famous craftsman named Huram. Finally, the Ark of the Covenant is brought to the temple by the priests and Levites.
With the temple built, Solomon turns his attention to the matter of his own palace. This is a symbolic reversal of his father David, who built his own palace and then wondered about making a house for God. Is this a subtle criticism of King David, injected by the author of 1 Kings?
Solomon's palace, like the temple itself, is an impressive structure; he calls it the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon and it's also, as the name would suggest, made of imported cedar.
What's interesting about Solomon's work is that his architecture is a multinational project. Israel's xenophobia is starting to diminish, it would seem (is this moral criticism of Solomon or some long-awaited tolerance on the part of the author? One wonders...). The cedar is purchased from Lebanon via Tyre. Huram is also from Tyre, though his mother was a Naphtali Israelite. Partly in exchange for the work and the resources, Solomon gives twenty Galilean towns to the king of Tyre.
The various Israelite royal festivities have been competing with each other in gore and blood for a while now, beginning under Saul and David. Solomon now tops them all by dedicating the new Temple in a ceremony which saw the sacrifice of "so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted." Given the penchant of the Biblical authors for counting damn near everything, this is a telling admission - especially in light of the fact that someone was on hand to count all the animals available in a second, smaller part of the ceremony which followed later, and involved the sacrifice of 22 000 cattle and 120 000 sheep and goats. Holy fucking Christ. Israel sure has a lot of spare meat available for an early agricultural society.
The Ark is placed carefully into the holiest part of the sanctuaries by the priests and then a dark cloud fills the temple. Solomon takes this as a sign that the Lord is ready to "dwell forever" in the new Temple. He therefore delivers an extremely lengthy speech, followed by an extraordinarily lengthy prayer. It's actually a really cool, well-written passage in my opinion, even if I don't think much of Solomon himself. It's so well written, in fact, that I actually find myself agreeing with my Men's Bible, in which Philip Yancey calls the prayer "majestic." God seems to agree, and he appears to Solomon in a dream again, promising him that if he is righteous God will "establish your royal throne over Israel forever."
In the last entry I speculated that the author of 1 Kings was critical of the monarchy, but at this point I have to wonder whether I was being a little idealistic, or at least jumping the gun a little (since I know for a fact that the criticism of Solomon will resume later). God seems quite pleased with his new king's deeds, despite the fact that way back in 1 Samuel he didn't seem to want a king at all. By blessing Solomon's joint architectural projects (the temple and the palace), God is simultaneously blessing the new social and political order of Israel.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Solomon the Wise? 1 Kings 3-4
This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.
The following two chapters appear to be fawning praise of Solomon. He offesr a ridiculously enormous sacrifice of a thousand burnt animals, and then has a dream in which God offers to grant him three wishes (well, only one wish actually). Solomon asks for wisdom that will help him as king, acknowleding that he is young and inexperienced. The dream-God seems surprised that he didn't ask for wealth or long life, or even death to his enemies, but "discernment in administering justice" - the mark, it would seem, of a truly good king. So much for the militarism that still survived in Samuel. Because Solomon is so selfless, dream-God says that he will give Solomon riches and a long life too. Solomon responds by holding even more sacrifices, plus a giant feast. He appoints officials over all Egypt and creates a sort of feudal structure under which they collect taxes in the districts and then pay him a portion of their income.
Solomon's wisdom rapidly becomes the stuff of ludicrously high praise. Solomon, the author of 1 Kings writes proudly, was wiser than anyoe sel on earth, even "the men of the East." He was famous, spoke 3000 proverbs and wrote over a thousand songs. He was a botanist, a biologist, and a sage. When two prostitutes came to him disputing over an infant (one has killed the other's, and now falsely claims that hers is the infant who is still alive), Solomon tricks the guilty woman into admitting her guilt by making the ghoulish proposition that the baby be cut in two and half given to each woman. (The guilty woman is prepared to accept half the baby, but the real mother, naturally, would never bear to see her son killed.) The Israelites are "awed" by Solomon's wisdom and justice.
It's fawning praise and I suppose I can understand why I thought Solomon was supposed to be a positive model. On the other hand, even in these early years of his reign, there's a disturbing layer of subtext. Recall that way back in Deuteronomy 17, "Moses" included some rules for the future Israelite monarchy. Along with exhortations to know and follow God's laws, Moses establishes five specific prohibitions that a king must not under any circumstances violate: he must not have too many horses, he must not make people go back to Egypt or buy horses from Egypt (the symbolic humiliation of returning to Egypt was a common threat in the Torah), he must not take "many" wives, and he must not accumulate excessive wealth.
How's Solomon doing, according to this Mosaic measure of quality rulership? Not very good, it turns out.
First, Solomon starts out chapter 3 by marrying the daughter of Egypt's Pharaoh. Marrying foreigners was explicitly banned under the Israelite law, and marrying a Egyptian must be particularly dubious given the history of the two countries.
Second, Solomon has an enormous number of horses. How many it's not entirely clear: the NIV says it's four thousand stalls for chariot horses and twelve thousand horses, but admits in a footnote that according to the Hebrew manuscripts, it's actually forty thousand horses and twelve thousand charioteers. I realize Deuteronomy didn't specify exactly how many horses was too many, but I'm fairly certain that 40 000 is enough to qualify.
Whether Solomon has excess wealth is unclear, but he certainly has great appetite for material goods. His empire spans from Iraq to the Sinai and he collects enormous tribute, including "daily provisions" in the amount of 200 bushels of flour, 400 bushels of meal, thirty cows, a hundred sheep and goats, and innumerable deer and birds. Yum!
So then, even while the author of 1 Kings seemingly falls over himself praising Solomon's fine qualities as a just ruler, he works in some details which, given the Mosaic context, have to be interpreted as sharply critical of the king.
I suppose the only question remaining is: did the author of 1 Kings write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of Deueronomy, or did the author of Deuteronomy write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of 1 Kings?
The following two chapters appear to be fawning praise of Solomon. He offesr a ridiculously enormous sacrifice of a thousand burnt animals, and then has a dream in which God offers to grant him three wishes (well, only one wish actually). Solomon asks for wisdom that will help him as king, acknowleding that he is young and inexperienced. The dream-God seems surprised that he didn't ask for wealth or long life, or even death to his enemies, but "discernment in administering justice" - the mark, it would seem, of a truly good king. So much for the militarism that still survived in Samuel. Because Solomon is so selfless, dream-God says that he will give Solomon riches and a long life too. Solomon responds by holding even more sacrifices, plus a giant feast. He appoints officials over all Egypt and creates a sort of feudal structure under which they collect taxes in the districts and then pay him a portion of their income.
Solomon's wisdom rapidly becomes the stuff of ludicrously high praise. Solomon, the author of 1 Kings writes proudly, was wiser than anyoe sel on earth, even "the men of the East." He was famous, spoke 3000 proverbs and wrote over a thousand songs. He was a botanist, a biologist, and a sage. When two prostitutes came to him disputing over an infant (one has killed the other's, and now falsely claims that hers is the infant who is still alive), Solomon tricks the guilty woman into admitting her guilt by making the ghoulish proposition that the baby be cut in two and half given to each woman. (The guilty woman is prepared to accept half the baby, but the real mother, naturally, would never bear to see her son killed.) The Israelites are "awed" by Solomon's wisdom and justice.
It's fawning praise and I suppose I can understand why I thought Solomon was supposed to be a positive model. On the other hand, even in these early years of his reign, there's a disturbing layer of subtext. Recall that way back in Deuteronomy 17, "Moses" included some rules for the future Israelite monarchy. Along with exhortations to know and follow God's laws, Moses establishes five specific prohibitions that a king must not under any circumstances violate: he must not have too many horses, he must not make people go back to Egypt or buy horses from Egypt (the symbolic humiliation of returning to Egypt was a common threat in the Torah), he must not take "many" wives, and he must not accumulate excessive wealth.
How's Solomon doing, according to this Mosaic measure of quality rulership? Not very good, it turns out.
First, Solomon starts out chapter 3 by marrying the daughter of Egypt's Pharaoh. Marrying foreigners was explicitly banned under the Israelite law, and marrying a Egyptian must be particularly dubious given the history of the two countries.
Second, Solomon has an enormous number of horses. How many it's not entirely clear: the NIV says it's four thousand stalls for chariot horses and twelve thousand horses, but admits in a footnote that according to the Hebrew manuscripts, it's actually forty thousand horses and twelve thousand charioteers. I realize Deuteronomy didn't specify exactly how many horses was too many, but I'm fairly certain that 40 000 is enough to qualify.
Whether Solomon has excess wealth is unclear, but he certainly has great appetite for material goods. His empire spans from Iraq to the Sinai and he collects enormous tribute, including "daily provisions" in the amount of 200 bushels of flour, 400 bushels of meal, thirty cows, a hundred sheep and goats, and innumerable deer and birds. Yum!
So then, even while the author of 1 Kings seemingly falls over himself praising Solomon's fine qualities as a just ruler, he works in some details which, given the Mosaic context, have to be interpreted as sharply critical of the king.
I suppose the only question remaining is: did the author of 1 Kings write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of Deueronomy, or did the author of Deuteronomy write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of 1 Kings?
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