1 Kings 11:1-13 - Sin Defiled Solomon’s Temple

1 Kings 11:1-13

Solomon’s Heart Turns from the LORD

1 But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites— 2 from the nations of whom the LORD had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. 4 For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and did not fully follow the LORD, as did his father David. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. 8 And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

9 So the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD had commanded. 11 Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. 12 Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

King Solomon was like the children of Israel who left the bondage of sinful immorality and idolatry in Egypt but did not have the Egypt in them leave him.  He turned back to both immorality and idolatry through marriage with not only the archetypical wife of idolatry, the Pharaoh’s daughter, but also many from the idolatrous Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites whom the LORD had commanded to avoid due to their corruptive influences on the soul.  His heart went the way the LORD had warned them all of as it turned to other dead imaginary gods and broke the first commandment to satisfy his desires for pleasing himself and disregard for pleasing God.  He clung to these and refused to let them go in rebellion against God, with disastrous consequences.  The LORD told him that He would rip the kingdom from him and hand it over to his servant in the end after he had left the earth in honor of His promise to his father David to pass the kingdom down through his lineage until the Messiah would come to rule permanently.  Even then God would leave a remnant tribe to Solomon’s son (Judah) for the sake of that promise.  The Lion of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:9, 10), Jesus Christ, would arise in the end after all this disobedience (Hebrews 7:14) to redeem the remnant of those promised eternal life in Him as the Seed of promise to Abraham and David (Acts 3:25, 13:22-23, Romans 1:3, 2 Timothy 2:8) through this messianic line.  Even though God’s people could not get the Egypt out of themselves after He led them out from the bondage of sin in Egypt, He redeemed them.  He also has promised to hold us firmly in His hand (John 10:28-29) through His unbreakable covenant in His Son, even when we allow ourselves to go back to the spiritual Egypt of sins such as immorality and the resulting idolatry of Solomon as we are pulled away by unbelievers in unequal yoking or association that leads us to follow them away from the Lord, even so He will lead us back as promised to the kingdom prepared (Matthew 25:34, 2 Corinthians 5:4-5, Ephesians 2:10) for us from the beginning of time according to our calling of promise.  We have this example to remember that we do not fall away (1 Corinthians 10:6-7, 11) as we turn to the Lord for grace to help in such times (Hebrews 4:16, 1 Corinthians 10:13) to stand against such tugs of the world and our flesh against His Spirit and word in us, just as we read here that overwhelmed Solomon with a return to sin’s bondage of how sins of immorality to love and marry the ungodly turned his heart away to (1 Corinthians 10:14, Colossians 3:5) idolatry.  Sin defiled Solomon’s temple as it does ours; may we take heed to this account as a warning and keep our own temples clean (1 Corinthians 6:18-19, 20, 2 Corinthians 6:15-16) from such things and teach others the same.