Fatal Attraction

1 Kings 11
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, October 04, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gregory Broderick

After detailing the rise and great success of King Solomon in the first ten chapters of 1 Kings, chapter 11 starts out with a seemingly innocuous yet foreboding sentence:   “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women.”

Of course, we all recognize that this is not a good thing.  But it does not seem as bad as other sins, such as direct idolatry or murder.   It is indiscreet, perhaps, but, after all, this is common for powerful leaders, and it even served a political purpose in that time.  Joining in marriage with the daughter of a foreign leader was a way to seal a treaty, cement an alliance, promote good will with surrounding nations, or facilitate a trade deal.

But make no mistake:  These seven words mark a dramatic downturn in Solomon’s life.  This once mighty king, a man to whom God appeared twice, would end up idolatrous, weakened, losing his grip on his kingdom, and, in fact, abandoned by God.

Solomon’s story is a serious warning to all believers.  No matter what we have experienced or achieved in the kingdom of God, we can still fall.  Any sin, no matter how minor, no matter how much of a one-off it may seem, can be the conduit through which the devil destroys us and drags us to hell.

1. Solomon’s Height

To understand how dramatic Solomon’s fall was, we must first understand how high he went.  Remember that Solomon really should not have been king at all.  He was not the firstborn of David.  He was not even the firstborn of his mother Bathsheba, who was at least the eighth wife of the mighty king.  There were eight or ten other sons born before Solomon.  At least one of those, Adonijah, was still alive when David died.  Solomon also seemed to lack political support in the kingdom.  The mighty Joab and Abiathar the priest supported Adonijah’s claim to the throne.  So Solomon was not a connected person.  The point is that Solomon was not a likely successor to King David.  In fact, his more likely fate was to be killed, or at least banished by the new king, his older brother.  First Kings 1:21 says that Solomon and his mother could be treated as criminals.  Despite these challenges and despite the rather bleak outlook, God intervened and made Solomon king.  And the blossoming coup of Joab and Adonijah just sort of melted away.

Solomon’s kingship had a great start.  He thwarted Adonijah’s first coup and he thwarted Adonijah’s second coup attempt.  He struck down the crafty Joab, he banished Abiathar the priest, and he struck down Shimei the rebel.  In a short time, Solomon settled all family business.  Pastor Mathew preached a sermon on it called “The Day of Reckoning.”[1]  These people had done wrong for a long time.  Solomon came in and wiped them out in a short time.  As a result, 1 Kings 2:46 says, “The kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon’s hands.”  That is a pretty good start.

Beyond these political achievements, Solomon prospered spiritually as well.  In 1 Kings 3, God appeared to him, which is a rare honor.  We do not see too many theophanies in the Bible, but God appeared to Solomon.  More than that, God offered Solomon anything he wanted (1 Kings 3:5).  And in a great display of humility, Solomon asked for wisdom.  He asked for a discerning heart “to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong” (1 Kings 3:9).  God was pleased with this request—so pleased that he granted it and promised to give Solomon “what you have not asked for—both riches and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings” (1 Kings 3:13).

So this was a very good start.  And with his God-given wisdom, Solomon became world-renowned—so much so that the queen of far-away Sheba traveled over a thousand miles just to hear from him.  With his wisdom, Solomon spoke many proverbs and became a great scientist, describing plant and animal life (1 Kings 4:33).  He made arrangements and deals to acquire what he needed to build a great temple for God and then he actually carried it out.  He not only set it up and got the materials together, but he actually carried out this huge, complex, and important building project that was heavy on labor and low on technology.

Solomon also built a grand and majestic royal palace, and filled God’s temple with every kind of furnishing.  He brought the ark of God in the prescribed manner, and he placed it in God’s holy house.

He was successful in business.  His annual income, the Bible says, was more than twenty-five tons of gold.  It is hard to translate to today’s money, but a best estimate is about $1.5 billion annually.

Solomon prayed beautiful, pious, and theologically rich prayers.  He sacrificed tens of thousands of animals (1 Kings 8).  More than that, God appeared to him personally a second time.  God blessed the temple that Solomon had built and promised to establish Solomon’s kingdom forever.  In other words, chapters 1 through 10 of 1 Kings describe Solomon as a total success by any measure.

But even then the seeds of Solomon’s downfall were present in the background.  Two times God appeared to Solomon and promised him success, but both times God also included a warning.  In 1 Kings 3:14 God said, “If you walk in My ways and obey My statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you long life.”  So there is an implicit warning:  “If you do not obey, you will not have a long life.”  And in 1 Kings 9:6 and following, the Lord said, in essence, If you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you, and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will wreck your kingdom and destroy this beautiful temple.  So the warning is there.  The foreshadowing is there.

2. Solomon’s Dramatic Fall

From these highest heights, Solomon fell.  It was a dramatic free-fall from the riches, honor, and power that he held down to fecklessness and abandonment by God.  And it all started with these seven words at the beginning of 1 Kings 11:  “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women.”

You may not initially see the connection.  How could a thing like foreign wives ruin such a man and such a great kingdom?  The truth is that any and every sin, any and every temptation, carries with it the seeds of total destruction—the seeds of eternal destruction.  This is because every sin ultimately is a rebellion against God.

In Psalm 51:4 David, Solomon’s father, wrote, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”  Look at Cain’s murder against Abel.  It was his attempt to strike out against God.  Look at Ananias and Sapphira’s “little white lie” about the price they got for the land.  It was a lie, not to Peter, but to God the Holy Spirit.  Look at Adam’s and Eve’s seemingly very minor transgression.  They ate a piece of fruit they were not supposed to eat.  It does not seem like a big deal, but it was a major assault on God’s authority.

Every sin at its heart says God is not.  He has no authority to tell me what to do.  He has no omniscience.  In other words, He does not know what I am doing.  I can hide it from Him, like Achan.  He has no sovereignty.  He lacks the power to punish me or is not holy.  He does not really hate my sin.  He will not really punish me for my sin like He said.

Every sin is extremely dangerous for this reason:  It sets something else up above God.  In fact, it sets something else up as God.  Just look here—King Solomon loved many foreign women.  What may seem like an isolated problem quickly has its tentacles into all areas of life, even into worship.  Those foreign wives led Solomon astray.  Verse 7 says that Solomon built a high place for the detestable and false gods Chemosh and Molech.

Remember, David wanted to build God’s temple, and God said, “Not you.  I have someone else.”  Solomon is the specially selected builder of God’s temple, and what do we find him doing?  Building temples for idols, right there, just east of Jerusalem.  And he did that not only for Chemosh and Molech, but for all of his foreign wives—all seven hundred of them.  He did it so that they could worship and offer sacrifices right there in God’s promised land.

The progression of sin is gradual.  It does not start with, “I will build a temple for my foreign wives.”  No, verse 4 tells us that as Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God.  So, first, he breaks the command, “Don’t marry foreign wives.”  Then they are turning his heart.  So now he is no longer fully devoted to God.  What started out as loving foreign wives quickly became a divided heart in King Solomon.   But it doesn’t stop even there.  A divided heart is bad enough, but verse 9 says Solomon’s heart turned away from the Lord.  First it turned partly; he had a divided heart.  Now he has turned away from the Lord completely.

In verse 9 we read that Solomon turned away from the Lord.  Verse 5 says Solomon followed Ashtoreth, the despicable goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.  This is a big change.  This was the builder of God’s temple; the man God appeared to twice.  He married foreign wives.  He had turned partly away with a divided heart.  Pretty soon, he turned fully away and he is following these other gods.  You may remember that there were specific warnings against these particular gods in the Old Testament (for example, against Molech in Leviticus 18:21).  This was probably a gradual drift that took place over some period of time.  But we can see it was a short trip from “loved many foreign women” to profane worship of detestable idols.

Solomon’s failure is all the more shocking as God had specifically told the Israelites not to intermarry with the surrounding nations.  In Deuteronomy 7:3, God gave a clear rule:  “Do not intermarry with them.”  The reason was not race but rather idolatry.  And Deuteronomy 7:4 gives the reason for not intermarrying:  “for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods.”  It says the same thing in 1 Kings 11:2:  “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after other gods.”  In fact, we know this had happened previously in Numbers 25.  The Israelites began to take foreign women, and Phinehas goes into the tent and spears two of them into the ground.

Not only so, but Solomon knew all of this.  As the king, he had a copy of the Bible written in his own hand, so he must have known all of these rules and he must have known the history.  He knew the rules, he knew the reasons for the rules, and he knew the God who made the rules, who had appeared to him twice and who had even gave him a personal warning.

But verse 2 of chapter 11 says, “Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.”  You can see the grip that this sin had on Solomon.  Despite speaking to God, despite a personal warning from God, despite a clear command in Scripture, despite the cautionary tale we heard about in Numbers 25, he did it anyway.   He knew all about it, but it says “Nevertheless.”

Like everything else in his life, Solomon went big.  Not one or two or even a dozen or so wives would do.  No, Solomon would have seven hundred foreign wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3).  You see the fatal hold that this sin had, that this foreign-women-sin had over him.  He knew the God, he knew the rule, he knew the reason, he knew the risk.  “Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.”

What danger we encounter and what terrible risk we take when we indulge in sin! It is just a small thing, we tell ourselves, believing the devil’s lie that it is just a small thing.  But sin is not small.  It is big.  It is against God, and it always leads to greater and greater sin.  And sin is always a choice.  Will I obey God or will I obey my lust?  That is the choice we make every time we are tempted to sin.  Will I worship God alone, as he commanded, or will I do my own thing?  Will I choose God or will I choose something else?  This is the choice we are put to when we are tempted to sin.  These are the stakes every time.  Eternity is in the balance.

Now, maybe you are thinking, “It wasn’t really Solomon’s fault,” or, “It wasn’t all Solomon’s fault, at least not for marrying the foreign women.”  As I already said, this was the way of the world at the time.  That is how you make the trade deals.  That is how you make alliances.  You would probably give offense if you refused to marry the daughter of some random king over there.

So you might think that this was just part of the general job of a king.  Normal rules might apply to normal people, but surely the king could not be expected to follow the prohibition against intermarriage.  How would he make those trade deals?  How would he make those military alliances?

The answer is, no.  The word of God is the word of God.  It says, “Don’t intermarry with the foreign women,” so don’t do it.  As to how God will bless you, as to how He will bring you the riches and honor that He promised you—that is His business.  He promised to bless Solomon with riches and honor.  He promised to establish his kingdom forever.  He promised to give Solomon long life.  Surely God is able to do it.

God does not need us to help Him out by violating His commands.  You can never pursue God’s purposes through ungodly means.  That will fail every time.  God is able to keep His promises and to bless us exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or imagine.  Our duty is to obey Him, and then see how He will deliver.  It is not our duty to work it out for Him.  We are to obey; He will deliver.

Consider, for example, Daniel and his friends.  They always obeyed, and God always delivered.  They went through some dramatic tests and trials.  They could have rationalized eating the wrong food.  They could have rationalized bowing down to the statue.  But they did not do it.  They trusted God, they obeyed God, and God always delivered.  They made no excuses.  They made no allowances.  They obeyed the clear word of God and they were blessed.

We could give dozens of examples from the Bible, but the truth is, we have experienced this even in our own lives.  How many of us have refused to work on Sundays at very demanding jobs in law or business or medicine?  And although other people told us it won’t work, you won’t get ahead, it will harm your career, God has blessed our efforts and we prospered.  How many people have turned down promotions to more intense jobs that would have harmed our family life, or big promotions in other cities that would have allowed us to “go far”?  Others said it would harm our careers, and yet, years later, we are exceedingly abundantly blessed beyond anything that we can ask or imagine.

Look at the Israelites when they departed Egypt.  God said, “Go, and you will plunder them on the way out.”  This must have seemed ridiculous as a promise:  “We the slaves are going to plunder the mightiest army on the face of the earth, and they are going to shower us with gold as we go out?” But it happened.  Look at Joshua when they went to Jericho.  Think of those big high walls of Jericho, and they are sitting there, staring at these for days and days, and then they have to march around them for seven days.  Then we are going to shout at these walls, and they are going to fall down?  They did it, God delivered, and they were blessed.

We are to accomplish God’s purposes, not in our way, but in God’s.  When we obey God, we will be blessed.

So we are left with this question:  Why did Solomon do it?  Why did he violate God’s word?  You might say the reason was fear.  He was worried that he couldn’t achieve all those things if he did not compromise.  You might say because of ambition.  He was an ambitious man and so this was the way to achieve what he wanted to achieve.  You might say because of lack of trust in God.  Solomon was worried:  Can God really deliver if I obey his strict commands?  And probably those are all true to some degree.

But I suggest a simpler reason for why he did it:  Because he liked it.  Notice the language in verse 1:  “King Solomon loved many foreign women.” It is not, “He dutifully married many foreign women for the advancement of his kingdom and some treaties.”  It is not, “He tolerated many foreign women and held his nose.”  No, Solomon loved many foreign women.

The same idea is present in verse 3:  “Nevertheless, he held fast to them in love.”  So this is not the picture of a man caught on the horns of a dilemma, caught between a rock and a hard place, agonizing over a tough decision and coming to a wrong choice.  No, that is not the picture we have here.  We see a real zeal in Solomon for the foreign women.  So that is why he married seven hundred wives and had another three hundred concubines on top of that.  Because he liked it.

If it was merely a matter of duty, perhaps a hundred wives would have done the job.  If it was merely a matter of military alliances, surely a fraction of the thousand women would have achieved sufficient military purposes.  If it was a matter of trade agreements and commercial interests, why were so many foreign wives and concubines necessary?  Solomon had already received a billion dollars of gold from Ophir, and I said he received another $1.5 billion annually.  Did he really need all of that?  Did he really need to engage in all these marriages to get all this money?  And it appears that his first wife was Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kings 3:1).  So that is like a pretty good ally to start with.   That is a pretty good trade partner to start with.  That is a pretty good alliance to make.  If you have Egypt on your side, why do you need nine hundred and ninety-nine others?

The answer is, Solomon did not need nine hundred and ninety-nine others.  He just wanted them.  He saw, he lusted, and he took.  If that sounds familiar, it is what King David did with Solomon’s own mother (2 Sam. 11).

How often do we make justifications and excuses for sin, either because we are too weak to resist the temptation to sin or, as Solomon, we are eager to engage in that sin.  (GTB)  So we look for any excuse to do it.  We contextualize away God’s clear commands.  Or we make excuses for our sins.  “I had no choice.”  But that is false.  We make a choice every time, and he made a choice to sin.

Even worse than contextualizing or excusing our sins, we tend to spiritualize our sin:  “I had to do this thing to accomplish God’s larger purpose.”  I am sure that is what Solomon told himself here.  And I am sure he saw his great success and justified it thusly:  “God must be happy with me for marrying all these foreign wives.  I have all this gold.  I have all these alliances.  I live in a golden age.”

That is all just spiritualizing our sin.  God will never, ever lead us into sin.  He will always make a holy way for us to succeed.  We must submit to God, resist the devil’s temptations, resist our fleshly lust, and follow God’s commands.

3. Solomon’s Punishment

We may excuse our sin due to circumstances, but God does not.  He is holy, and He demands that we be holy.  It says in the Bible, “Be ye holy for I am holy.”  In no uncertain terms, we see that Solomon’s sin was a disaster for Solomon.  Solomon violated God’s decrees by loving many foreign women, and he even ignored God’s personal warning to him.  So God punished him, just as God said He would do.

God is faithful to keep his promises to bless and his promises to curse.  He does not make any empty promises, and He does not make any empty threats.  In 1 Kings 11:9 we read, “The Lord became very angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.”  And verses 10–11 say, “Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command.  So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates.’”

God then raised up adversaries for Solomon, foreign and domestic.  Notice the sudden change.   Solomon, who had enjoyed peace and alliances and great trade relationships with everyone around him—all of a sudden, God’s protection is gone, and God stirs up trouble for him.

Formerly, God protected Solomon and his kingdom, and gave them peace on every side.  Now, God’s blanket of protection is removed and God himself stirs up the trouble—foreign rebellion and domestic insurrection.  And after Solomon’s death, God would bring this threat to fulfillment.  He tore away ten of the twelve tribes from Solomon’s son Rehoboam and handed them over to Jeroboam.  This was a sudden loss of more than eighty-three percent of Solomon’s kingdom.

Later, Shishak king of Egypt, Solomon’s former ally, delivered a humiliating defeat to Rehoboam and emptied the temple of its riches and fancy articles.  He took all of those fancy things that Solomon had made with all of his wealth.  We remember most famously the gold shields that Solomon had put in the palace.  Shishak took them away to Egypt.  Shishak “carried off these treasures” (1 Kings 14:26).  It says he took everything.  And we should think to ourselves: “What a waste!” All the foreign wives to make all the alliances and trade deals, to get all the money—billions and billions of dollars’ worth—and in one generation, it was all gone, taken away to Egypt by Shishak.

And, of course, there is Solomon’s ruin.  But we see that Solomon’s sins were not just his problem.  They affected everyone else as well.  Civil war is not a private matter.  Foreign invasion is not a private matter.  And those are just two examples.  Solomon also introduced pluralism into Israel—many gods.  And pretty soon that pluralism was out of control.  Solomon’s son Rehoboam, the son of an Ammonite foreign wife (1 Kings 14:21), spread this evil all over Judah.  We read, “[Judah] set up for themselves high places, sacred stones, Asherah poles, . . . [and even had] male shrine prostitutes in the land” (1 Kings 14:23–24).  This happened in less than one generation.  Verse 24 also says, “The people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.”  Rehoboam popularized what Solomon had introduced.

Your sin affects others beyond yourself.  Solomon loved many foreign women including Rehoboam’s Ammonite mother, and he built a temple to the Ammonite false gods right there in Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7).  He allowed his wives to worship the false gods, and he himself did so (1 Kings 11:5):  “He followed Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.”  Surely Rehoboam also worshiped idols at his mother and father’s feet in the temple of Molech.  And so when he took the crown, he led all Israel to do the same.  From theophany to idolatry in one generation.

So the damage from our sin never stays confined to us.  Solomon’s sin destroyed his legacy.  It destroyed him personally.  It destroyed his family.  It destroyed his kingdom.  It destroyed the people.  And most sobering of all, it appears that Solomon never repented.  We are not told anywhere in the Bible that he repented.  We are given no indication in the Bible that he repented.  There is no “What have I done?” moment with Solomon that is recorded in the Bible.  In fact, the evidence all points the other way.  His spiritual progress is down, down, down, from the beginning of chapter 11 until the time he dies. He tried to kill Jeroboam, whom God had anointed to receive the majority of the kingdom.  Solomon did not submit to God’s judgment even then.  He did not repent.  He tried to kill Jeroboam to stop God’s judgment from happening.  And he gave the kingdom to his Ammonite son, who was wicked.

Application

We are unlikely to have a thousand wives, so what is the application for us?

Solomon loved many foreign women.  That was his fatal attraction.  He destroyed his kingdom, his legacy, his people, and his eternal soul.  His is the tragic tale of a great man brought low by sinful desire.  So I ask:  What about you?  What is your fatal attraction?  What is the thing that prompts you to hear the warning from God but say, “Nevertheless”?  What is that thing that you desire to “hold fast” in love instead of holding fast to God?

It could be women, like it was with Solomon.  It could be money, greed.  It could be fame.  It could be pleasure.  It could be reputation.  It could be children.  It could be pride.  It could be adventure.  It could be autonomy.  It could be that daughter you desire but never had.  It could be that son you hoped for.  It could be anything.  Whatever it is, I urge you to let it go.  Put it on the altar before God and let it go.  More than letting it go, throw it away with both hands.  Make no allowance for sin.  Today’s lust for foreign wives quickly becomes tomorrow’s idolatry.  It can quickly sow generational destruction in your household and in the kingdom of God, the church.

If you have held fast in love to some secret sin or some idol, I say, “Repent today.”  The devil will say, “It is too late for you.  You already have a thousand foreign wives.  What are you going to do—divorce them all?  Send them away?  You will get invaded from every country within a hundred miles.  You can’t throw them away.  You can’t send them away.”

The devil is lying to keep you trapped in your sin.  Confess and renounce that sin today.  Proverbs 28:13 tells us, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”  Find mercy.  Do it.  Find mercy.

There is no doubt about the outcome.  If you refuse to repent, then you will die in your sins and you will go to eternal hell.  The wages of sin is eternal death.  Know either what your temptation is or what your secret sin is, and throw it away with both hands.

As I said, the outcome is certain if you refuse to repent.  But the opposite outcome is equally available and just as certain.  First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  In other words, if we repent, God will take that problem away.  God will deliver us to life.  God Himself will make us righteous.

So I say again, do it.  Confess and renounce your sins.  Don’t hold fast to them while you sink down to hell.  Cast them off.  Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, revived, and purified—purified by the blood of Jesus, which can wash away all our sin and unrighteousness.

It is a sad story, this story of Solomon.  It is almost as if he had two different lives, and this is the inflection point.  Ten chapters of total success in every area of life—business, alliances, trade, science, wisdom.  You name it, he was a success in everything.  And yet due to the grip that this sin had upon him, it all went down, and he was destroyed.  Let us not make the same mistake.  Instead, let us repent and then we can walk in holiness to God forever, to spend all eternity in glory and praise.

[1] P. G. Mathew, “The Day of Reckoning,” https://gracevalley.org/sermon/the-day-of-reckoning/.