Just How Does This Happen?

May 30, 2009

Today's Reading: 1 Kings 11-12 and 2 Corinthians 3

I think we all know stories about rich heiresses or heirs of families who have all the money that they will need, and just squander it on a life of nothing but lavish living.

It is odd that Solomon eventually became one of these cases. He started off so well as the son of David, one of the most spiritual figures of Israel.

God even came to this man and asked what he wanted. Oddly enough, Solomon did not ask for money, and I believe this is because he probably already had some. He then asked for some wisdom, and apparently this helped him when he met with Sheba.

You have to wonder what went wrong here. God even appeared to this man a second time, and he was warned not to get involved with the wives with the other countries and other faiths. So what happens? Solomon does the very thing he stood against. There is no explanation as to how this happen.

I get the feeling that if there was a Solomon movie, there would be some scene where we would see Solomon making a choice to marry his first wife, and this would probably be the first step on a downward spiral stairwell.

Why didn’t Solomon just rest in his riches, and use his wisdom to rule the kingdom justly. Surely this is all we really want from our rulers, and if anyone did this at peak capacity, we would probably just call it “normal”.

However, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines! Man, if he spent the night with one of each of these women every night, it would take about three years before a woman would spend the night with him again.

I’m certain that there got to be a point where Solomon was just taking in wives, and lost track of how many he had. Perhaps he had a wife committee made up of some of his more treasured wives, whose sole duty was just to bring more wives into the spousefold.

Even though Solomon’s father had seen God’s works firsthand, he really should have known better. He reminds me of Homer Simpson, who is often told and shown the right path, but still manages to head down the wrong one with all deliberate speed.

Solomon is proof that just because you have everything, it doesn’t mean that you are going to keep it or stay there. Inversely, I believe that those who start with nothing can achieve something. However, we need to keep the faith.