Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, King of Israel. As King David grew older, preservation of his kingdom weighed heavy on his mind. David ordered “Bring Bathsheba to me.” 

Bathsheba approached King David and the king said, “As the Lord lives, Solomon, your son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my stead.”  Zadok, the priest anointed Solomon the King of Israel. Zadok was joined by the prophet Nathan, and together they cried “Long live King Solomon.” The transfer of power was sealed.

Solomon was not David’s oldest son, but he was the son of his favorite wife. David could not have chosen a more capable successor. This is another ancient story that is still reverberating through history.

Solomon was a master organizer. He maintained a powerful military force. He did not use military might to expand the kingdom, but he used military force to stabilize the nation. During his 38-year reign, wars almost disappeared, and Solomon completed the transformation of the Israelites that was begun by his father, David. Under David and Solomon, Israel was made over from agrarian tribalism to cosmopolitan urbanism. In 78 years they took a disorganized group of clans to the most powerful and the most sophisticated nation in the area.

Solomon is best known as a builder. Most famously he built the first temple in Jerusalem. He built a home for Jehovah, the Lord God. He also built a palace for himself and his wives. The palace was even larger than the temple. Jerusalem became the center of trade and commerce for the entire region, and the residents of the capital city benefited from the wealth that accumulated in the nation.

The most overlooked accomplishment of Solomon was the building of a cultured society. An educated elite was developed under the reign of Solomon. The educated elite of the highest rank were the priests who cared for the operation of the temple. They wrote the rules for the living of life, for proper use of the temple in worship, and for the ethical standards by which commerce was practiced. Temple priests wrote the rules and were the enforcers of the rules.

Before the development of the temple priests and other educated elite, Israel had no written history. They had oral traditions that had been accumulated over hundreds of years. The stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the adventure of Egyptian slavery and the account of Moses at Mount Sinai were all carried by oral tradition. The Israelites before Solomon were not a literate people. All of this changed with the decision of Solomon to develop an educated elite to serve the nation.

The educated elite scoured the nation for the oral traditions of the tribes of Israel. Oral traditions were reworked and major portions of the story of Israel that we find in today’s Bible were written. The Solomon years are identified as the “great enlightenment” period of Israelite history.

Solomon has been heralded for his wisdom. No doubt he personally was a collector of wise sayings. With the help of his educated elite, wise sayings were collected from the tribes of Israel and from their neighbors. While all the wise sayings that are found in the book of Proverbs cannot be traced directly to the Solomon era, Solomon was a key figure in the practice of preserving the values of a culture in short sayings. The practice continues to our own day.

The educated elites of Solomon wrote the history of Israel. Two examples reveal their influence on the ongoing life of Israel.

The Joseph novella is the first. It is one of history’s great stories. It has intrigue. It has plot complications. It has deep emotion. In the history of Israel’s understanding of their God, the Joseph story introduces grace and forgiveness in its purest form. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers with angry intent. Joseph forgave his brothers without condition. The story of Joseph has been told and told and retold. The law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is overridden by “Jehovah God intends good even when people intend harm.”

When the Joseph story was told, the writers were telling a story, but even more they were writing theology.

The educated elite of Solomon’s Israel rewrote and edited the stories of all the nation’s patriarchs beginning with Abraham. They moved the Israelite patriarchs from Mesopotamia to Palestine to Egypt to Mount Sinai and into the Promised Land. They gave patriarchs personalities and roles in what would become sacred history.

In their most important writing accomplishment the educated priests of Solomon told the story of David from childhood to kingship over a powerful nation with a capital established in Jerusalem. King David left no written legacy. It was left to Solomon’s educated elite to collect, edit, preserve and expand the David legacy. Because of these dedicated writers we have the story of David, the harpist who played to soothe a king’s madness. We have the account of a young David who kills the giant Goliath. We know of his close friendship with Jonathon. We have a picture of his conflicts with King Saul, his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, and his transfer of The Arc of the Covenant to Jerusalem.

Most of all because of the interpretive writing of Solomon’s priests we have the tradition of the promise of Jehovah that the throne of David was established forever.

Solomon’s greatness is soured by his own failings. He had too many wives and too many children. His sons fought over control of the David/Solomon legacy. The empire crumbled. Even though the kingdom failed, the stamp of the legacy of Solomon is on us all.

           

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister living in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.