Part 36

A YOUNG MAN'S WISE CHOICE

Solomon went to Gibeon to offer a sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. He offered upon that altar a thousand animals as a burnt-offering.

In Gibeon Jehovah appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said, "Ask what I shall give you." Solomon said, "Thou hast showed to thy servant David my father great kindness. Now, O Jehovah my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler in the place of David my father, although I am but a child who does not know how to go out or come in. Give thy servant, therefore, an understanding mind to rule thy people, that I may see clearly what is good and what is evil; for who is able to rule this thy great people?"

Jehovah was pleased that Solomon had asked this; and God said to him, "Because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself long life nor riches nor the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to see clearly what is just, I have now granted what you ask; I have given you a wise and understanding mind. I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches and honor." When Solomon awoke, he found that it was a dream; and he returned to Jerusalem.

Once two women came to Solomon and stood before him. The one woman said, "Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house. While with her in the house I had a child. Three days later this woman also had a child, and we were alone by ourselves in the house. While we two were alone this woman's child died in the night, because she lay upon it.

"Then she rose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid it on her breast and laid her dead child on mine. When I rose at dawn to nurse my child, there it was dead; but when I looked at it closely in the morning, I found that it was not my son." Then the other woman said, "No; the living is my son, and the dead child is your son." So they quarrelled before Solomon.

Then Solomon said, "One says, 'This one who is alive is my son, and your son is dead.' But the other says, 'No; your son is dead, and my son is the one that is alive.' Bring me a sword." So they brought him a sword. Then he said, "Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other." At that the woman to whom the living child belonged spoke to Solomon--for she loved her son with all her heart--and said, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child and on no account put it to death." But the other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours! Divide it!" Then Solomon said, "Give the first woman the living child, and on no account put it to death; she is its mother."

When all Israel heard of the decision which Solomon had given, they had great respect for him, for they saw that he had divine wisdom to decide questions justly.

BUILDING A GREAT TEMPLE

In the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel he built the temple of Jehovah. The temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. The porch before the large room of the temple was thirty feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Solomon made windows for the temple with casings, broad on the inside and narrow on the outside.

The temple was built with stone which had been made ready at the quarry; neither hammer nor chisel nor any iron tool was heard while the temple was building. Against the wall of the temple on the outside Solomon built wings, both around the larger room and the inner room, and made side-chambers around the temple.

The entrance to the lower side-chambers was on the south side of the temple. Winding stairs led to the second floor, and from the second to the third. Solomon built the wings against the sides of the temple, each seven and a half feet high; and they were joined to the temple with timbers of cedar.

He covered the walls of the temple on the inside with boards of cedar from the floor of the temple to the rafters: and he covered the floor of the temple with boards of cypress.

He also made a room thirty feet square in the back part of the temple with boards of cedar reaching from the floor to the rafters. He built it as an inner room, even as the most holy place. The temple, that is the large room in front of the inner room, was sixty feet long. And there was cedar inside the temple with carving in the form of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar, no stone was seen. Solomon prepared the inner room as a place for the ark.

In the inner room Solomon made two winged bulls of olive wood. The height of each was fifteen feet. Each of their wings measured seven and a half feet across, fifteen feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. He set these up in the inner room of the temple; and their wings were stretched out so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the temple; and he covered them with gold.

Then Solomon gathered in Jerusalem the leaders of Israel to bring up the ark of Jehovah out of Zion, the City of David, at the time of the autumn festival in September. When all the leaders of Israel had come, the priests took up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. So the priests brought in the ark of Jehovah to its place in the inner room of the temple under the wings of the winged bulls. There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb. And when the priests came out from the inner room, the cloud filled the temple of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand and perform their service on account of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled his temple.

Then Solomon said:

"Jehovah has set the sun in the heavens, But has said that he will dwell in thick darkness. So I have built thee a temple as a lofty dwelling, A place for thee to abide in forever."

As Solomon stood before the altar of Jehovah in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, he spread out his hands toward heaven and said, "O Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven above or on earth beneath, who keepest thy solemn agreement and showest kindness to thy servants who serve thee whole-heartedly, who hast kept with thy servant David my father the promise that thou didst make to him.

"But will God actually dwell on earth? Indeed heaven and the highest heaven cannot hold thee; how much less this temple that I have built!"

A RULER WHO WRONGED HIS PEOPLE

Solomon was building his palace thirteen years before he finished it. He also built the throne-hall where he judged the people. This room was the Hall of Judgment; and it was covered with cedar from floor to ceiling.

His palace where he lived, in another court farther in from the Hall of Judgment, was of the same workmanship. He made a palace, too, similar to this hall, for Pharaoh's daughter whom he had married. All these buildings were of costly stones, hewn according to measurements, sawed with saws, both on the inside and outside.

Solomon also gathered together chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen that he placed in the chariot cities and with him at Jerusalem. And Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel who provided food for him and for his household: each man had to provide food for a month in the year.

When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to test him with puzzling questions. So she came to Jerusalem with a very large number of servants, with camels that carried spices and a great amount of gold and precious stones. As soon as she came to Solomon, she told him all that was in her mind. And Solomon answered all her questions: nothing was too difficult for him to answer.

When the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the palace that he had built, the food on his table, the housing of his officers, the way his waiters served him, their clothing, his cup-bearers, and the burnt-offering which he offered at the temple of Jehovah, she was greatly surprised. She said to Solomon, "What I heard in my own land of your acts and of your wisdom was true. But I would not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; but as it is, the half was not told me; your wisdom and prosperity are even greater than what was reported to me."

Now Solomon loved women; and he married many foreign wives--Moabites, Canaanites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites, and Ammonites. He had seven hundred wives of princely birth, and three hundred concubines. When Solomon was old, his wives influenced him to worship other gods, and he was not loyal to Jehovah his God. Solomon built a place of worship for Chemosh, the god of Moab, on the hill that is opposite Jerusalem, and for Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, burning incense and offering sacrifices to their gods.

Then God raised up as a foe against him Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer, king of Zobah. He gathered men about him and became commander of a robber band, and he went to Damascus and lived and reigned there. He was a foe to Israel as long as Solomon lived.