1And King Solomon loved many foreign women—Pharaoh’s daughter and Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites, 2from the nations of which the LORD had said to the Israelites, “You shall not come among them and they shall not come among you, for they will surely lead your heart astray after their gods.” To these did Solomon cling in love. 3And he had seven hundred princess wives and three hundred concubines, and his wives led his heart astray. 4And it happened in Solomon’s old age that his wives led his heart astray after other gods, and his heart was not whole with the LORD his God like the heart of David his father. 5And Solomon went after Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom abomination of the Ammonites. 6And Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and he did not obey the LORD like David his father. 7Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the mountain facing Jerusalem and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. 8And, thus did he do for all his foreign wives who would burn incense and would sacrifice to their gods. 9And the LORD was furious with Solomon, for his heart had gone astray from the LORD God of Israel, Who had appeared to him twice, 10and had charged him about this thing not to go after other gods, and he had not kept what the LORD had charged. 11And the LORD said to Solomon: “Inasmuch as this was with you and you did not keep My covenant and my statutes that I charged to you, I will surely tear away the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. 12But in your days I will not do it, for the sake of David your father. From the hand of your son I will tear it away. 13Only the entire kingdom I will not tear away. One tribe I will give to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.” 14And the LORD raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite, who was of the royal seed in Edom. 15And it had happened when David was in Edom, when Joab commander of the army went up to bury the fallen, that he struck down every male in Edom. 16For six months Joab had stayed there, and all Israel with him, until he cut off every male in Edom. 17And Hadad fled, and Edomite men of his father’s servants with him, and went to Egypt, and Hadad was a young lad. 18And they arose from Midian and came to Paran, and they took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he gave him a house, and he decreed food for him, and he gave him land. 19And Hadad found great favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, and he gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife Tahpanes the royal consort. 20And Tahpanes’s sister bore him his son Genubath, and Tahpanes weaned him in Pharaoh’s house, and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house in the midst of Pharaoh’s sons. 21And Hadad had heard in Egypt that David lay with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, and Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Send me off, that I may go to my land.” 22And Pharaoh said to him, “Why, what are you lacking with me that you should seek to go to your land?” And he said, “No. Send me off.” 23And God raised up against him as adversary Rezon son of Eliadu, who had fled from Hadadezer his master, king of Zobah. 24And he gathered men about him and became the commander of a troop after David killed them, and they went to Damascus and dwelled there, and they reigned in Damascus. 25And he was an adversary against Israel all the days of Solomon, together with all the harm that Hadad had done, and he loathed Israel and reigned over Aram.
26And Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow-woman, was a servant to Solomon. And he raised his hand against the king. 27And this is how he raised his hand against the king: Solomon had built the Citadel, had closed the breaches of the City of David his father. 28And the man Jeroboam was an able fellow and Solomon saw that the lad could carry out tasks, and he appointed him over all the heavy labor of the house of Joseph. 29And it happened at that time that Jeroboam went out from Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the way, he covering himself in a new cloak and the two of them alone in the field. 30And Ahijah caught hold of the new cloak and tore it into twelve pieces. 31And he said to Jeroboam, “Take you ten pieces, for thus said the LORD God of Israel: ‘I am about to tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s hand and give it to the ten tribes. 32And the one tribe shall be his for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, 33inasmuch as they have forsaken Me and have bowed down to Ashtoreth goddess of the Sidonians and to Chemosh god of Moab and to Milcom god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in My ways to do what is right in My eyes and My statutes and My laws, like David his father. 34But I will not take the entire kingdom from his hand, for I will keep him as a prince all the days of his life for the sake of David whom I chose, who kept My commands and My statutes. 35And I will take the kingship from the hand of his son and give it to you—the ten tribes. 36And to his son I will give one tribe, so that there be a lamp for David my servant for all time before Me in Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen to set My name there. 37And you will I take, and you shall reign over all that you desire, and you shall be king over Israel. 38And it shall be, if you hearken to all that I charge you and walk in My ways and do what is right in My eyes to keep My statues and My commands as did David My servant, I shall be with you and build for you a lasting house, as I built for David, and I shall give Israel to you. 39And I shall afflict the seed of David because of this, but not for all time.’” 40And Solomon sought to put Jeroboam to death, and Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and he stayed in Egypt until Solomon’s death. 41And the rest of the acts of Solomon and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? 42And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43And Solomon lay with his fathers and was buried in the City of David his father. And Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.
CHAPTER 11 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1. And King Solomon loved many foreign women. These words mark a strong shift in the perception of Solomon. Up to this point, he had been portrayed as an ideally wise and fabulously wealthy king to whom God gave rousing promises and who built God’s house in Jerusalem. The previous mentions of his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter do not put that alliance in any negative light. (Later prohibitions on intermarriage were not operative in the early centuries of Israelite national existence.) Here, however, the legendary profusion of Solomon’s foreign wives—a full thousand—leads to the sin of idolatry. The Deuteronomistic editor, for all the inherited stories of Solomon’s grandeur, needed an explanation for the splitting of the kingdom after Solomon’s death, and he now provides it in a manner in keeping with Deuteronomy’s conception of historical causation, in which idolatry leads to national disaster.
2. from the nations of which the LORD had said . . . , “You shall not come among them.” The Moabites and the Ammonites in particular were singled out for this ban.
To these did Solomon cling in love. This expression suggests that the wise Solomon was besotted with his foreign wives and hence ready to follow their lead in cultic practice.
3. his wives led his heart astray. One may infer that he initially allowed them freedom of worship and then was drawn into their pagan ways.
7. Then did Solomon build a high place for Chemosh. The building of “high places”—typically, rural hilltop altars—is a bête noire of the Deuteronomist both because he insists on the exclusivity of the Jerusalem temple and because such altars were vulnerable to pagan influences. Here Solomon is seen taking an active role in the pagan cult, actually promulgating it.
11. give it to your servant. In royal contexts, “servant,” ʿeved, usually means “courtier.” Jeroboam, who will appear later in the story, is a member of the royal bureaucracy and hence Solomon’s “servant.”
13. One tribe I will give to your son. It should be two tribes because the breakaway kingdom in the north will have ten. Either “one” is used hyperbolically, to emphasize how little will be left to Solomon’s line, or it reflects the assimilation of Benjamin into Judah, which became to all intents and purposes the only tribe of the southern kingdom.
14. adversary. The Hebrew satan does not strictly mean “enemy” but something like “troublemaker,” someone who is a stumbling block.
18. from Midian. This kingdom to the southeast of Israel would have been a way station between Edom, farther north, and Egypt.
came to Paran. Paran is in the Sinai desert, south of Midian and on the way to Egypt.
Pharaoh . . . gave him a house . . . food . . . land. The Pharaoh in David’s time, unlike the successor who gave his daughter to Solomon, was hostile to Israel. His providing refuge and sustenance to this Edomite refugee from David’s onslaught is politically motivated, with the calculation that at some future point Hadad might prove useful in the conflict with David.
19. the royal consort. Translations invariably render this as “the queen.” But the Hebrew does not call her queen, malkah, but rather gevirah, a term that elsewhere (including 15:13 in this book) designates the queen mother. Tahpenes could not be the king’s mother because she is his wife, but gevirah seems to be extended to a woman intimately related to the king though lacking the full authority and status of queen.
20. Tahpanes weaned him. This looks odd because as his aunt, she certainly would not have suckled the child. The attachment of this verb to her might suggest that she had a kind of adoptive relationship with the infant, a child fathered by a foreigner, and so in some symbolic or even legal fashion could be said to preside over his weaning.
22. No. Send me off. No continuation of the story is given, so there is no way of knowing whether Hadad was repatriated. If he was, then he would presumably have taken up his role as “adversary” to Solomon, son of the man who had massacred the male population of Edom. Verse 25 suggests that in fact he played this role.
23. who had fled from Hadadezer his master. Rezon is not referred to as being “of the royal seed.” The implication may be that he was a plebeian who may have been part of a conspiracy against the king.
24. they reigned in Damascus. The use of the plural may make sense in this context: Rezon is not of royal stock; he has gathered around him a private militia; and it is this group of fighting men who have seized control of Damascus.
25. together with. The Hebrew preposition looks a little strange but could simply mean that the harm perpetrated by Rezon was in addition to the harm done by Hadad.
26. a servant to Solomon. The precise nature of the service he performs in Solomon’s court is spelled out in verse 28.
28. an able fellow. The Hebrew gibor ḥayil in military contexts means “valiant warrior,” but it can also indicate in pacific contexts either competence or wealth.
the lad. The Hebrew naʿar here might refer not to youth but to subordinate position.
could carry out tasks. More literally, “was a carrier-out of tasks.”
the heavy labor. This activity is linked with the building and the repair of breaches in the wall mentioned in the previous verse. The Hebrew sevel derives from a root that means bearing burdens.
29. the prophet Ahijah. The only prophet who has appeared in this story until now is Nathan, but from this point there will be many. Unlike the so-called literary prophets, they do not deliver extensive poetic messages of rebuke or consolation, but they do pronounce what the future will be.
the two of them alone in the field. By its subversive nature, Ahijah’s communication to Jeroboam has to be in a clandestine setting.
30. tore it into twelve pieces. Turning the torn cloak into a sign picks up Saul’s tearing of Samuel’s cloak, which Samuel immediately turns into a sign that God will tear the kingship away from Saul. The earlier tearing of the garment was inadvertent, whereas this act is deliberately carried out as a symbol of what will happen.
34. prince. God’s words, as quoted by Ahijah, avoid the authoritative title “king” and instead use an ambiguous word that often designates a tribal chieftain. Solomon’s kingship, one sees, is already slipping away.
36. so that there be a lamp for David my servant. The language of the prophecy labors to preserve the notion of a divinely elected Davidic dynasty even as most of the kingdom is about to be shorn from the line of David.
38. if you hearken to all that I charge you. Once again, the language is explicitly Deuteronomistic.
39. because of this. Presumably the reference is to the idolatrous backsliding under the rule of Solomon.
40. And Solomon sought to put Jeroboam to death. No report is given of the actions by Jeroboam that might have provoked the king’s attempt to kill him (the Septuagint supplies details, but these are of doubtful authority), but one must assume that after the encounter with Ahijah, Jeroboam took steps—like Macbeth after the prophecy of the witches—to secure the throne for himself.
Shishak king of Egypt. This is clearly a Pharaoh who has come after the one who gave his daughter to Solomon, and who regards Solomon’s kingdom with suspicion, if not hostility.
41. the Book of the Acts of Solomon. This text would seem to be some sort of court annals. It is quite possible that the writer or writers responsible for Solomon’s story beginning with 1 Kings 3 drew materials from this book, though that remains in the realm of conjecture.
42. forty years. This is, of course, a formulaic number—one frequently used to designate the length of time a leader in the Book of Judges remained in power. In all likelihood, it reflects knowledge that Solomon reigned for a relatively long time, a full generation in biblical terms.