SOLOMON
864
SOLOMON"
a massacre of the dcfeateil party. Atlonijah expected such ail issue, ami t«M.k reliitce at the horns of the aUar. Ill this instance, howevir. the yoiin^' coiHiueror used liis triumph i;eiier..usly. The lives l..iih ..f A.t..nijali an<l liis (lartisaiis were spareil, at least lor a time. Wliat hatl Id-en done hurriedly was done afterwards in more 84>lemii form. .Solomon was presented to a great gath- crini; of all the notables of Israel with a set speech, in which the old kinj^ announced what was. to his mind, the pnif,'ramme of the new reign, a time of peace and pleiitv. of a stalely worship, of devotion to .leliovah. A ffw moiiilis more and .Solomon found himself, by his father's death, the sole occupant of the throne.
2. The position to which he succeeded was unique. Never before, and never after, did the kingdom of Israel take it^j place among the great monarchies of the East, able to ally itself or to contend on e(iual terms with Egvpt or .Vssyria, stretching from the river ICuphrates to the Ixirder of Kgyi>t. from the Mediterranean to the (iulf of .\kaba, receiving annual tributes from many subject princes (see Hase, Rajiii Sahim. Descriptio [No- rirub. 1739 J). Large treasures accumulated through inaiiy years were at his disposal. The sums mentioned are (1) the public funds for building the Temple. lOO.ilOO talents {kikurim) of gold and 1,000,000 of silver; (2) David's private offerings. 3000 talents of gold and 7000 of silver, besides these, large sums of unknown amount were believetl to have been stored up in the sepulchre of David. 3000 talents were taken from it by Hyrca- nua (Josephiis, .4h^ vii, 15, 3; xiii, 8, 4; xvi,7, 1). The peo[)le, with the exce))tion of the tolerated worship in liigh places, were true servants of .Jehovah. Knowl- edge, art, music, |)oetry, had received a new impulse, and were moving on with rapid steps to such perfection as the age and the race were capable of attaining. We raay rightly ask what manner of man he was, outward- ly and inwardly, who at the age of about twenty was called to this glorious sovereignty '? We have, it is true, no direct description in this case as we have of the earlier kings. There are, however, materials for till- ing up the gap. The w<inderful impression wliicli Sol- oinon made upon all who came near him may well lead U9 to believe that with him. as with .Saul ami David, Ab- salom and .\donijah. as with most other favorite princes of Eastern peoples, there must have been the fascination and the grace of a noble presence. Whatever higher mystic meaning may be latent in I'sa. xlv, or the Song of .Songs, wf are compelleil to think of tliem as having hml, at least, a historical starting-|)oiut. They tell us of one who was, in the eyes of the men of his own time, " fairer than the children of men," the face " briglit and ruddy" as his father's (Cant, v, 10; 1 .Sam. xvii, 42), bushy locks, dark as the raven's wing, yet not without a golden glow (possibly sprinkled witli gold-dust, as was the hair ol the youths who waited on him [.losephus, Aul. viii, 7, 3 ), or dyed with henna [ Michaelis, note in Lowth, /';•«•/. xxxij), the eyes soft as "the eves of doves,'' 'I'e "countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars," "the chiefest among ten thousand, the alto- BCthcr lovely" (Cant, v, ti-K!), Add to this all gift.s of a noble, far-reaching intellect, large and ready sym- pathies, a playful and genial humor, the li|)s "full of grace," the soul "anoiuleir' as "with the oil of glad- iiesn" (I'sa. xlv), and we may form some notion of what the king w.-w like in that dawn of his golden prime.
3. The historical starting-point of the .Song of .Songs just s|Hikeii of connects itself, in all probability, with the earliest fa<-tM in the history of the new reign. The narrative, as told in 1 Kings ii, is not a little per- plexing, llalhsheba, who had before stirred up David against ,\donijah, now appears as interceding for him, licgging that Ahishag the Shunainite, the virgin con- cubine of David, might be given him as a wife. Sol- omon, who I ill then hail professed the profoundest rcv- ereno- for his mother, his willingness lo grant her any- thing, -ud.l.nly Hashes into (iercest wrath at this. He detects what her unsuspicious generosity had not per-
ceived. The petition is treated as part of a conspiracy in which Joab and Abiathar are sharers. Benaiah is once more called in. Adonijah is put to death at once. Joab is slain even within the precincts of the taberna- cle, to which he had tied as an asylum. Abiathar is deposed and exiled, sent to a life of poverty and shame (1 Kings ii, 31-36), and the high-priesthood transferred to another family more ready than he had been to pass from tiie old order to the new, and to accept the voices of the ])rophets as greater than the oracles which had belonged exclusively to the priesthood. See UiiiJi and Tiif.M.Mi.M. Abiathar is declared "worthy of death," clearly not for any new offences, but for his participa- tion in Adonijah's original attempt; and Joab is put to death because he is alarmed at the treatment of his associates (ver. 26-29), which implies collusion on his part. The king sees in the movement a plot to keep liim still in the tutelage of childhood, to entrap him into admitting his elder brother's right to the choicest treasure of his father's harem, and therefore virtually to the throne, or at least to a regency in which he would have his own partisans as counsellors. With a keen- sighted promptness he crushes the whole scheme. He gets rid of a rival, fulfils David's dying counsels as to Joab, and asserts his own independence. Soon after- wards an opportunity is thrown in his way of getting rid of one [see SituiKi] who had been troublesome be- fore and might be troublesome again. He presses the letter of a compact against a man who by his infatuated disregard of it seemed given over to destruction (ver. 36- 46). (An elaborate vindication of Solomon's conduct in this matter may be found in Menthen, Thesaiir. vol. i ; Slisser, l)iss. de Salom. Processu contra Shimei.') There is, however, no needless slaughter. The other " sons of David" are still spared, and one of them, Nathan, be- comes the head of a distinct family (Zech. xii, 12) which ultimately fills up the failure of the direct succession (Luke iii, 31). As he punishes his father's enemies, he also shows kindness to the friends who had been faithful to him. Chimham, the son of Barzillai, apparently re- ceives an inheritance near the city of David, and prob- ably in the reign of Solomon displays his inherited hos- pitality by building a caravansary for the strangers whom the fame and wealth of Solomon drew to Jeru- salem (2 Sam. xix, 31^0; 1 Kings ii, 7; Jer. xli, 17; Ewald, Gesck. Isr. iii, 247; Proph. ii, 191).