narrative of the beginning of Soli n's reign, after the
account of the deaths of Adonijah, Joab, and Shimi i. and the deprivation of Abiathar, we read: "And the
kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. And
Soloi made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt,
and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of I 'avid, nui il he bad made an end of building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about" (1 Bongs ii, 46; iii. 1 i. The even is mentioned before the marriage belong altogether to the verj commencement of Solomon's reign
ling the matter of Shimei. which, extending through three years, is carried mi to ii- completion. 1 he men- tion thai the queen was brought into the city of David while Solomon's house, and the Temple, and the city- wall were building, shows thai the marriage took place not later than the eleventh year of the kin";, when the Temple was finished, having been commenced in the fourth year (vi. 1,87, 38). It is also evident that this alliance was before Solomon's falling away into idolatry (iii, 3), of which the Egyptian queen does not seem to have been one of the causes. From this chronological indication ii appears that the marriage must have taken place between about twenty-four and eleven years be- fore Shishak's accession. It must be recollected that it seems certain that Solomon's father-in-law was not the Pharaoh who was reigning when Uadad left Egypt Both Pharaohs, as already shown, cannot yet be identi- fied in M anetho's list See Pharaoh's Daughter,
'Ibis Pharaoh led an expedition into Palestine, which is thus incidentally mentioned, where the building of Gezer by Solomon is recorded : " Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with tire, and slain the Cauaaniles that dwelt in the city, and given ii [for] a present unto bis daughter, Solomon's ( wife" (ix, 1G). This is a very curious historical cir- cumstance, for it shows thai in the reign of David or Solomon, more probably the latter, an Egyptian king, apparently on terms of friendship with the [sraelitish monarch, conducted an expedition into Palestine, and besieged and captured a Canaanitish city. This oc- currence warns us against the supposition that similar expeditions could not have occurred in earlier times without a war with the Israelites, lis incidental men- tion also shows the danger of interring, from the sil( nee of Scripture as to any such earlier expedition, that noth- ing of the kind took place.
This Pharaoh we suppose to have reigned over all Egypt, but he does not appear to have had any posses- sions in Asia. The kingdom of Israel, we are told, stretched to the land of the Philistines and the border ol Egypt ii Kings iv, 21 i,so that Egypt seems to have been strictly confined on the eastward by Philistia and Canaan. His expedition to and capture of Gezer was the capture of a city hitherto independent both of him and Solomon, and over which he retained no authority (l Kings ix. 15, 16). The kingdom of Israel was at ibis time "(greater extent and power than that of Egypt, so that the alliance with Solomon would be courted by Pharaoh, and seems to have been productive ol great commercial advantages both to Egypt and Israel 1 1 Kin sx,28,29; 2 Chron. i, 16, 17). It is the first direct intercourse of which we are with certainty inform* d be- tween these two kingdoms since the time ol the exodus. It is most likely that Pharaoh's daughter, married to Solomon in the opening of his reign, and when his zeal for Jehovah and his worship was at ii- height, was her- self a convert io the faith of Solomon t 1 Kings iii. l :;i. lie would scarcely at this period of bis life have mar- iit. 1 an idolatress, and in the Bithiah of an uncertain date we have already seen some evidence of the influ- ence of true religion on the royal house of Pharaoh. Nor can we readily suppose thai the Song of Solomon, ei nl de matic of the union of Christ ami his Church, was founded on any other than the marriage ol Solomon with a daughter of the true faith. To what extent this good influence may have spread in the family of Pha- raoh can be only matter of conjecture, [fit had pre- vailed to any great extent it may have partly led to the change of dynasty which we have reason to believe took place ill Egypt during the reign of Solomon. Any ti ndt ncy towards truth, ii ii existed in the roj al house, was not shared by the priesthood or people of Egypt, v i,.> were firmly wedded to their debased system of idolatrj .
This Egyptian alliance i- the first indication, how- e\ er, after the days of Moses, of that leaning to Egypt ivhi li was distinctly forbidden in the law, and produced
PHARAOH
65
PHARAOH
the most disastrous consequences in later times. The native kings of Egypt and the Ethiopians readily sup- ported the Hebrews, and were unwilling to make war upon them, but they rendered them mere tributaries, and exposed them to the enmity of the kings of Assyria. If the Hebrews did not incur a direct punishment for their leaning to Egypt, still this act must have weakened their trust in the divine favor, and paralyzed their efforts to defend the country against the Assyrians and their party. The next kings of Egypt mentioned in the ]?ible are Shishak, probably Zerah, and So. The first and second of these were of the twenty-second dynasty, if the iden- tification of Zerah with Userken be accepted, and the third was doubtless one of the two Shebeks of the twen- ty-fifth dynasty, which was of Ethiopians. The twen- ty-second dynasty was a line of kings of foreign ori- gin, who retained foreign names, and it is noticeable that Zerah is called a Gushite in the Bible (2 Chron. xiv, 9 ; comp. xvi, 8). Shebek was probably also a for- eign name. The title '• Pharaoh" is probably not once given to these kings in the Bible, because they were not Egyptians, and did not bear Egyptian names. The Shepherd kings, it must be remarked, adopted Egyp- tian names, and therefore some of the earlier sovereigns called Pharaohs in the Bible may be conjectured to have been Shepherds notwithstanding that they bear this ti- tle. See Shishak; So; Zkrah.