[397] The 666 gold talents of his revenue are estimated at £3,613,500, and this is described as _his own_ revenue, exclusive of tolls, tributes, etc. (1 Kings x. 15). Presents reached him from "kings of the mingled people" (Jer. xxv. 24), Pachas of the country (פֶחָה Ezra v. 6; Neh. v. 14).
[398] See Weil, _Biblische Legenden_; D'Herbelot, _Bibl. Oriental_, s.v. Soliman ben-Daoud; Qur'an, _Suras_ xxii., xxvii., xxviii., xxxiv. "Suleyman" means "Little Solomon," a term of affection.
[399] Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 166, 167.
1 KINGS xi.
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."--ECCLES. i. 2.
"At every draught more large and large they grow A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe, Till, sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round." GOLDSMITH.
There was a _ver rongeur_ at the root of all Solomon's prosperity. His home was afflicted with the curse of his polygamy, his kingdom with the curse of his despotism. Failure is stamped upon the issues of his life.
1. His Temple was a wonder of the world; yet his own reign was scarcely over before it was plundered by the Egyptian king who had overthrown the feeble dynasty on alliance with which he had trusted. Under later kings its secret chambers were sometimes desecrated, sometimes deserted. It failed to exercise the unique influence in support of the worship of Jehovah for which it had been designed. Some of Solomon's successors confronted it with a rival temple, and a rival high priest, of Baal, and suffered atrocious emblems of heathen nature-worship to profane its courts. He himself became an apostate from the high theocratic ideal which had inspired its origin.
2. His long alliance and friendship with Hiram ended, to all appearance, in coolness and disgust, even if it be true that a daughter of Hiram was one of the princesses of his harem.[400] For his immense buildings had so greatly embarrassed his resources that, when the day for payment came, the only way in which he could discharge his obligations was by alienating a part of his dominions. He gave Hiram "twenty cities in the land of Galilee." The kings of Judah, down to the days of Hezekiah, and even of Josiah, show few traces of any consciousness that there was such a book as the Pentateuch and such a code as the Levitic law. Solomon may have been unaware that Phœnicia itself was part of the land which God had promised to His people. If that gift had lapsed through their inertness,[401] the law still remained, which said, "The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." It was a strong measure to resign any part of the soil of Judæa, even to discharge building debts, much more to pay for mercenaries and courtly ostentation. The transaction, dubious in every particular, was the evident cause of deep-seated dissatisfaction. Hiram thought himself ill-paid and unworthily treated. He found, by a personal visit, that these inland Galilæan towns, which were probably inhabited in great measure by a wretched and dwindling remnant of Canaanites,[402] were useless to him, whereas he had probably hoped to receive part, at least, of the Bay of Acco (Ptolemais).[403] They added so little to his resources, that he complained to Solomon. He called the cities by the obscure, but evidently contemptuous name "_Cabul_," and gave them back to Solomon in disgust as not worth having.[404] What significance lies in the strange and laconic addition, "And Hiram sent to the king six-score talents of gold," it is impossible for us to understand. If the Tyrian king gave as a present to Solomon a sum which was so vast as at least to equal £720,000--"apparently," as Canon Rawlinson thinks, "to show that, although disappointed, he was not offended!"--he must have been an angel in human form.