[407] "L'amour du luxe et de la nouveauté le conduira peu à peu à défaire l'œuvre de son père, à ruiner le peuple dont il pouvait faire le bonheur, à detruire les institutions, et à dédaigner le culte national, auquel il avait d'abord cherché à donner le plus grand éclat."--Munk, _Palestine_, p. 285.
[408] 1 Kings ix. 25.
[409] Modern criticism generally regards the Book of Deuteronomy, or some elements of it, as "the Book of the Law" which was found in the Temple by the high priest Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah. We shall speak of this in the following volume (in 2 Kings). See Deut. xvii. 18.
[410] LXX., ἦν φιλογύνγς. Vulg., _adamavit mulieres alienigenus_.
[411] Some suppose that this clause about Milcom is an interpolation from 2 Kings xxiii. 13.
[412] See Exod. xxxiv. 11-17; Deut. vii. 1-4. The Talmud makes one of its dishonest attempts to get rid of the fact; Shabbath, p. 56, _b_. Sanhedrin, _ff._ 55, 56. Justin Martyr preserves a tradition (_Dial. c. Tryph._, 34) that Solomon in taking a Sidonian wife worshipped idols at Sidon. Muslim tradition attributes Solomon's idolatry to the tricks of demons who assumed his form (Qur'an, _Sura_ ii. 99; but see _Sura_ xxxviii. 30).
[413] Prov. xxxi. 3.
[414] The Song of Solomon (vi. 8) gives him, besides the _'alamoth_ ("damsels") "without number," the sixty wives (_saroth_), and the eighty concubines, who were partly perhaps their slaves.
[415] Parmen. _ap._ Athen., _Deipnos._, iii. 3. Comp. Quint. Curt., _Vit. Alex._, iii. 3. Amehhate of Egypt had more than three hundred and seventeen wives (Brugsch, _Egypt_, iii. 607, E.T.). Rehoboam, who had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, left twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Solomon, so far as we know, had only one son and two daughters.
[416] Cant. vi. 8.
[417] The Vatican MS. of the LXX. adds Syrian and Amorite princesses to the number. Marriages with Sidonians and Hittites are expressly forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 12-16, and with Canaanites in Deut. vii. 3 (comp. Ezra ix. 2 and Neh. xiii. 23).
[418] Numb. xxv. 3.