Afterwards Jehovah appeared again to Solomon, as He had before at Gibeon, and told him that this prayer was accepted. Taking up the several petitions that the king had offered, He promised, “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I send pestilence among My people; if My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now Mine eyes shall be open, and Mine ears attent, unto the prayer that is made in this place.” Thus Jehovah, in His gracious condescension, adopts Solomon’s own words(218) to express His answer to the prayer. He allows Solomon to dictate the terms of the agreement, and merely appends His signature and seal.
Besides the Temple, Solomon built palaces for himself and his wife, and fortified many cities, among the rest Hamath-zobah, formerly allied to David.(219) He also organised the people for civil and military purposes.
As far as the account of his reign is concerned, the Solomon of Chronicles appears as “the husband of one wife”; and that wife is the daughter of Pharaoh. A second, however, is mentioned later on as the mother of Rehoboam; she too was a “strange woman,” an Ammonitess, Naamah by name.
Meanwhile Solomon was careful to maintain all the sacrifices and festivals ordained in the Levitical law, and all the musical and other arrangements for the sanctuary commanded by David, the man of God.(220)
We read next of his commerce by sea and land, his great wealth and wisdom, and the romantic visit of the queen of Sheba.(221)
And so the story of Solomon closes with this picture of royal state,—
“The wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.”
Wealth was combined with imperial power and Divine wisdom. Here, as in the case of Plato’s own pupils Dionysius and Dion of Syracuse, Plato’s dream came true; the prince was a philosopher, and the philosopher a prince.
At first sight it seems as if this marriage of authority and wisdom had happier issue at Jerusalem than at Syracuse. Solomon’s history closes as brilliantly as David’s, and Solomon was subject to no Satanic possession and brought no pestilence upon Israel. But testimonials are chiefly significant in what they omit; and when we compare the conclusions of the histories of David and Solomon, we note suggestive differences.
Solomon’s life does not close with any scene in which his people and his heir assemble to do him honour and to receive his last injunctions. There are no “last words” of the wise king; and it is not said of him that “he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour.” “Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father; and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead”(222): that is all. When the chronicler, the professed panegyrist of the house of David, brings his narrative of this great reign to so lame and impotent a conclusion, he really implies as severe a condemnation upon Solomon as the book of Kings does by its narrative of his sins.
Thus the Solomon of Chronicles shows the same piety and devotion to the Temple and its ritual which were shown by his father. His prayer at the dedication of the Temple is parallel to similar utterances of David. Instead of being a general and a soldier, he is a scholar and a philosopher. He succeeded to the administrative abilities of his father; and his prayer displays a deep interest in the welfare of his subjects. His record—in Chronicles—is even more faultless than that of David. And yet the careful student with nothing but Chronicles, even without Ezra and Nehemiah, might somehow get the impression that the story of Solomon, like that of Cambuscan, had been “left half told.” In addition to the points suggested by a comparison with the history of David, there is a certain abruptness about its conclusion. The last fact noted of Solomon, before the formal statistics about “the rest of his acts” and the years of his reign, is that horses were brought for him “out of Egypt and out of all lands.” Elsewhere the chronicler’s use of his materials shows a feeling for dramatic effect. We should not have expected him to close the history of a great reign by a reference to the king’s trade in horses.(223)