The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 33

temple (1 Kings Y, 13, 14) is 0,11 unpleasil1g fe11lnre in the work. The prophecy of Snmnrl (1 Sam. viii. 16) was being nlmndo,ntlyfnlfi\le,l. It has been suggested tho.t it wns prrrt.ly in order to keep out of sight and hearing the misery that he wo.s co.using to these hnge gangs of enslaved Israelites and Canaanites, that Solomon ho,d every- thing mrrcle rcacly for the temple before it was brought to the site, so tho,t it could be put up there with little trouble o,nd noise, Be this as it ma,y, it is not improbable that in the snperb magnificence with which he adorned the house of God, Solomon found salve for a conscience disquieted by his luxurious self-indulgence. If the Lord had a large shnre of his opulence he might so,fe\y enjoy the rest. In his temple, and in the prayer with which he dedicates it, Solomon appears as a, man "ith an ide11,l far above that which he actually practised. There ia no harm in this; nay, it is what must be the case with all ideals, especially with ideo.ls in religion. The fatal thing is when there is no effort to mo.ke the practice approach to the ideal ; when a man rests content with having set np a high standard which he does not stii'l"e to reach. This comes to be the case with Solomon; and the solemn warning which he receives immediately after the dedication leads us to suppose that something is amiss already (1 Kings ix. 6-9). It would be startling to turn from the ei~bth to the eleventh chapter of the First Book of Kings, if such inconsistencies and falls were not among the common experiences of life. First, the multitude of sacrifices, and then the multitude of wives : first, the temple to the Lord God of hracl, and then the high places for Chemosh and Molech and Asbtoreth. The God of light, and love, and purity is supplanted in the heart of the wisest of men by the deities of darkness, and cruelty, and lust. Whether the idolatry, which Solomon certainly aided and appears to have she.red, was the result of an unwise toleration ; or of wea,k indulgence to his wives; or of bis great knowledge of nature, leading him to Reek forbidden ways into her mysteries; or of bis foreign policy, which might seem to make the permission and even support of foreign religions a politica,l necessity ; or of several of these ·combined-we cannot decide. Certain it is that he was draggeJ down from the high spiritual level on which be started, and that the nation was dragged down with him. In David's time monarch and people mutually helped one another to rise, In the latter half of Solomon's reign the reverse is the case, although for awhile the dazzling brilliancy of the age prevented the germs of evil from being seen. Long peace gave a sense of security; increased commerce encouraged luxury and indolence ; and there was the king himself show- ing them tue way to enjoy them. They were forgetting Him who bad given and could take away; and this was in itself a half-way house to idolatry, with which their foreign trade was again making them dangerously familiar. While this was true of the more· prosperous half of the people, the rest were being ground down by Solomon's oppressive taxation and task-work, which were preparing a siething mass of disconteut ready to boil up at any moment. Tims David's nation of devoted warriors was on the road to becoming a nation of mingled voluptuaries and serfs. And if Solomon did not raise his people to a higher moral level, but rather the con- trary, neither did bis people help to raise him. They did not meet him, as they did his father, with a warm and enthusiastic sympathy. There is enthusiasm about him at first, but it is for bis father's son rather than for himself; and if for himself, rather for the beauty of the young king's form, and for the intellectual delight afforded by his conversation, than for what he did with them and far them. He was not, as David had been, one of themselves. They were not so sure of his sym• patLy, of his being able to und.entand them. Above all, it would seom as if he bo,d  JOSBUA TO NEHEMIAH.