The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 34

little bolcl over their moral o.ncl spiritue.l life. Of his thousand and five songs (1 Kings iv. 82), not one go.inecl hold enough on the people to Jive; and if they oxpressecl tho life which is lo.mentecl over in the Book of Ecclesiastes, it is as well iho.t they have perished. Of the Psalms, only two by the Hebrew titles bear his name (lxxii. and cxxvii.), ancl of these the former is possibly, and the latter probably, not his. Thus what was one of the strongest links between David and his people was altogether wanting in the case of Solomon. But there was not merely an increasing want of union between the sovereign and tbe nation, there was also an increase in the old evil of disunion in the nation itself. Its chief bond of union lay in its religion; and throug"h the royal tolerance and sup- port of idolatry the religious tie was being rapidly weakened, Would religious men make pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the feasts only to be scanclalizec1. when they an-ived L!Jere by !Jigh places for C!Jemosh and for Malech, "on the hill that is before Jerusalem," within sight of the temple itself? (1 Kings xi. 7.) And if Jerusalem was o.n offence to them, why should it remain their capital? And w!Jat offended religious Israelites did not attract others; for those who lapsed into idolatry could have their own impious altars at home. There was no need to go to the Mount of Olives to worship. Thus for all classes, religious and i1Teligious alike, the tie that Lo:rnd them to the capital was fast becoming weaker, ancl in •the next reign it snapped altogether. Of Solomon's last clays ancl death we know nothing. If the traditional belief, that the Book of Ecclesiastes is his confession of the vanity of his life, is correct, we are still far from knowing in what state be clied. The book itself is an enigma. But whatever be the interpretation of its half-melancholy, half-scornful ~stimate of life in general, and specially of the Preachel''s own, how different is it from the fifty-first Psalm I In bis persistency in sin and in the gloominess of his repentance Solomon is uttel'ly unlike his father. There is a calculJl.ting reflectiveness about the Preacher's recantation, as apparently also about his sins, which forms the strongest contrast to the passionate yearning with which t.he Psalmist flings himself ancl his sin before Jehovah, and leaves all to Him. This, then, is the moul'nfu.l conclusion: the wisest, wealthiest, and most powerful king of the noblest nation-at that time the only noble nation-in the world, at tbe most glorious period of its career, writes this at the end of a long life and reign as the sum of his experiences: "All is vanity." Before passing on, let us remind ourselves tha~ we are following not so much the history of a people or the lives of individuals, as the history of a religion, the history of the kingdom of God. The history of the people and of its leaders is real and not ficUtious ; but at bhe sam·e time it is typical, and was divinely ordere,l throughout to be so. The history of the people shows forth in a figure the mysteries of redemp- tion, and both in figure and in fact God's moral government of the world. 'T!Je lives of the representative leaders set forth in a figure en.eh some fragment of the life of Christ. The Messiah is Priest, Prophet, and King. All t!Jcse great offices of the Theocracy find their highest representative in Him: all, therefore, w!Jo held these offices under the law were each in their men.sure types of the Messiah. In the supreme rulers of united Israel we have just had examples of all t!Jree : Eli the pyiest, Samuel the prophet, Saul, or Do.vid, or Solomon t!Je king. The high-priest was the representative of the people Lefore God, the intercesso1 between God and man. He went into the holy of holies once a yeo.r to make atone- ment fo1· sin with blood. But the holy of holies was no perfect sanctuary, for it xl tNTRODUCTION TO TE:E HISTORICAL noot{S !