Solomon

Solomon (Shlomo, “peaceable”) was the second son of David and Bathsheba (2Sa.12.24) and was anointed king as a young man after Adonijah’s short-lived attempt on the throne (1Ki.1). His forty-year reign, c. 970–931 BC, was the golden age of the united monarchy. He consolidated the empire David had built, organised the kingdom into twelve administrative districts, fortified Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, built a fleet at Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Aqaba for the trade with Ophir, and centralised worship in the temple he built in Jerusalem over seven years (1Ki.6–7). The dedication prayer in 1 Kings 8 is one of the long set-piece prayers of the Old Testament. His personal cult — “wisdom greater than all the kings of the east and Egypt” (1Ki.4.30), 1,005 songs and 3,000 proverbs, the visit of the queen of Sheba — has made him a literary archetype. The wisdom books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs are traditionally his, although critical scholarship places much of the material later. His political marriages to foreign princesses, including Pharaoh’s daughter, brought their gods to the high places around Jerusalem and triggered a prophetic verdict against the dynasty: at his death the northern tribes seceded under Jeroboam (1Ki.11–12).