Not So Wise After All
Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter days. Proverbs 19:20
Wisdom isn’t head knowledge. Intelligent people can be unwise. Solomon, known as the wisest man who ever lived, did not live wisely. “He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (1 Kings 11: 3-4).
The worst of it is that God had told him not to marry foreign wives. He warned that they would turn his heart away (see Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Solomon probably did what ma
ny of us do. He somehow thought that he’d be the exception, that he would escape the consequences of this sin, even though he had seen how it affected others. His father had more than one wife, why shouldn’t he?
But Solomon learned—or should have learned —that he was not the exception to this rule. For all his wisdom, he succumbed to his desire for worldly prestige, not only by marrying many wives, but foreign ones who brought pagan influences upon Israel. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:5) He built high places for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:7). He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods (1 Kings 11:8).
Because he had not kept the covenant and decrees which the Lord had commanded, the Lord said to Solomon, “I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of David, your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son (1Kings 11:11-13). God would not tear the whole kingdom from him but would give him one tribe for the sake of David and for the sake of Jerusalem—Judah, which included Benjamin.
Solomon had received wise counsel from God, “If you marry numerous wives, they will turn your heart away.” What wise counsel have you received from the Lord–directly or through someone else? How have you responded?
Dig Deeper:
According to 2 Chronicles 1:7-12, why had Solomon asked for wisdom?
Read (also by Solomon) Ecclesiastes 1. What did he conclude about life in Ecclesiastes 1:2 and Ecclesiastes 1:16-18?
What was the response to Jesus given by a man who had great wealth according to Matthew 19:16?
Nancy J. Baker
This devotion is part of our series on the book of Proverbs.