1. I Kings 1:2. Why could none of the King’s many wives be called upon to be nurse and source of warmth?

Unfortunately his wives were not that young either. David needed the warmth that only youth can provide.

It is affirmed in every commentary that I read, that this arrangement included marriage. The virgin was to be his last wife, though there was no cohabitation that occurred. It is the fact of the marriage that induced Adonijah later to request her hand in matrimony when the king had died. She was in fact a queen. To be married to the queen is to be the king, Adonijah reasoned. His brother Solomon saw through this immediately, and dealt with Adonijah as the situation demanded.

The unusual nature of the role of Abishag, the virgin who was appointed to David, causes us to blush a bit until we concede that, yes, this was a marriage, and yes, this was considered the best medicine for circulatory problems such as David now had. As late as the 2^nd century AD, the famed Doctor Galen of Greece was prescribing this very thing for the same ailment.

2. I Kings 3:3-5. If God did not want His people sacrificing to Him in the “high places”, as did the pagans, why did He make one of His most significant revelations of Himself to Solomon in such a place (Gibeon).

Solomon was a product of his times. His father had taken many wives, and begun to forge alliances with the surrounding nations. Solomon even took wives from them now, and the culture which his wives produced, as we shall see, induced him to play along. We do it still in America. There are things we know are wrong about the media, our businesses, etc, but we go along and “become all things to all men”, as we like to believe. God still works in us and through us, but there comes a time when this coddling of the world goes over a line that our God will not tolerate. Israel would find this out as a nation, as would Solomon as a man, as well as his son.

God is merciful. He meets us where we are. But He wants us to go from there to where He is. We err when we think that everything we are doing must please the Father, or He would not have blessed us. No, everything we know and do is not pleasing to Him, but when we listen, we hear the call out. It was a call Solomon had trouble receiving because of all the nopise caused by his many foreign wives.

3. I Kings 4:7. What exactly was the responsibility of the “deputies” Solomon appointed over Israel, and how did they accomplish their task?

The king and his court, his government, had to eat. So twelve men were given a piece of Israel out of which to collect foods etc for one month each. The people understood their responsibility to support the man of God in Jerusalem, and gave their fare share when the deputies came around to collect it.

For the record, these twelve areas divided by Solomon did not correspond to the allotment of the twelve tribes, a division which some say was already becoming somewhat obsolete. There was a blending going on, and though everyone knew his parentage and heritage, it is assumed that boundary disputes became less of an issue as Israel’s history rolled on. The clear division which would be made apparent later in the story, was, of course, North and South. Even in this time of the united Kingdom, the writer of I Kings speaks of “Judah” and “Israel”. Two clear parts of one whole.

4. I Kings 9:4. God says that Solomon’s father walked in all God’s ways, and that He expects Solomon to do the same. Did not David sin grievously against the Lord?

There is no man that has not sinned, as Solomon acknowledges in his great prayer here. The difference between the sins of David and the sins of Solomon had to do with the condition of the heart. David sinned, was exposed, repented, confessed, was chastised, but still was the man after God’s own heart.

On the other hand, Solomon slowly allowed his life to be taken from him by illicit relationships and craving after too many things. Though the Proverbs, and especially Ecclesiastes, show us a man who has learned from his failure, we do not necessarily see the turning of the heart fully back to God. More and more sin finally forced God to wrest the Kingdom from his hand and give most of it away to another ruler.

One of the great tragedies of the Old Testament story.

But it must serve as a warning to those of us who take our salvation lightly and cease working diligently in the Lord’s vineyard, while the world gets worse and worse, ripening for a judgment about which we are to be warned and warning others.

5. I Kings 9:25. Why is Solomon, a King from Judah and not a priest from Levi, offering burnt sacrifices on an altar he himself built? Was not Saul rebuked for such a thing?

Here, and earlier in the story, it is stated that offered multitudes of sacrifices. Tens of thousands, it is so reckoned in one place. Even if we suspect Solomon of violation of the priestly office here, we would have to admit it physically impossible for him to perform such a feat as this!

No, he offered all these sacrifices in the same sense that he built the Temple. It is probable that not one curtain, one piece of furniture, one anything, was put in place by Solomon himself, yet we say that he built it. Same here. He knew his place, even though much later he lost touch with God’s perfect ways. He merely offered his gifts to God by the chosen means of that day, the sons of Levi, the priestly class.

6. I Kings 11:41. Is the book of the Acts of Solomon still available to us?

No. Some say this book was lost in the Captivity of Israel. This is one of several books that the man of God who wrote Kings, used as a source for his information. Though the sources themselves were not inspired, it is our faith that the prophet who took from here and there was being guided by the Holy Spirit, and gave us a true account of the history of those days.

7. I Kings 12:1. Why was Shechem chosen as the place for a coronation? Why not Jerusalem, where the Throne has been for 63 years?

Says Jamieson-Fausset-Brown:

“Rehoboam did not call them thither, but went thither, because the Israelites prevented him, and had generally pitched upon that place rather than upon Jerusalem; partly, because it was most convenient for all, as being in the centre of the whole kingdom; partly, because that being in the potent tribe of Ephraim, they supposed there they might use that freedom of speech which they resolved to use to get their grievances redressed; and partly, by the secret direction of Jeroboam, or his friends, who would not trust themselves in Jerusalem, and thought Shechem a fitter place to execute their design.”