[412] See Exod. xxxiv. 11-17; Deut. vii. 1-4. The Talmud makes one of its dishonest attempts to get rid of the fact; Shabbath, p. 56, b. Sanhedrin, ff. 55, 56. Justin Martyr preserves a tradition (Dial. c. Tryph., 34) that Solomon in taking a Sidonian wife worshipped idols at Sidon. Muslim tradition attributes Solomon's idolatry to the tricks of demons who assumed his form (Qur'an, Sura ii. 99; but see Sura xxxviii. 30).
[413] Prov. xxxi. 3.
[414] The Song of Solomon (vi. 8) gives him, besides the 'alamoth ("damsels") "without number," the sixty wives (saroth), and the eighty concubines, who were partly perhaps their slaves.
[415] Parmen. ap. Athen., Deipnos., iii. 3. Comp. Quint. Curt., Vit. Alex., iii. 3. Amehhate of Egypt had more than three hundred and seventeen wives (Brugsch, Egypt, iii. 607, E.T.). Rehoboam, who had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, left twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Solomon, so far as we know, had only one son and two daughters.
[416] Cant. vi. 8.
[417] The Vatican MS. of the LXX. adds Syrian and Amorite princesses to the number. Marriages with Sidonians and Hittites are expressly forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 12-16, and with Canaanites in Deut. vii. 3 (comp. Ezra ix. 2 and Neh. xiii. 23).
[418] Numb. xxv. 3.
[419] See Prov. ii. 10-22, v. 1-14, vi. 24-35, etc. (contrast Psalm cxliv. 12-15).
[420] In 1 Kings xi. 9-25 the mischief inflicted by Rezon and Hadad is represented as a punishment for Solomon's apostasy. It has been said that here "the pragmatism belongs to the redactor," because these enemies sprang into existence when he came to the throne. But, as I have here represented it, nothing seems more probable than that Rezon and Hadad were practically impotent to inflict much damage before the period of Solomon's decline. (Verse 23 is omitted in some MSS. of the LXX.)
[421] An isolated anecdote of the exterminating war is preserved in 1 Chron. xi. 22, 23, from which it would seem that Egypt had interfered in favour of Edom.