SOLOMON'S COURT AND KINGDOM.
1 Kings iv. 1-34.
"But what more oft in nations grown corrupt
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty?"
Samson Agonistes.
When David was dead, and Solomon was established on his throne, his first thoughts were turned to the consolidation of his kingdom. He was probably quite a youth.[193] He was not, nor did he ever desire to be, a warlike prince; but he was compelled to make himself secure from two enemies—Hadad and Rezon—who began almost at once to threaten his frontiers. Of these, however, we shall speak later on, since it is only towards the close of Solomon's reign that they seem to have given serious trouble. If the second psalm is by Solomon it may point to some early disturbances among heathen neighbours which he had successfully put down.
The only actual expedition which Solomon ever made was one against a certain Hamath-Zobah, to which, however, very little importance can be attached. It is simply mentioned in one line in the Book of Chronicles, and it is hard to believe—considering that Rezon had possession of Damascus—that Solomon was master of the great Hamath.[194] He made a material alteration in the military organisation of his kingdom by establishing a standing army of fourteen hundred war-chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he dispersed in various cities and barracks, keeping some of them at Jerusalem.[195]
In order to save his kingdom from attack Solomon expended vast sums on the fortification of frontier towns. In the north he fortified Hazor; in the north-west Megiddo. The passes to Jerusalem on the west were rendered safe by the fortresses at Upper and Nether Bethhoron. The southern districts were overawed by the building of Baalath and Tamar, "the palm-city," which is described as "in the wilderness in the land,"—perhaps in the desolate tract on the road from Hebron to Elath.[196] Movers thinks that Hazezon-Tamar or Engedi is meant, as this town is called Tamar in Ezek. xlvii. 19.
As the king grew more and more in power he gave full reins to his innate love of magnificence. We can best estimate the sudden leap of the kingdom into luxurious civilisation if we contrast the royalty of Saul with that of Solomon. Saul was little more than a peasant-prince, a local emîr, and such state as he had was of the humblest description. But Solomon vied with the gorgeous secular dynasts of historic empires.
His position had become much more splendid owing to his alliance with the King of Egypt—an alliance of which his humbler predecessors would scarcely have dreamed. We are not told the name of his Egyptian bride, but she must have been the daughter of one of the last kings of the twenty-first Tanite dynasty—either Psinaces, or Psusennes II.[197] The dynasty had been founded at Tanis (Zoan) about b.c. 1100 by an ambitious priest named Hir-hor. It only lasted for five generations. Whatever other dower Solomon received with this Egyptian princess, his father-in-law rendered him one signal service. He advanced from Egypt with an army against the Canaanite town of Gezer, which he conquered and destroyed.[198] Solomon rebuilt it as an outpost of defence for Jerusalem. Further than this the Egyptian alliance did not prove to be of much use. The last king of this weak twenty-first dynasty was succeeded b.c. 990 by the founder of a new Bubastite dynasty, the great Shishak I. (Shesonk, Σεσόνχωσις), the protector of Jeroboam and the plunderer of Jerusalem and its Temple. Ker'amat, niece of the last king of the dynasty, married Shishak, the founder of the new dynasty, and was the mother of U-Sark-on I. (Zerah the Ethiopian).
It has been a matter of dispute among the Rabbis whether Solomon was commendable or blameworthy for contracting this foreign alliance. If we judge him simply from the secular standpoint, nothing could be more obviously politic than the course he took. Nor did he break any law in marrying Pharaoh's daughter. Moses had not forbidden the union with an Egyptian woman. Still, from the religious point of view, it was inevitable that such a connexion would involve consequences little in accordance with the theocratic ideal. The kings of Judah must not be judged as though they were ordinary sovereigns. They were meant to be something more than mere worldly potentates. The Egyptian alliance, instead of flattering the pride, only wounded the susceptibilities of the later Jews. The Rabbis had a fantastic notion that Shimei had been Solomon's teacher, and that the king did not fall into the error of wedding an alien[199] until Shimei had been driven from Jerusalem.[200] That there was some sense of doubt in Solomon's mind appears from the statement in 2 Chron. viii. 11, that he deemed it unfit for his bride to have her residence on Mount Moriah, a spot hallowed by the presence of the Ark of God.[201] That she became a proselytess has been suggested, but it is most unlikely. Had this been the case it would have been mentioned in contrast with the heathenism of the fair idolatresses who in later years beguiled the king's heart. On the other hand, the princess, who was his chief if not his earliest bride, does not seem to have asked for any shrine or chapel for the practice of her Egyptian rites. This is the more remarkable since Solomon, ashamed of the humble cedar house of David—which would look despicable to a lady who had lived in "the gigantic edifices, and labyrinthine palace of Egyptian kings"[202]—expended vast sums in building her a palace which should seem worthy of her royal race.
From this time forward the story of Solomon becomes more the record of a passing pageant preserved for us in loosely arranged fragments. It can never be one tithe so interesting as the history of a human heart with its sufferings and passions. "Solomon in all his glory," that figure so unique, so lonely in its wearisome pomp, can never stir our sympathy or win our affection as does the natural, impetuous David, or even the fallen, unhappy Saul. "The low sun makes the colour." The bright gleams and dark shadows of David's life are more instructive than the dull monotony of Solomon's magnificence.