(4) Ecclesiastical Arrangements. After the death of Nathan and Zadok, those faithful friends of David, although Solomon continued to cele brate with the same splendor all the exterior ceremonies of worship, it is hard to believe that much of that spirit of God which was in his father animated his ecclesiastical proceedings. Side by side with the worship of Jehovah for eign idolatries were established; and the disgust which this inspired in the prophets of Jehovah is clearly seen in the address of Ahijah the Shil onite to Jeroboam, so manifestly exciting him to rebel against the son of David (t Kings xi:29-39).
(5) General Administration. Concerning his general administration little is recorded beyond the names of various high officers. Yet it is probable that Solomon's peculiar talents and taste led him to perform one function which is always looked for in Oriental royalty, viz., to act per sonally as Judge in cases of oppression. His award between the two contending mothers can not be regarded as an isolated fact ; and 'the porch of judgment' which he built for himself may imply that he devoted fixed portions of time to the judicial duties (see 2 Kings xv :5 of Jotham). The celebrity which Solomon gained for wisdom, although founded mainly perhaps on his political and commercial sagacity, must have re ceived great popular impetus from his adminis tration of law, and from his readiness in seeing through the entanglements of affairs which arise in commercial transactions.
(6) His Seraglio. For the harem of Solomon —consisting of 70o wives and 30o concubines—no other apology can be made than the fact that in countries where polygamy is not disreputable, an unlimited indulgence as to the number of wives is looked upon as the chief luxury of wealth, and the most appropriate appendage to royalty.
(7) Friendship with Pharaoh. The commer cial union of Ty re with Egypt, in spite of the vast diversity of genius between the two nations, was in those days very close; and it appears highly probable that the affinity to Pharaoh was sought by Solomon as a means of aiding his com mercial projects. Although his possession of the Edomite ports on the gulf of Akaba made hint to a certain extent independent of Egypt, the friend ship of that power must have been of extreme Importance to him in the dangerous navigation of the Red Sea ; and was perhaps a chief cause of his brilliant success in so new an enterprise. That Pharaoh continued for some time on good terms with him, appears from a singular present which the Egyptian king made him (t Kings ix :i6) : Pharaoh had gone up and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daugh ter, Solomon's wife ;' in consequence of which, Solomon rebuilt and fortified the town. In his de clining years, a very different spirit is manifested towards him by Shishak, the new Egyptian king; whether after the death of the princess who had been the link between the two kingdoms, or from a new view of policy in the new king, is un known.
(8) His Enemies. The enemies especially named as rising against him in his later years, are Jeroboam, Hadad the Edomite, and Rezon of Damascus. The first is described as having had no treasonable intentions, until Solomon sought to kill him, on learning the prophecy made to him by Ahijah. Jeroboam was received and fostered by Shishak, king of Egypt, and ultimately be came the providential instrument of punishing Solomon's iniquity, though not without heavy guilt of his own.
As for Hadad, his enmity to Israel began from the times of David, and is ascribed to the savage butchery perpetrated by Joab on his people. He also, when a mere child, was warmly received in Egypt, apparently by the father-in-law of Solo mon ; but this does not seem to have been prompted by hostility to David. Having married the sister of Pharaoh's queen, he must have been in very high station in Egypt ; still, upon the death of David, he begged leave to depart into Edom, and during the earlier part of Solomon's reign was probably forming his party in secret, and prepar ing for that dangerous border warfare which he carried on somewhat later.
Rezon, on the contrary, seems to have had no personal cause against the Hebrew monarchy ; but having become powerful at Damascus and on its frontier, sought, not in vain, to aggrandize himself at its expense. In the long continuance of peace David's veterans had died, and no suc cessors to them could have been trained; and, con sidering the other great expenses of the court, it may be confidently inferred that the standing army had not been kept up in any efficiency. The revenues which would have maintained it were spent on a thousand royal wives the king him self was unwarlike; and a petty foe, if energetic, was very formidable. Such were the vexations which darkened the setting splendors of the great est Israelitish king. But from within also his prosperity was unsound. Deep discontent per vaded his own people, when the dazzle of his grandeur had become familiar ; when it had be come clear that the royal wealth, instead of de noting national well-being, was really sucked out of the nation's vitals. Having no constitutional organ to express their discontent, they waited sullenly, until the recognition of a successor to the crown should give them the opportunity of extorting a removal of burdens which could not permanently be endured.
(9) Close of His Life. Amid such beginnings of impending trouble Solomon approached the end of his course. He died after a reign of forty years, and was buried in the royal sepulcher_ in the city of David, B. C. about 920. Saycc (High. Crit. p. 320) thinks that "forty" is used as an Hebrew idiom for an indefinite period, and that Solomon's reign was about thirty-two years long. Notwithstanding his immense harem we read of his having only one son, Rehoboam (I Kings xi:41-43). It may be that the historian mentions only Rehoboam because he was the successor to the throne 2. Character. He was "full of sublime de votion, equally full of practical sagacity; the ex temporizer of the loftiest litany in existence, withal the author of the pungent Proverbs; able to mount up on rapture's ethereal pinion to the region of the seraphim, but keenly alive to all the details of business, and shrewd in all human in tercourse; zealous in collecting gold, yet lavish in expending it; sumptuous in his tastes, and splendid in costume; the patriot intense, the Is raelite indeed" (Hamilton, The Royal Preacher).
Wise, Solomon doubtless was; but to me he seems to have been so only in a very limited sense, for that is surely far from true wisdom which aggrandizes the throne at the cost of the nation, and, after creating an ephemeral and ar tificial glory, leaves to the next heir only the wreck of a miserable and exploded failure (Geikie, Hours with the Bible).