Bad Theology

Text for today: I Kings 11 i-xiii

King Solomon's reign draws to a close in diplomatic triumph and religious tolerance, with the royal household graced by wives and concubines from all over the world. In ancient society, royal marriages were essentially treaties between ruling families, and the vast number of Solomon's wives is therefore a symbol of his willingness and skill in speaking peace to other nations. However, despite the wealth and prestige which this openness has brought to His chosen people, to say nothing of its likely financial contribution towards the First Temple, God is displeased with Solomon.

Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba, whom David famously acquired by disposing of her husband on the swords of the Ammonites. Characteristically, God tempered might with magnanimity by inflicting His punishment not on the adulterous couple but on their first child, appointing the prophet Nathan as palace abortionist. Nathan warned David that the sword would never depart from his house, and it is no doubt in order to fulfil this prophecy that God inflicts Solomon's own punishment on David and Bathsheba's grandson Rehoboam. God rubs the message in with His usual hob-nailed sense of justice by willing it that Solomon choose an Ammonite for Rehoboam's mother.

Under Rehoboam's rule God divides the kingdom of Israel, having first plagued Solomon's death-bed with mutterings about the consequences of fraternising with beastly immigrants and copying their nasty foreign ways. Rehoboam is permitted to keep a single tribe for himself, apparently because God has equity in Jerusalem which He is as yet disinclined to liquidate. Solomon's example was not forgotten by God's true son, who ordered His disciples to live like birds or plant life while comparing Solomon's glory unfavourably to the latter.