Solomon

Life

Prayer for Proper Judgement

Job chapter 34 discusses the righteous judgement of God, and verse 30 expresses the hope: “That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.” In the old kingdom, the role of the king was as the ultimate judge of the people, and we see as much in the prayer of Solomon upon his becoming king, at 1 Kings 3:9 where he said: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” It says at 1 Kings 7:7: “Then he made a porch for the throne where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other.”

When our people rejected Yahweh as King, we invited hypocritical human judgement upon ourselves, and have been naturally punished by it ever since. One of the promises of Christianity is that Christ be our judge, and then we shall all be judged fairly, before God who knows all, and not before man whose judgement is clouded and partial and whose knowledge is incomplete.

Repopulating Cities in Galilee

Reading the accounts given at 1 Kings 9:11-13 and 2 Chron. 8:2, it is evident that Naphtali did not inhabit all of the territory in Galilee which they inherited, for Solomon had to repopulate many of those cities in his time.

Death

When the ancient Kingdom of Israel was divided after Solomon’s death, Benjamin was left with the Tribe of Judah for the purpose of them becoming lightbearers of the message of Christ. Eleven of the twelve apostles were of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul of Tarsus, called much later, was also of Benjamin (Rom. 11:1). The apostles of this tribe were fulfilling their duties as the light-bearers to Israel.

1 Kings 11:36 And to his son I will give one tribe, that My servant David may always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for Myself, to put My name there.

The son spoken of in this verse is Rehoboam, who was the first king of the Kingdom of Judah.