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Solomon

Solomon Sol"o*mon, n. One of the kings of Israel, noted for his superior wisdom and magnificent reign; hence, a very wise man. -- Sol`o*mon"ic, a. [1913 Webster]

{Solomon s seal} (Bot.), a perennial liliaceous plant of the genus Polygonatum, having simple erect or curving stems rising from thick and knotted rootstocks, and with white or greenish nodding flowers. The commonest European species is {Polygonatum multiflorum}. {P. biflorum} and {P. giganteum} are common in the Eastern United States. See Illust. of Rootstock.

{False Solomon s seal} (Bot.), any plant of the liliaceous genus Smilacina having small whitish flowers in terminal racemes or panicles. [1913 Webster]

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Solomon Islands (sb) [s?l?m?nail?ndzzb] Salomonen, Salomoninseln
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Bible Dictionary

Solomon
(peaceful). I. Early life and occasion to the throne

Solomonwas the child of David s old age, the last born of all hissons. (1 chronicles 3:5) The yearnings of the "man of war" ledhim to give to the new-horn infant the name of Solomon(shelomoth, the peaceful one). Nathan, with a marked referenceto the meaning of the king s own name (david, the darling, thebeloved one), calls the infant Jedidiah (jedid yah), that is,the darling of the Lord. (2 samuel 11:24,25) He was placedunder the care of Nathan from his earliest infancy. At first,apparently, there was no distinct purpose to make him the heir.Absalom was still the king s favorite son, (2 samuel 13:37;18:33) and was looked on by the people as the destinedsuccessor. (2 samuel 14:13; 15:1-6) The death of Absalom whenSolomon was about ten years old left the place vacant, andDavid pledged his word in secret to Bath-sheba that he, and noother, should be the heir. (1 kings 1:13) The words which werespoken somewhat later express, doubtless, the purpose whichguided him throughout. (1 chronicles 28:9; 20) His son s lifeshould not he as his own had been, one of hardships and wars,dark crimes and passionate repentance, but, from first to last,be pure, blameless, peaceful, fulfilling the ideal of glory andof righteousness after which he himself had vainly striven. Theglorious visions of (psalms 72:1) ... may be looked on as theprophetic expansion of these hopes of his old age. So far,allwas well. Apparently his influence over his son s character wasone exclusively for good. Nothing that we know of Bath-shebalends us to think of her as likely to mould her son s mind andheart to the higher forms of goodness. Under these influencesthe boy grew up. At the age of ten or eleven he must havepassed through the revolt of Absalom, and shared his father sexile. (2 samuel 15:16) He would be taught all that priests orLevites or prophets had to teach. When David was old andfeeble, Adonijah, Solomon s older brother attempted to gainpossession of the throne; but he was defeated, and Solomon wentdown to Gihon and was proclaimed and anointed king. A fewmonths more and Solomon found himself, by his father s death,the sole occupant of the throne. The position to which hesucceeded was unique. Never before, and never after, did thekingdom of Israel take its place among the great monarchies ofthe East. Large treasures, accumulated through many years, wereat his disposal. II. Personal appearance

Of Solomon spersonal appearance we have no direct description, as we haveof the earlier kings. There are, however, materials for fillingup the gap. Whatever higher mystic meaning may be latent in(psalms 45:1) ... or the Song of Songs, we are all butcompelled to think of them us having had at least a historicalstarting-point. They tell of one who was, in the eyes of themen of his own time, "fairer than the children of men," theface "bright, and ruddy" as his father s, (song of solomon5:10; 1 samuel 17:42) bushy locks, dark as the raven s wing,yet not without a golden glow, the eyes soft as "the eyes ofcloves," the "countenance as Lebanon excellent as the cedars,""the chiefest among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." (songof solomon 5:13-18) Add to this all gifts of a noble,far-reaching intellect large and ready sympathies, a playfuland genial humor, the lips "full of grace," and the soul"anointed" as "with the oil of gladness," (psalms 45:1) ... andwe may form some notion of what the king was like in that dawnof his golden prime. III. Reign

All the data for acontinuous history that we have of Solomon s reign are-- (a)The duration of the reign, forty sears, B.C. 1015-975. (1 kings11:4) (b) The commencement of the temple in the fourth, itscompletion in the eleventh, year of his reign. (1 kings6:1,37,38) (c) The commencement of his own palace in theseventh, its completion in the twentieth, year. (1 kings 7:1; 2chronicles 8:1) (d) The conquest of Hamath-zobah, and theconsequent foundation of cities in the region of northPalestine after the twentieth year. (2 chronicles 8:1-6) IV.Foreign policy

Egypt. The first act of the foreign policy of the new reignmust have been to most Israelites a very startling one. Hemade affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, by marrying hisdaughter (1 kings 3:1) The immediate results were probablyfavorable enough. The new queen brought with her as a dowrythe frontier city of Gezer. But the ultimate issue ofalliance showed that it was hollow and impolitic.

Tyre. The alliance with the Phoenician king rested on asomewhat different footing. It had been a part of David spolicy from the beginning of his reign. Hiram had been "evera lover of David." As soon as he heard of Solomon s accessionhe sent ambassadors to salute him. A correspondence passedbetween the two kings, which ended in a treaty of commerce.The opening of Joppa as a port created a new coasting-trade,and the materials from Tyre were conveyed to that city onfloats, and thence to Jerusalem. (2 chronicles 2:16) Inreturn for these exports, the Phoenicians were only too gladto receive the corn and oil of Solomon s territory. Theresults of the alliance did not end here. Now, for the firsttime in the history of the Jews, they entered on a career asa commercial people.

The foregoing were the two most important to Babylonalliances. The absence of any reference to Babylon andAssyria, and the fact that the Euphrates was recognized asthe boundary of Solomon s kingdom, (2 chronicles 9:26)suggests the inference that the Mesopotamian monarchies wereat this time comparatively feeble. Other neighboring nationswere content to pay annual tribute in the form of gifts. (2chronicles 9:28)

The survey of the influence exercised by Solomon onsurrounding nations would be incomplete if we were to passover that which was more directly personal the fame of hisglory and his wisdom. Wherever the ships of Tarshish went,they carried with them the report, losing nothing in itspassage, of what their crews had seen and heard. The journeyof the queen of Sheba, though from its circumstances the mostconspicuous, did not stand alone. V. Internal history

The first prominent scene in Solomon s reign is one whichpresents his character in its noblest aspect. God in a visionhaving offered him the choice of good things he would have,he chose wisdom in preference to riches or honor or longlife. The wisdom asked for was given in large measure, andtook a varied range. The wide world of nature, animate andinanimate, the lives and characters of men, lay before him,and he took cognizance of all but the highest wisdom was thatwanted for the highest work, for governing and guiding, andthe historian hastens to give an illustration of it. Thepattern-instance is, in all its circumstances, thoroughlyOriental. (1 kings 3:16-28)

In reference to the king s finances, the first impression ofthe facts given us is that of abounding plenty. Largequantities of the precious metals were imported from Ophirand Tarshish. (1 kings 9:28) All the kings and princes of thesubject provinces paid tribute in the form of gifts, in moneyand in kind, "at a fixed rate year by year." (1 kings 10:25)Monopolies of trade contributed to the king s treasury. (1kings 10:28,29) The total amount thus brought into thetreasury in gold, exclusive of all payments in kind, amountedto 666 talents. (1 kings 10:14)

It was hardly possible, however, that any financial systemcould bear the strain of the king s passion for magnificence.The cost of the temple was, it is true, provided for byDavid s savings and the offerings of the people; but evenwhile that was building, yet more when it was finished onestructure followed on another with ruinous rapidity. All theequipment of his court, the "apparel" of his servants was onthe same scale. A body-guard attended him, "threescorevaliant men," tallest and handsomest of the sons of Israel.Forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelvethousand horsemen made up the measure of his magnificence. (1kings 4:26) As the treasury became empty, taxes multipliedand monopolies became more irksome.

A description of the temple erected by Solomon is givenelsewhere. After seven years and the work was completed andthe day came to which all Israelites looked back as theculminating glory of their nation.

We cannot ignore the fact that even now there were somedarker shades in the picture. He reduced the "strangers" inthe land, the remnant of the Canaanite races, to the state ofhelots, and made their life "bitter with all hard bondage."One hundred and fifty-three thousand, with wives and childrenin proportion, were torn from their homes and sent off to thequarries and the forests of Lebanon. (1 kings 5:15; 2chronicles 2:17,18) And the king soon fell from the loftiestheight of his religious life to the lowest depth. Before longthe priests and prophets had to grieve over rival temples toMolech, Chemosh, Ashtaroth and forms of ritual not idolatrousonly, but cruel, dark, impure. This evil came as the penaltyof another. (1 kings 11:1-8) He gave himself to "strangewomen." He found himself involved in a fascination which ledto the worship of strange gods. Something there was perhapsin his very "largeness of heart," so far in advance of thetraditional knowledge of his age, rising to higher and widerthoughts of God, which predisposed him to it. In recognizingwhat was true in other forms of faith, he might lose hishorror at what was false. With this there may have mingledpolitical motives. He may have hoped, by a policy oftoleration, to conciliate neighboring princes, to attractlarger traffic. But probably also there was another influenceless commonly taken into account. The widespread belief ofthe East in the magic arts of Solomon is not, it is believed,without its foundation of truth. Disasters followed beforelong as the natural consequence of what was politically ablunder as well as religiously a sin. VI. His literaryworks

little remains out of the songs, proverbs, treatises,of which the historian speaks. (1 kings 4:32,33) Excerptsonly are given from the three thousand proverbs. Of thethousand and five songs we know absolutely nothing. His booksrepresent the three stages of his life. The Song of Songsbrings before us the brightness of his -youth. Then comes inthe book of Proverbs, the stage of practical, prudentialthought. The poet has become the philosopher, the mystic haspassed into the moralist; but the man passed through bothstages without being permanently the better for either. Theywere to him but phases of his life which he had known andexhausted, (ecclesiastes 1:1; ecclesiastes 2:1) ... andtherefore there came, its in the confessions of the preacher,the great retribution.