The moral failure of Solomon's government

A further failure and the most obvious one in the eyes of Solomon's contemporaries, the one that affected them most, was the moral abyss growing wider between the king and his people. Formerly, among the wandering shepherds, the patriarch, the chief of the tribe, was one who was listened to, was surrounded with affection and respect since, above all, the private quarrels among the clans, he endeavoured to make justice reign supreme. In this field, as in the others, David had taken care to follow the traditional line. He was helped particularly, it is true, by his natural gifts which he used with brilliance to win the sympathy of his subjects.

David was careful not to imitate the Babylonian kings of the past who to ensure the foundations of their empire perfected those legal codes, examples of which archaeologists have discovered cut in stone or inscribed on earthenware tablets; in these codes the offences against them were listed together with the punishment to be applied to the delinquent. Yisrael possessed its own set apart Law, summarized in ten articles (the Decalogue) in which everything was said. Henceforward, in the eyes of the tribes of Yacob it was less important to pore over the list of possible or probable infractions than to galvanize the People of YAHWEH to go forward in joy and enthusiasm towards new spiritual achievements and, the accomplishment of the mission of Yisrael.

This was not the way taken by Solomon; his programme was totally different from David's. Instead of arousing the love of his subjects, as his father had done, he provoked against himself a wave of hate on many counts, a hate that was lasting and justified.

In Solomon the Yisraelites detested in the first place the oriental despot. Solomon's royal court had become comparable almost to those of Thebes, Bubastis or Babylon. Within this immense building in which riches were accumulated there lived a sovereign who was seen only rarely by his people. He spent his days in the privacy of his own apartments, like a pagan idol in his cell. When, as an exception, he showed himself to his subjects, he did so in an imposing parade, surrounded with soldiers; he then passed by seeing nothing, without lowering his gaze on the multitude prostrate at his passage. This was a spectacle to which the Yisraelites were unaccustomed.

The executive power was concentrated in the hands of a few men, the king's high officials, residing in the palace to which the people were not admitted. The Yisraelites had a shrewd idea that in this mysterious court there was a constant clash of ambitions and that the struggle for power was merciless. Behind these walls they were sure that pitiless struggles for the king's favour took place; intrigue was constant and violent. But nothing of this appeared outside the palace. In any case, the palace had a very bad reputation. It was no longer a king that Yahudah-Yisrael possessed but an oriental prince.

This secret, harsh and authoritarian government, which showed its will in such imperious and brutal fashion, was quite foreign to Yisrael's liberal traditions. According to the needs of the departments the officials designated and enrolled young men and women, assigning them to a post at court without regard to their personal aspirations or the views of their families. The king disposed of his subjects like a farmer with his cattle, according to the needs of the moment.

Yet Yisrael had been warned by Schmuel in person, at the end of the time of the Judges when the chieftains asked the prophet to appoint a king over the Twelve Tribes (1 Schmuel 8:10-18). By the mouth of Schmuel YAHWEH agreed to this request. But Schmuel also warned his fellow-citizens of the many disasters that the establishment of a monarchy would bring upon them. 'These will be the rights,' said Schmuel, 'of the king who is to reign over you.' There then follows the list of the exactions that the People of Yisrael will have to bear:

He will take your sons and assign them to his chariotry and cavalry, and they will run in front of his chariot. He will use them as leaders of a thousand and leaders of fifty; he will make them plough his ploughland and harvest his harvest; and make his weapons of war and gear for his chariots. He will also take your daughters as perfumers, cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, of your vineyards and olive groves and give them to his officials. He will take the best of your manservants and maidservants, of your cattle and your donkeys, and make them work for him. He will tithe your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.

It is clear enough that the general theme of this warning is very much Schmuel's style: we have here the usual theory of the anti-monarchist party at the time of the Judges: in critical times Yisrael could count on being saved from danger by a national hero raised up by YAHWEH; and the descendants of the nomad shepherd remained as a rule opposed to the institution of monarchy.

It should be explained here that certain details of the speech given above seem to indicate that the origin, themes have been embellished with features dating from a later period, and very probably from that of Solomon. In the prophet's statement certain anachronisms can be discerned. At the end of the period of the Judges in fact it would have been wrong to talk chariotry, at least among the Yisraelites; the chariot was only used in their army at the time of Solomon. David, as was pointed out, did not possess this weapon. And the same remark applies to the 'gear' for the chariots,

It remains true nonetheless that in a simpler form the sons of Yacob were warned by Schmuel, the mouthpiece of the democratic party, of the serious disadvantages of having a king, Already in the Book of Shophtim we find Jotham (Shophtim 9:7-21) telling his compatriots the fable of the trees which desired a king to rule over them, and the end of the story was scarcely likely to be found encouraging.

‘'When that day comes,' Schmuel prophesied, 'you will cry out on account of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but on that day YAHWEH will not answer you.’

We find therefore perfectly genuine echoes of the anger of Solomon's subjects in the earlier prophecy of Schmuel; no doubt it was revised and completed a century later in the light of the Yisraelite's sorry experience of the monarchy.

As if to accentuate the oriental character of his reign, Solomon went so far as to establish in his palace, next door to the Temple of YAHWEH, an immense harem, the very thought of which provoked among the Yisraelites feelings of shame and anger. We can discern in the context of the Scriptural account that on this point the chronicler could not prevent certain expressions of blame for his hero creeping into his narrative: Solomon loved many foreign women. ...Solomon was deeply attached to them. He had seven hundred wives of royal rank, and three hundred concubines (1 Melechim 11:1-2). In addition to the Yisraelite account Arab tradition and that of several oriental peoples do blame Solomon for his voluptuous excesses.

Ecclesiasticus (beginning of the second century B.C.) makes no bones about reproaching Solomon on this same subject. It is true that Ben Sirach, the author of this book of the Scripture, was fond of describing Solomon as the greatest king who ever governed Yisrael; he tells us with admiration of Solomon's legendary 'wisdom', of the knowledge which he had acquired, of the wonderful tabernacle which he raised for YAHWEH. But that did not prevent this writer from deploring bitterly the errors of Solomon in establishing his harem:

You abandoned your body to women,
you became the slave of your appetites.
you stained your honour,
you profaned your stock,
so bringing wrath on your children
and grief on your posterity.
(Ecclesiasticus 47:21-22)

A similar idea of the harem prevailed in Egyptian and, Mesopotamian customs but it had no place in the traditions of Yisrael. Among them, as with all the ancient Semites, polygamy was allowed not for the sensual pleasure of the warrior coming home from the wars (as the idea later appeared in Arabian civilization) but for the purpose of ensuring the continuity of the family by a certain number of male descendants. Thus an old man's joy was alt its highest when he was surrounded by his children's children, to the third and fourth generation. It was a pleasant sight, and before going into Sheol his mind was at peace: his lamp would not be put out. 4

Obviously the number of wives was limited by the resources of the head of the family; a man had to be wealthy to have a well provided harem. That was why, as a general rule, a family comprised a single wife together with a concubine reduced to the status of a slave.

This was the general pattern of the ordinary families. In the case of the great chieftains, and more especially of the sovereigns, obliged to ensure the continuity of their line, it was advisable to take measures to guard against the sterility of too small a number of wives. It was considered therefore that the king had the right, and even the duty, to have a larger harem than those of his subjects. Thus David, in addition to his concubines, had seven wives, so far as we can tell. The future of the nation and its political stability depended on these arrangements.

But when Solomon appeared on the scene of history with his thousand wives and concubines the astonishment of the Yisraelites can be understood. So large a number of wives was regarded by the Yisraelites as an insult to the sanctity of the family. And so he was accused of falling into a shameful sensuality. It is probably truer to see in this surprising number of wives a desire to imitate the mode of life of those foreign courts in which a large harem constituted the visible sign of power and wealth.

The Yisraelites did not look at it in this light. In this senseless crowd of foreign women around Solomon they saw only a profanation of family life. In short it was a further reason to hate their master.

The mutterings of rebellion increased. Popular discontent was accentuated. Political revolution threatened the palace in Yerusalem. We are a long way from those first years, full of hope, of a young king who was admired, venerated even, by the name of Solomon the Wise.

4 Among Indo-Europeans the symbol of family life is the hearth. Among the Semites it is the 'lamp', the earthenware lamp whose flickering flame gave a dim light in the darkness of the tent or the room. And so of a family that had become extinct it was said that 'its lamp had gone out'.

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Solomon The Magnificent Index   Solomon Sitemap  Scripture History Through the Ages  Solomon The Historian  RADIANT DAWN  Solomon's Wisdom  SOLOMON IN ALL HIS HONOR  David's role in building the Temple  Dates of the building of the Temple  Division of the Temple  The Ark of the Covenant  The most Kodesh Place  Dedication of the Temple  SOLOMON Prince of Peace  SOLOMON THE TRADER   Solomon's Ophir expedition  The queen of Sheba  LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF SOLOMON  First historical works of the Hebrews  What did Solomon write  THE SHADES OF NIGHT  Political and social failure  Solomon's spiritual failure  The moral failure of Solomon  CONCLUSION of Solomon