Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 11-12.

Often when I read the books of Samuel and Kings I connect the dots between King David’s affair with Bathsheba and the division of the Kingdom of Israel under Rehoboam.  And while there is a connection there, today’s passage shows us that King Solomon’s idolatry was really what led to that division.  And since Solomon’s idolatry stemmed from his marriages to foreign women one might say that the division of Israel resulted from Solomon’s polygamy.  Early in his reign, King Solomon united his kingdom by drawing the people of Israel to worship God in the Temple which he built.  However, as time went by and King Solomon became wealthy and powerful, he married many women from many different lands.  In order to keep his many wives happy, King Solomon built altars to the gods they had worshiped before he married them.  Then in addition to the regular sacrifices which King Solomon offered to God in the Temple, he offered sacrifices to these other gods, and otherwise took part in their worship.  As a result God allowed opposition to rise against Solomon among people whom David had thoroughly subjugated (and my reading of the relevant parts of the Old Testament suggest had begun integrating into Israel itself).

Having written that first paragraph I want to make another point.  God had sent a prophet to tell Jeroboam that He was going to take part of Israel away from the House of David and give it to him, Jeroboam.  The prophet told Jeroboam that this would happen because of Solomon’s idolatry.  The prophet went on to tell Jeroboam that if Jeroboam faithfully served and worshiped God, God would make his dynasty as lasting as King David’s.  Yet, despite this when Jeroboam became king, he feared that if the people continued to worship God at the Temple in Jerusalem their loyalty would revert to David’s House.  As a result, Jeroboam established the worship of idols to replace the worship of God.  So, the point I want to make: the writers of the Old Testament disapproved of a man having more than one wife, but did not consider it to be, in and of itself, a sin.  I believe that their view reflects that of God.  So, while it was King Solomon’s polygamy which led him into idolatry, it was his idolatry which caused the division of his kingdom, not his polygamy.  King Solomon’s polygamy was a mistake which exposed him to the temptation to commit idolatry, but it was not a sin.  Not all of our mistakes are sins, but our mistakes often lead us into sin.  Jeroboam’s kingdom suffered its own divisions and problems because of his idolatry.  In the same way, the idolatry which our nation, and our world, is practicing is leading to divisions and disasters today.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.