1 Kings 4:31

The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind.

It is a spirited and glowing description which the historian here gives of Solomon's wisdom. We may believe that it was not without a pardonable pride that he recounted the rich endowments and the widespread fame of Israel's greatest monarch. But it is really one of the saddest chapters in the whole of Scripture—and one of the most instrucfive. Manifold as were his gifts, marvellous as was his wisdom, they did not preserve him from falling. It is a strange, shuddering contrast, the record of his singular powers and faculties ( 1 Kings 4:29-34 ), and the story of his shameful end ( 1 Kings 11:1-14 ) How came it to pass that a man so highly gifted and blessed of God made such complete shipwreck of faith and good conscience; that over the grave of the very greatest and wisest of men must be written, "Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen from his high estate"? Let us consider

I. IT WAS UNPRECEDENTED AND HAS SINCE BEEN UNEQUALLED . The sages of Hebrew antiquity, the shrewd Arabians, the sagacious Egyptians, he has eclipsed them all. "Wiser than all men," such was the judgment of his contemporaries. And such is also the verdict of posterity. At the present day, among Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans, no fame equals his. Among the wise men of the world Solomon stands facile princeps.

II. IT WAS PRODIGIOUS . To the writer it seemed inexhaustible, illimitable. He can only compare it to "the sand that is on the sea shore;" and he could hardly use a more forcible illustration of its boundless and infinite extent.

III. IT WAS VARIED AND COMPREHENSIVE . It was both scientific and sententious. He was at once philosopher and poet. Nothing was too great and nothing too small for him. It is seldom that a man excels in more than one or two branches of knowledge, but Solomon was distinguished in all. He could discourse with equal profundity of the cedar and the hyssop, of beast and bird. It was lofty, it was wide, it was deep.

IV. IT WAS TRUE WISDOM . Not superficial, and not mere book learning. Book. worms are often mere pedants. Students often know little of the world and know less of themselves. But Solomon knew man ("The proper study of mankind is man") knew himself. He needed not the charge, γνῶθι σεαυτὸν . He was not one of the μετεωροσοφισται whom the Attic poet justly ridicules. His writings proved that he had studied the world, and was familiar with the heart.

V. IT WAS GOD GIVEN WISDOM ( 1 Kings 4:29 ; cf. 3, 12, 28; Daniel 2:21 ). Not "the wisdom of this world which is foolishness with God" ( 1 Corinthians 3:8 ), and which "descendeth not from above" ( James 3:15 ), but that which the Supreme wisdom teacheth. (Cf. Proverbs 2:6 .) Solomon was truly θεοδίδακτος .

VI. IT WAS GOD - FEARING WISDOM . "The fear of the Lord," he says, "is the beginning of wisdom." (Cf. Proverbs 1:7 ; Proverbs 9:10 .) There is a wisdom (falsely so called) which dishonours and despises God. This did not Solomon's. The Proverbs point men to the Lord.

VII. HIS WISDOM STILL WARNS AND TEACHES THE WORLD . Some of the thousand and five songs ( Psalms 72:1-20 :126.) are still chanted by the Catholic Church. (It is significant, though, how few of this vast number remain to us. David was not as wise as Solomon, nor so prolific a writer, but his songs have survived in considerable numbers. They are among the greatest treasures of Christendom. Piety is before wisdom. "Knowledge shall vanish away," but "charity never faileth.") Some of his Proverbs are still read to the congregation. Pie still warns the young and the sensual (chs. 2-7.) He is fallen, but his words stand. Now turn we to

II. BECAUSE THE HEART WAS NOT KEPT . The intellect, i.e; was developed and cultivated at the expense or to the neglect of the spiritual life. "His wives turned away his heart." But how came one of so much wisdom to let his wives turn it away? Because the wisdom had dwarfed and overshadowed the soul; because the moral did not keep pace with the intellectual growth, and it became flaccid and yielding. It is dangerous for wisdom to increase unless piety increases with it. The higher the tower, the broader should be its foundations. If all the weight and width is at the top, it will come to the ground with a crash. Even so, if wisdom is not to destroy its possessor, the basis of love and piety must be broadened. "Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up." The head of a colossus needs the trunk of a colossus to sustain it.

II. BECAUSE HIS OWN PRECEPTS WERE NOT KEPT . It was because he leaned to his own understanding that this giant form fell prostrate. It was because he forgot his warnings against the strange woman that he fell a prey to strange women. The keeper of the vineyards did not keep his own ( Song of Solomon 1:6 ). He was not true to himself, and he soon proved false to his God. After preaching to others, he himself became a castaway. A solemn warning this to every preacher and teacher that he should not do

"As some ungracious pastors do,

Show men the steep and thorny road to heaven,

While, like a puffed and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance tread

And recks not his own rede."

III. BECAUSE PRIDE POISONED HIS WISDOM AND PERVERTED HIS GIFTS . There was no decay of mental power; the force was unabated, but it was misdirected. Pride took her place at the helm. It is pride, not sensuality, accounts for his army of wives and concubines. But if pride brought them, pleasure kept them. And when he put his heart into their keeping, they turned him about at their will (c.f. James 3:3 , James 3:4 ). The heart carries the intellect along with it. (Here again compare his own words, Proverbs 16:18 , and Proverbs 4:23 ; cf. Daniel 5:20 .) Magnificent Solomon, unequalled in wisdom, how art thou fallen from heaven! Aye, and if we could but draw aside the veil; if we could but visit the spirits in prison ( 1 Peter 3:19 ), we might perchance find among them one clothed of yore "in purple and fine linen" ( Luke 16:19 ; cf. Luke 12:27 ), and who "fared sumptuously every day," and looking into the anguished face might find it was none other than the brilliant and illustrious son of David, the chosen type of the Messiah, the very wisest and greatest of mankind. "The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind." We know of whom these words were spoken. But their true application is not to England's greatest chancellor, but to Israel's greatest king.

HOMILIES BY J. WAITE