1 Kings 11:3

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses [These may have been members of royal or princely houses of neighbouring nations. Evidently they enjoyed a distinguished rank], and three hundred concubines [Though not committed to a defence of the accuracy of the figures 700 and 300 (which are clearly round numbers), it must be said that the reasons alleged for reducing them are not of much weight. It is hardly correct, e . g ; to say (as Rawlinson) that the numbers are given in Song of Solomon 6:8 as "threescore queens and fourscore concubines," for it is obvious that too much importance must not be attached to an obiter statement ("there are threescore," etc.) in a poetical book, too, and one descriptive of Solomon's youth. The view of Ewald and Keil, again, that these numbers represent the sum total of the inmates of the harem at different periods of Solomon's long reign, rather than the number present at any one time—they would see in the numbers of Song of Solomon l.c . a statement of the average strength of the seraglio—though not to be described as evasive, is certainly not the natural interpretation of the words. And these numbers, when we compare them with the establishments of other Eastern potentates, are not found to be at all incredible. The commentators all remind us that Dareius Codomannus, e . g ; took with him on his expedition against Alexander 360 pellices . Or if ancient history, as Rawlinson affirms, furnishes no strict parallel to these figures, the harems of modern Persia and Turkey at any rate have quite equalled that of Solomon. (See Bähr in loc .) It is true that Rehoboam had only 18 wives and 60 concubines ( 2 Chronicles 11:21 ), but then Rehoboam was not Solomon. If his harem was but a tithe of his father's, so also were his wealth and his power]: and his wives turned away his heart. ["Satan hath found this bait to take so well that he never changed since he crept into Paradise" (Bp. Hall).]