1 Kings 10:23

1 Kings 10:23

(with Matthew 6:29 )

The life of Solomon is a mournful story. We can hardly wonder that though his real greatness made oblivion impossible, though his name will live as long as the human race endures, yet an evil shadow as of high hopes baffled, of a great cause lost, rests upon his memory. Great in himself, great in what was given him to achieve, the impression that he made overflowed the bounds of his own kingdom, and he appears again and again as the lord of spirits and the master of the powers of nature in the multitudinous and fantastic legends of later and of other races, though his own people did not greatly cherish his memory.

I. To Solomon, even more than to his father, we owe the ideal of the peaceful and perfect King that was so deeply planted in the minds of the Jewish people, the fruitful hope of the Deliverer that was to be, which sustained the nation through all the long vicissitudes of captivity and enslavement, exile and oppression.

II. The temple of Solomon, the wisdom of Solomon, the empire of Solomon, have each in turn given way to something different, something higher. If the temple of Solomon and the temple worship have given place to something different from each, as Christian churches and Christian worship, these too may remind us that they in their turn are means, not ends; that our best altar is in our own hearts, our truest sacrifice that not only of praise and thanksgiving, but that of our souls and bodies.

III. It is never wise to underrate the effects of human genius, even when partly or wholly divorced from goodness. Great men, it has been wisely said, are, even in spite of their wickedness, lights from God. Yet there is a sense in which the humblest may aspire to that in which the greatest has come short, and he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater even than Solomon.

G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 65.

References: 1 Kings 11:1-13 . Parker, vol. vii., p. 333. 1 Kings 11:4 . J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 473. 1 Kings 11:4-6 . Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 235. 1 Kings 11:6 . American Pulpit of To-Day, vol. i., p. 131. 1 Kings 11:9 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. xvi., p. 341. 1 Kings 11:11 . H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 745; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 84. 1 Kings 11:12 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ix., p. 20.