Lives of Scripture
Life Story
Solomon succeeded David as king after a contested succession in which his older half-brother Adonijah attempted to seize the throne first, an attempt blocked by the prophet Nathan and Solomon's mother Bathsheba (1 Kings 1). Early in his reign, God appeared to Solomon in a dream at Gibeon and offered him anything he asked; Solomon requested 'an understanding heart to judge Your people, to discern between good and evil' rather than long life, riches, or the death of his enemies, and God granted both the wisdom and, because he had not asked for them, riches and honor besides (1 Kings 3:5-14). Solomon demonstrated that wisdom immediately, resolving a dispute between two women over a living infant by proposing to divide the child in two, exposing the true mother by her willingness to give the child up rather than see him harmed (1 Kings 3:16-28). Over seven years, Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, fulfilling the plan God had given David but had not permitted David himself to build, since David was a man of war (1 Kings 5-8; 1 Chronicles 22:8-10). At its dedication, Solomon prayed a long public prayer acknowledging that 'the highest heaven cannot contain' God, and asked that God would hear prayers offered toward this house from Israel and from foreigners alike (1 Kings 8:22-53). His wisdom and wealth became internationally famous, drawing the Queen of Sheba to test him with hard questions, all of which he answered to her astonishment (1 Kings 10:1-13). Scripture is direct about what followed: Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh's daughter — Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women the Law had specifically warned Israel against marrying because they would turn Israelite hearts to their gods — and by his old age his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines did exactly that. He turned after Ashtoreth, Milcom, and Chemosh, and built high places for their worship on a hill facing Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:1-8). God's anger brought judgment: the kingdom would be torn from his son, though not entirely and not during Solomon's own lifetime, for David's sake (1 Kings 11:9-13) — the beginning of the split between Israel and Judah that came to pass immediately after Solomon's death (1 Kings 12).
Family
Solomon was the son of David and Bathsheba, given the name Jedidiah, 'beloved of the LORD,' by the prophet Nathan as a sign of grace after the earlier loss of David and Bathsheba's first child (2 Samuel 12:24-25). He came to the throne only after his mother and Nathan intervened against his half-brother Adonijah's attempt to seize it first (1 Kings 1). His own son Rehoboam inherited a kingdom already straining under the weight of Solomon's forced labor policies and his turn to idolatry in old age, and lost the ten northern tribes to Jeroboam within a generation of Solomon's death (1 Kings 12).