Getting Started

You could look at Solomon as the promised son of David—the one who brought peace and prosperity to Israel. The one whose wisdom made the nations come and wonder. And that is all true. But you can also look at Solomon through another lens. Moses looked through that lens centuries earlier in anticipation of a time when God’s people would want a human king. This lens measured a king not by what he was, but by what he wasn’t. 

Let’s look more closely now at the foundations of Solomon’s reign to see how predictable his fall really was. We can only wonder how different things could have been if Solomon remained the humble praying king he started out to be. In hindsight, the brief window of shalom had more to do with God’s grace than Solomon’s faithfulness.