1 Kings 11:42

_AND THE REST OF THE ACTS OF SOLOMON, AND ALL THAT HE DID, AND HIS WISDOM, ARE THEY NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE ACTS OF SOLOMON?_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

41-43 Solomon's reign was as long as his father's, but his life was not so. Sin shortened his days. If the world, with all its advantages, could satisfy the soul, and afford real joy, Solomon would have found it so. But he was disappointed in all, and to warn us, has left this record of all earthly enjoyments, "Vanity and vexation of spirit." The New Testament declares that one greater than Solomon is come to reign over us, and to possess the throne of his father David. May we not see something of Christ's excellency faintly represented to us in this figure?...

Verse 1 Kings 11:42. _SOLOMON REIGNED - FORTY YEARS._] Josephus says _fourscore_ _years_, which is sufficiently absurd. Calmet supposes him to have been _eighteen_ years old when he came to the throne, and that he died A.M. 3029, aged _fifty-eight_ years; and, when we consider the excess in which he lived, and the criminal passions which he must have indulged among his thousand wives, and their idolatrous and impure worship, this life was as long as could be reasonably expected....

Josephus gave Solomon a reign of 80 years, either because he wished to increase the glory of his country’s greatest king, or through his having a false reading in his copy of the Septuagint Version. It is, no doubt, remarkable that the three successive kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, should have each reigned forty years Act 13:21; 2 Samuel 5:4; but such numerical coincidences occur from time to time in exact history....

EXPOSITION SOLOMON'S ADVERSARIES.—As the historian has collected together in 1 Kings 6:1; 1 Kings 7:1; 1 Kings 8:1, all the information he can convey respecting the _temple, _and in 1 Kings 9:1; 1 Kings 10:1. all the scattered notices respecting Solomon's _power _and _greatness, _so here he arranges in one section the history of Solomon's _adversaries_._ _It must not be supposed that the following records stand in due chronological order. The enmities here mentioned did no

AND THE TIME THAT SOLOMON REIGNED IN JERUSALEM, OVER ALL ISRAEL, WAS FORTY YEARS. The same says Eupolemus z, an Heathen writer, who makes him to live but fifty two years; which is the common tradition of the Jews, who suppose he was but twelve years of age when he began to reign; which is to be confuted from the age of his son Rehoboam, see 1 Kings 14:21. Josephus a, on the other hand, makes him to live to too great an age, who says that he reigned eighty years, and lived to ninety four. z Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 34. a Antiqu. l. 8. c. 7. sect. 8....

7. SOLOMON'S FAILURE: JUDGMENT ANNOUNCED AND THE BEGINNING OF DISRUPTION CHAPTER 11 _ 1. Solomon's polygamy and departure from God (1 Kings 11:1)_ 2. Hadad the Edomite (1 Kings 11:14) 3. Rezon the second adversary (1 Kings 11:23) 4. Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:26) 5. Solomon's reign and death (1 Kings 11:41) “But--.” An ominous word with which this chapter begins. It introduces us to the sad picture of Solomon's great apostasy. “He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people

SIN OF SOLOMON, AND THE ADVERSARIES RAISED UP IN CONSEQUENCE. From various differences in the arrangement of the earlier verses in the LXX and Heb., it has been supposed that in its original form the narrative merely recorded the fact that Solomon had a number of wives, and that he built sanctuaries and offered sacrifice to their gods. In its present form the influence of a Deuteronomic editor is unmistakable. But the account of Solomon's adversaries (1 Kings 11:14 ff.) must be derived from an earlier source; and even as it stands does not necessarily mean that they were raised up in punishment of his sin. Hadad, the Edomite (1 Kings 11:14) must have troubled him early in his reign (1 Kings 11:21 f.), and Rezon wa

FORTY YEARS: 920-880 B.C....

_forty years_ The same length of reign as that of Saul and David. If Solomon's accession were 1015 b.c., his death took place in 975 b. c. Josephus gives -eighty years" as the length of the reign. But this agrees with no other record, and must be regarded as a mistake. King Solomon was not more than 60 years old, if so much, when he died....