1 Kings 9:15-28

Prosperity and Wealth

1 Kings 9:15

Solomon was a great builder and employed vast numbers of Canaanites, the old inhabitants of the land, as forced laborers. They performed the drudgery, while the Israelites filled the more honorable and lucrative posts. See Isaiah 60:10. There are Amorites and Perizzites in our lives. Let us not be mastered by them, but compel them to subserve our own growth in grace.

Millo was the key to the fortifications of Jerusalem; Hazor and Megiddo, Baalath and Tadmor guarded the northern frontier. On the extreme south, the navies visited distant realms, and returned laden with gold. Such were Israel's midsummer days. But as, in the latter days of summer, there is the faint odor of decay in the air, and we know that the autumn comes apace, so beneath all this splendor and imperial glory, as we turn to the earlier Chapter s of Ecclesiastes, we learn that decadence was at its heart.