1 Kings 3:1

Pharaoh king of Egypt This is the first notice since the Exodus of any connexion of Israel with Egypt. It is impossible to decide with certainty which Pharaoh it was whose daughter Solomon took to wife. The 22nd Egyptian dynasty commenced with Sheshonk I. (the Shishak of the Bible), about b.c. 990. This monarch did much to advance the Egyptian power, which under the previous Tanite sovereigns of the 21st dynasty had sunk very low. We shall find Shishak (1 Kings 11:40) receiving Jeroboam when he fled from Solomon. The wife of Solomon must therefore have been a daughter of a king in the previous dynasty, the kings of which would be likely to welcome an alliance with so powerful a monarch. The last of these was Psusennes 2, but as he is said by Manetho to have reigned only fourteen years, it seems more probable that the princess whom Solomon married was the daughter of Psinaces who preceded Psusennes. Pharaoh is used in the Bible as the royal title of the Egyptian kings, and not as the proper name of any single person.

This wife of Solomon probably embraced Judaism, as we find no reproach against him for this marriage, nor is any Egyptian deity mentioned among those for whom Solomon at a later time built high places (1 Kings 11:1-8) when strange women turned away his heart after other gods.

into the city of David This was the eastern portion of the hill of Zion on which the temple was afterwards built. Solomon considered this too sacred a place for his own dwelling, because thither the ark of the Lord had come (2 Chronicles 8:11).

his own house This was outside the city of David, and from 1 Kings 7:8 we can see that the house for Pharaoh's daughter was close to the king's own house, and built after the same fashion and of like grandeur. The time which Solomon took about building his own house was thirteen years (cf. 1 Kings 7:1), during this period the Egyptian wife continued to dwell in the city of David. The marriage song of the 5th Psalm is referred by the oldest interpreters to this marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter.