1 Kings 3,4

Just because you are old, does not mean you are necessarily wise.  Not to say my grammy wasn't wise, but age and life's experiences did not make her wise.  Wisdom comes from the Lord.

Proverbs 2:6 NLT
For the LORD grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

1 Kings 3:1

Although it had been almost 500, yes 500! years since Israel crossed the Red Sea via God's miracle as the Israelites departed from slavery to the Egyptian Pharoah, here in the book of 1 Kings we now see a king from Israel requesting marriage to one of the Egyptian Pharoah's daughters. No surprise a tempted and weaker man might disregard a woman's religious background and his own culture and faith if she looked as beautiful as this Egyptian princess! This king was not unlike me if something is more tempting than my faith and I give in to my flesh.

1 Kings 3:3

 

This is sad.  Here we see how committed and humble Solomon was before the Lord, yet in just 8 more chapters, we see that Solomon began worshiping false gods!  God's not happy with this idolatry and he takes the kingdom away from Solomon, but were it not for the sake of David, he would have stripped it away sooner. Yet in God's unexplainable grace, he allows Solomon to continue on as king until the next generation. This is just one reason why God says not to marry someone who is not a faithful and believing follower of His. Our Molechs of today are perhaps not so obvious as carved statues, but if any believer in Christ is yoked with a person who is not a believer in Christ as Lord and Saviour, there will be consequences.

1 Kings 11:5-13

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁵ Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech,^[a] the detestable god of the Ammonites. ⁶ In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; he refused to follow the Lord completely, as his father, David, had done.
⁷ On the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem,^[b] he even built a pagan shrine for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and another for Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. ⁸ Solomon built such shrines for all his foreign wives to use for burning incense and sacrificing to their gods.
⁹ The Lord was very angry with Solomon, for his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. ¹⁰ He had warned Solomon specifically about worshiping other gods, but Solomon did not listen to the Lord’s command. ¹¹ So now the Lord said to him, “Since you have not kept my covenant and have disobeyed my decrees, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. ¹² But for the sake of your father, David, I will not do this while you are still alive. I will take the kingdom away from your son. ¹³ And even so, I will not take away the entire kingdom; I will let him be king of one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, my chosen city.”

1 Kings 3:5

God spoke to Solomon in dreams twice.  

 Has God ever spoken to you this way?  Did you realize what it was?  You are accountable, just as Solomon, to God's visions, Word, and commands, whether it is convicting in a dream, in reading His Word, during prayer, or as He puts truth on your heart from the Holy Spirit anytime. 

1 Kings 3:7

To be THE most powerful person in a kingdom and have all power a man could ever dream of AND yet be so genuinely humble is quite a statement about Solomon's character!  This truly demonstrated his dependence on God's help.  We stumble and fail when we forget this and try to do things on our own without seeking God's help.  Humility is key.

1 Kings 3:8 

 

 

This is a promise fulfilled as seen in Genesis 13:16 and 15:5.  God does not forget His promises.

 

 

 1 Kings 3:12

This man, Solomon, was supernaturally endowed with unprecedented wisdom!  NO person before, nor since has ever been so wise!   Undoubtedly a miracle and gift from the Lord.  True wisdom...do I think I'm wise?  Here is how God views wisdom:  

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

If someone does not know, let alone fear, the Lord, can he/she ever be wise according to God's definition? 

 

1 Kings 3:14 

This is a conditional promise.  Remember, often the Lord states something like this: ¹⁴ And IF you follow me and obey my decrees...THEN...

Although we don't know exactly how old Solomon was when he died, we know that Solomon turned away from the Lord and followed false gods.  Who knows how long Solomon would have lived if he had been faithful to the One true God.

 1 Kings 3:27

This may not seem like a surprise that the true mother would have done anything to save her own child, but it was wisdom that came up with this brilliant idea!  This wisdom is an answer to God's gift to bestow the most wisdom to Solomon.  

I find it amazing that God gave Solomon such a gift and he became the WISEST man to have ever lived.  STILL he made a choice to follow other false gods (see chapter 11).  This shows me that my faith and ability to follow and obey the Lord is simply a gift from Him, not of my own wisdom.

1 Kings 4:5

Most likely, this Nathan is the same prophet that served under David.  If so, then that means Nathan's sons were in a position of leadership even during Solomon's reign.

1 Kings 4:22

This is a TON of food! Some commentaries say it was enough to feel 3,000 people every day. Can you imagine the job of Solomon's cooks? 

1 Kings 4:26

Again, for such a 'wise man', Solomon disregarded the Lord's instruction.  We may be impressed with his thousands of stables and tens of thousands of horses, yet the Lord must not have been so impressed.  Solomon clearly ignores what the Lord told Moses. I also wonder how influential Solomon's Egyptian wife influenced him and this caused Solomon to fall away from the Lord.  This is yet one reason why the Lord instructs His children not to be unequally yoked to those who don't follow the Lord. ( 2 Corinthians 6:14)

Deuteronomy 17:16 (NLT)

¹⁶ “The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You must never return to Egypt.’

1 Kings 4:32

Not all of these proverbs and songs were saved over millennium.  God had preserved only a few of these 3,000 proverbs.  So many have been lost to us.  And as for songs, only the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) is known. 

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
And he spake three thousand proverbs,.... Wise sayings, short and pithy sentences, instructive in morality and civil life; these were not written as the book of Proverbs, but spoken only, and were taken from his lips, and spread by those that heard them for the use of others, but in process of time were lost; whereas the above book, being written under divine inspiration, is preserved: and
his songs were a thousand and five; some things that were useful to improve the minds and morals of men he delivered in verse, to make them more pleasant and agreeable, that they might be the more easily received and retained in memory; but of all his songs, the most: excellent is the book of Canticles, called "the Song of Songs", being divine and spiritual, and dictated by the inspiration of the Spirit of God: he was both a moral philosopher and poet, as well as a botanist and naturalist, and well-skilled in medicine, as the following words suggest, 1 Kings 4:33.