CHAPTER 6
Now it’s time to build the Temple. The chapter begins by noting that it’s 480 years since the
Israelites led Egypt. Folks, that’s the
first date that’s tied the narrative to Exodus since, well, since the
Torah. By my reckoning, they left Egypt
in the year 2668 (after Creation). So
that puts this in 3148. I think that’s
856 BC or so, which means I’m off by quite a bit but oh well.
Also, looking through it, after Exodus there was 40 years of
wandering, the time of Joshua (length not given), Judges (370 years, given what
the Bible says), the era of Samuel (length unknown), Saul (supposedly around 40
years, but that part of the Bible is actually blank), and David (40
years). The periods we know –
Wandering, Judges & David, works out to 450 years. That leaves 30 remaining years. I think the way to explain this is to say
there were overlapping judges. After
all, there was no political unity among the Hebrew.
Well, that’s entirely too much time on that boring
info. Besides, there is other boring
info to dig into. Let’s see, we get the
dimensions of the House of the Lord.
It’s 60 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. That’s 36,000 cubic cubits. (Heh.
I like that – “cubic cubits”).
How big is that? Well, a cubit
is about 18 inches, so it’s 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. It’s 121,500 cubic feet.
OK, that’s like a 50x50x50 foot cube. That …. Really isn’t too big. But realize – the purpose of this temple
isn’t for people to enter. This is for
God. It’s his place. Only priests may enter. And a third of it – about 40,000 cubic feet
– is the holiest of holies, the place where the ark resides. So it’s not very big because it isn’t
intended to be for the masses.
But remember – last chapter told us that Solomon had
recruited an incredible amount of forced laborers - 30,000 forced laborers, 70,000 carriers, and 80,00000
stonecutters. Between them, they handle
less than a cubic foot per labor. (And
most of those cubic feet, of course, is just air). Actually – let’s think about this. How much actual building material do they need? Well, there are two 30x45 walls, two 90x45
walls. The foundation is 30x90 and I’ll
make it easy on myself and assume it’s the same for the roof. Therefore, if you do all the math, they have
16,200 square feet worth of building material. And there is wall thickness to
include, too. If it’s one-foot thick
walls on average, it’s just 16,200 cubic feet of stuff. And maybe 180,000 laborers. Even if it’s just the 30,000 listed as
forced laborers, it’s a half-square/cubic foot per person.
Well, there are support beams and deeper needs for the
foundation and the like, but still – the average laborer has not much to
do.
But the Bible tells us it takes seven years to build this
sucker. Yeah, something isn’t adding
up.
At any rate, God tells Solomon to abide by all his statues
and ways and he’ll treat him like his treated David. This is foreshadowing, for the author damn well knows that
Solomon doesn’t do that.
CHAPTER 7
OK, we get some more info on what all those laborers were
doing. God’s house was just a side
note. The big thing was a house for
Solomon. Seriously – at the same time
Solomon builds a place for God, he builds a much, much bigger thing for himself. Yeah, I know that God won’t actually live in
the temple and Solomon will live in the palace, but it sure sounds tacky.
His house if 100 cubits long, 40 cubits wide, and 30 cubits
high. Well, at least it isn’t higher
than God’s house. It’s 120,000 cubic
cubits (Hee! There’s my new favorite
phrase!), which is 3.33 times the size of God’s pad. And we get all the details of it. He has a guy named Hiram from Tyre handle it. Hiram from Tyre will never replace Uri son
of Hur as Holy Handyman, though.
Oh, and it takes 13 years to build Solomon’s palace – nearly
twice as long as it took to make the Lord’s temple.
CHAPTER 8
In a book full of long chapters, here is one that stands out
even in this sucker for length. This
66-verse monster is about one event – the dedication of the Temple. Oh, no wonder they spend so much time here
then.
First notable bit – the cloud of God (the thing the
Israelites followed by daytime during the 40 years wandering) makes an
appearance here. It signifies God’s
acceptance/approval of his new house.
Also, it’s the LAST time it shows up.
It fills the house built for him, so yeah – he’s happy with it.
Most of this chapter is Solomon’s speech and it is a very
nice speech. It hits all the expected
notes but it does a good job at it. He
praises God’s glory, notes that Solomon is king because of the promise God made
to David, and says that God told him (Solomon) that he approves of this
house.
The heart of the speech, though, are a series of pleas – pleas for forgiveness for God. Dear Lord, we are sinners – all are sinners – and we will screw up. When we screw up and you justifiably punish us, we will turn to this building to pray. And when you see us offer earnest prayer, please remember us and offer forgiveness. This is at the heart of the appeal of religion. Solomon offers a series of scenarios in which this might happen to the Israelites, and then does something unexpected and quite beautiful.
Solomon requests of the Lord that if foreigners who are not
among the children of Israel turn to you in your name and ask for help here,
you’ll give it to them as well. For
much of the Bible, God is a far too parochial figure. He cares about the Israelites because they’re his chosen people
due to a pact made with Abraham. But
now we get a sense that he really is the God of all; or at least the offer is
open to all. There has been no talk of
conversion or winning over others to God in the Bible so far. You’re part of his people by birth or you’re
not. But this really makes religion
that much more inclusive. This speech
is arguably the opening shot of Christianity.
The next paragraph is also quite important. He says that if we’re ever given over to our
enemies, and we repent, please remember us.
This is key, because it’s exactly the situation the Hebrew will find
themselves in during the Babylonian Captivity.
And here they have Solomon anticipating it – and offering a way for the
Hebrew to survive as a people: tell God you’re sorry to did wrong and earnestly
apologize.
The entire speeches is absolutely fantastic, but those are the highlights. This might be the best speech in the Bible, at least so far.
Solomon finishes his beautiful speech and they consecrate
the temple with a bloodlust of animal sacrifice. They kill 22,000 oxen and 100,000 sheep. Holy crap!
It’s suddenly Union Stockyards here!
Imagine how much blood must’ve been lying on the ground.
We’re told the celebration went on for seven days and on the
eight day Solomon dismissed the people.
(Wait: shouldn’t he rest everyone on the seventh day? Eh, no matter). But let’s figure that out – that’s 17,428 animals sacrificed a
day. That’s 290 sacrificed an
hour. That’s 4.8 per minute. According to the Bible, in this week of
sacrifice, they killed an animal every 12.4 seconds for a week straight. DAMN!
CHAPTER 9
Now we get an easy to overlook part of the Bible, because
it’s just some boring stuff about Solomon’s governance. But this is actually really important stuff,
and a close reading shows that what’s going on here will help cause the
eventual rupture of Israel into two kingdoms.
In fact, however much the Bible praises Solomon as the wisest wise that
ever wised, he was actually pretty bad at governing the land.
Let’s see, Solomon has to pay Hiram of Tyre for the wood
that went into the building projects.
(Quick note: apparently the palace and temple were built at different times,
because the Bible says it took 20 years in all to do the building. So you really did have an insanely huge
amount of laborers work on seven years just for one relatively small building).
Solomon gives Hiram 20 cities in the north by Galilee.. Folks, this matters. Solomon is from the tribe of Judah in the
south. The palace is toward the
south. The temple is toward the south. And Solomon has decided to pay for the
southern improvements by sacrificing land in the north.
Keep in mind, ever since at least late in the reign of David
we’ve seen considerable Judah versus other tribes problems. The northern tribes are already chafing
against having a royal line from the big southern tribe. And now Solomon pulls this stunt.
We’re also told of other massive building projects Solomon
has done. He’s built walls for some cities – cities of the south. He’s built a big wall to protect Israel from
Egypt, and of course Egypt’s border with Israel is in the south. Sure, there’s the stuff with Moses centuries
ago, and Egypt is still a threat – but then again we’re told that Solomon has
married the pharaoh’s daughter to keep the peace, and there are threats in the
north as well. But the northerners
don’t get any defensive walls put up for them.
They are exposed – and having 20 cities sold off to help Solomon’s
beloved south.
Plus, there is still the forced labor. We’re given a little more info about it
here. We’re told that the forced
laborers aren’t the Israelites, but the other people of the land who the
Israelites had not been able to destroy – some Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites,
et al. A few things about this. First, that sounds like possible spin. Second, it doesn’t sound practical. If you can’t destroy them, how can you force
them into essential slave labor.
(Remember – the ancient Hebrew version of the Bible uses the same word
for forced labor here as it uses to discuss the labor the Egyptians forced upon
the Israelis back in the time of Moses).
Third – how are we defining forced labor here? Chapter 5 first said there were 30,000 forced laborers, and then
a few verses later add 70,000 carriers and 80,000 stonecutters to the mix. Are the Israelites none of the 30,000 only
or all 180,000?
The upshot is a king who is consistently and persistently
aiding the southern lands he’s associated with to the detriment of the northern
lands. It’s no wonder the kingdom will
soon fall apart.
Oh – and I forgot to add, the taxation system noted in
Chapters 4-5 basically lets Judah coast.
They pay less than their share under Solomon’s taxation system while
getting far more than their share of the advantages. All this, mind you, while ruling a kingdom that already had
considerable north-south animosity before Solomon even took the throne.
Solomon is supposed to be a really wise person. But his wisdom is purely academic and not at
all practical. He might be a whiz at
coming up with nice proverbs, but he isn’t good at his job. Let him write fortune cookies for a
living. But don’t let him run a kingdom.
Oh, and before you get to any of the above, you get the
Bible’s slant on what will go wrong.
God talks to Solomon a second time and lets him know that he approves of
the temple. He tells Solomon that if
the king stays in the ways of God as his father David did, then God will always
be with him. But if he departs from the
ways of God, then God will cut off Israel and have it ruined. God even says that Solomon’s temple will be
turned into a heap of ruins. This is one of the parts of the Bible believed to
have been written after the fall of Jerusalem, because it does such a good job
describing the fall. Also, it explains
why it happens. God lets his people and
his temple collapse because of the sins of the Hebrew, including the sins of
Solomon. That’s the Bible’s slant on
why things fell apart, but reading the other details gives us another
explanation.
CHAPTER 10
This is a very annoying chapter. It’s a bunch of talk about
how wildly wise and wonderful and brilliant Solomon is. It mostly focuses on the Queen of Sheba –
which is modern day Yemen (and as it happens, records from the time due show
that the Arabs had some female rulers then, so a Queen of Sheba is reasonable).
She visits him with all kinds of bling.
She’s heard stories of Solomon’s wisdom and wants him to prove it. So he does.
She’s blown away and leaves some riches behind as a token of her esteem
of his brilliance. Then there is more
talk about all the wealth of Solomon and all the wisdom of Solomon and all the
renown of Solomon.
It makes me want to barf.
It’s not just that the previous chapter gives ample evidence
that Solomon – Mr. Super Wisdom himself – isn’t a very good or fair king. It’s
not just that. What really bugs me to
no end here is that Solomon’s wisdom is all tell and no show. He’s brilliant because we’re told he’s
brilliant. The Bible says that the
Queen of Sheba asks him about all sorts of things, and there is nothing he
seemed to lack knowledge of. But there
are no examples. All the praise to his
wisdom is generic and vague. In fact, the only story given anywhere in Kings
about his wisdom is the baby slicing story, and that’s always struck me as a
story hinging about a dumb fake mom than anything else. (If you claim it’s your
baby, the answer is always “no” when someone asks if he should cut it in
half. Duh!) And the praise to his wisdom goes on and on and on and on – with
virtually no real detail to back it up.
It’s like the Bible wanted to tell us how strong Samson was,
but instead of giving us his feats and deeds, we just got a bunch of general
praise. C’mon – prove it or shut up already!
Perhaps this isn’t fair.
Later on in the Book of Proverbs we get an enormous amount of wisdom
from Solomon (or at least attributed to Solomon). OK, but maybe they could’ve put a few examples here. As is, all this talk of his wisdom reads
like bad advertising copy. Its just
puffery. Also, I have a problem with
Solomon’s examples of wisdom simply being a bunch of statements. He’s king. He’s in a position of power. He should have the ability to make wise decisions
instead of making wise statements. Many
of the world’s wisest men are known for their statements not decisions –
Socrates and Confucius, to name just two.
But they weren’t in a position of power. (And people in power later did
adopt Confucius’s ideas and it worked fairly well for 2,000 years).
Actually, comparing Solomon to Confucius or Socrates isn’t
fair to those two. Those guys didn’t
just make a series of wise statements, but also had an underlying ethos, a
system of thought that was really vital.
Is that really true of Proverbs?
I don’t know much about it, but it really does strike me as primarily
fortune cookie level wisdom. (To be
fair, I really don’t know much about it.
The previous times I read it, I forget them as I went over them).
The other evidence of Solomon’s wisdom the Bible gives is
his immense wealth. I’m quite skeptical
that has anything to do with his wisdom.
It could just be gaining wealth by sitting on nice trade routes. How much of this wealth comes from the
taxation system that unfairly puts a heavier burden on the north? Most of all, a big time king with lots of
opulence and all this talk about how wonderful and brilliant and wise he is –
meanwhile he’s compelling tens of thousands of his subjects into forced labor
for his own pet projects – this sounds like something form Ceascsecu’s
Romania. Solomon sounds like an Ancient
Hebrew “Genius of the Carpatheians.”
OK, now I am going too far for sure. That isn’t fair. But all this talk of
Solomon’s wisdom is too much sizzle to hide a lack of steak. As they might say in Texas, when it comes to
wisdom, Solomon is all hat and no cattle.
CHAPTER 11
And now for some more evidence of how the wisest guy that
ever was really wasn’t. Here we get
Solomon’s big mistake. He marries far
too many women from other nations – 700 princesses (and 300 concubines) and he
lets them influence him. He starts
worshiping their gods. In the
traditional reading, I guess this is a sign that the incredible wisdom of
Solomon is failing him. To me, it’s a
sign that he is wildly overrated.
Well, God is pretty cheesed and says that he’ll break up the
Kingdom of Israel to punish Solomon, but out of respect for David he’ll wait
until after Solomon has died. Yeah, and
all of Solomon’s bad moves sure make that easier. (Why won’t the rebellion happen under Solomon? These things always work better when there’s
a crack in the core of power, and nothing cracks the power core like the death
of a king).
We learn of a few rebels under Solomon, but they don’t
amount to much. The big one is
Jeroboam. He’s an underling of
Solomon. He is in charged of some of
Solomon’s forced laborers. Then one day
a prophet named Ahijah tells him that God is cheesed at Solomon, and Jeroboam
will be allowed to have the northern kingdoms.
Solomon’s family can keep Judah, but that’s about it.
Anyway, this chapter basically gives heavenly approval for
Jeroboam’s eventual rebellion; a rebellion that will split the kingdom of
Israel forever. Solomon finds out that
Jeroboam is a threat and tries to have him killed, but Jeroboam hightails it to
Egypt instead.
After 40 years in power, Solomon died. His son Rehoboam
takes his place.
What can I say about Solomon? How about this: OV-ER-RA-TED!! (CLAP! CLAP! CLAP-CLAP-CLAP!) He gave a real wing-dinger of a speech, but his
policies were disastrous.
Click here for Chapters 12 to 16 of Kings I.
Click here for Chapters 12 to 16 of Kings I.
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