1 Kings 3:1

And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... Pharaoh was a common name of the kings of Egypt, of whom no mention is made in Scripture from the times of Moses until this time; which may

And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the

1 KINGS CHAPTER 3 Solomon marrieth Pharaoh’ s daughter: high places being in use, he goeth to Gibeon to sacrifice, . There the Lord appeareth to him; gives him a choice: he preferreth wisdom; obtaineth it, and also riches and honour, . His judgment between the two harlots, . Made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, as being a powerful neighbour. Took Pharaoh’ s daughter; upon what conditions is not here expressed; but it is probable she was first instructed in and proselyted to the Jewish religion; as may be gathered, 1. Because he was not yet fallen from God, but loved the Lord, and walked in the statutes of David, ; and therefore would never have married a gross idolater, which was so contrary to God’ s law, and so pernicious in its consequences. 2. Because he is no where reproved for this fact, as he is for loving many other strange women, . 3. By comparing Psalms 45 and the Book of Canticles; whereby it plainly appears that this action had something extraordinary in it, and was designed by God to be a type of Christ, calling his church to himself, and to the true religion, not only out of the Jews, but even out of the Gentile world. The city of David; of which see ; into David’ s palace there. The house of the Lord, i.e. the temple appropriated to the worship and honour of God. The wall of Jerusalem round about; which though in some sort built by David, , yet Solomon is here said to build, either because he made it higher, and stronger, and more beautiful and glorious; in which or the like sense Nebuchadnezzar is said to have built Babylon, ; or because he built another wall besides the former, for greater security; for after this time Jerusalem was encompassed with more walls than one.

1 Kings 3:1 And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’ s daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.Ver. 1. And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh.] That his kingdom might the better be established, which albeit God had promised, yet Solomon knew that his providence was to be served, and all good means used. And took Pharaoh’ s daughter.] After he had first taken Naamah, the Ammonitess, Rehoboam’ s mother, a year and more before David’ s death: for Solomon reigned but forty years, and Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign. These ladies probably were proselyted, ere Solomon married them: else the marriage could not be lawful. It was in his best time that he did it; neither is he anywhere blamed for this with Pharaoh’ s daughter at least, to whom both David is thought by some to allude in Psalms 45:10, and Solomon in the Canticles; yet others think otherwise. Josephus saith he married Pharaoh’ s daughter in the first year of his reign, while his father David was yet alive. Those who hold he did ill in it, say, that God afterwards punished him for it, in his posterity, by Shishak, king of Egypt. How fearfully the wrath of God fell upon the Protestants in France, for that unhappy marriage of the king of Navarre with the daughter of France, a Papist, a little afore the Parisian massacre, who knoweth not? And the house of the Lord.] This Solomon would finish, before that he would set up the queen’ s palace; such was his zeal, while young: but he suffered sad decays afterwards I read of a holy man who oft prayed that he might keep up his young zeal with his old discretion.

(1) Pharaoh king of Egypt.—At this time it would appear, from the Egyptian records and traditions, that Egypt was weak and divided, and that what is called the twenty-first dynasty of the Tanite kings was ruling in Lower Egypt. This, and a corresponding abeyance (judging from the monuments) of Assyrian power, gave scope for the rise to sudden greatness and wealth of the Israelite kingdom under Solomon, and probably induced the Egyptian king of those days to consent to an alliance which, at other times, the greatness of the Pharaohs might have spumed. No fault is found with the alliance by the sacred historian, for the Egyptians were never looked upon with the same aversion as the strange women of the Canaanite races. As, moreover, it is not in any way connected with Solomon’s subsequent declension into idolatry, noticed in 1 Kings 11:1-8, it is not unlikely that the new queen literally acted on the call of the Psalmist (Psalms 45:10) to “forget her own people and her father’s house.”

CHAPTER III Solomon marries Pharaoh's daughter, 1, 2. He serves God, and offers a thousand burnt-offerings upon one altar, at Gibeon, 3, 4. God appears to him in a dream at Gibeon; and asks what he shall give him, 5. He asks wisdom; with which God is well pleased, and promises to give him not only that, but also riches and honour; and, if obedient, long life, 6-14. He comes back to Jerusalem; and offers burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and makes a feast for his servants, 15. His judgment between the two harlots, 16-27. He rises in the esteem of the people, 28. NOTES ON CHAP. III Verse 1. Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh] This was no doubt a political measure in order to strengthen his kingdom, and on the same ground he continued his alliance with the king of Tyre; and these were among the most powerful of his neighbours. But should political considerations prevail over express laws of God? God had strictly forbidden his people to form alliances with heathenish women, lest they should lead their hearts away from him into idolatry. Let us hear the law: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son; for they will turn away thy son from following me, c. Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3-4. Now Solomon acted in direct opposition to these laws; and perhaps in this alliance were sown those seeds of apostacy from God and goodness in which he so long lived, and in which he so awfully died. Those who are, at all hazards, his determinate apologists, assume, 1. That Pharaoh's daughter must have been a proselyte to the Jewish religion, else Solomon would not have married her. 2. That God was not displeased with this match. 3. That the book of Canticles, which is supposed to have been his epithalamium, would not have found a place in the sacred canon had the spouse, whom it all along celebrates, been at that time an idolatress. 4. That it is certain we nowhere in Scripture find Solomon blamed for this match. See Dodd. Now to all this I answer, 1. We have no evidence that the daughter of Pharaoh was a proselyte, no more than that her father was a true believer. It is no more likely that he sought a proselyte here than that he sought them among the Moabites, Hittites, c., from whom he took many wives. 2. If God's law be positively against such matches, he could not possibly be pleased with this breach of it in Solomon but his law is positively against them, therefore he was not pleased. 3. That the book of Canticles being found in the sacred canon is, according to some critics, neither a proof that the marriage pleased God, nor that the book was written by Divine inspiration; much less that it celebrates the love between Christ and his Church, or is at all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, or for edification in righteousness. 4.

Ch. 1 Kings 3:1-4. Solomon marries Pharaoh’s daughter. Sacrifices still offered on the high places. Solomon’s sacrifice at Gibeon (2 Chronicles 1:3) At the beginning of this Chapter the LXX. inserts a long passage which has nothing to correspond to it in the Hebrew. It speaks of Solomon’s wisdom, the number of the people, the presents of those who were tributary to Solomon, the provisions for his table, the names of his chief ministers, and contains a notice of his horses and chariots. Some portions of this passage are drawn from Chapter 4. and some from 2 Chronicles 9:25-26. The verses of Chapter 4. which are introduced here are omitted by the LXX. in that place. See notes there.

What Pharaoh is meant is uncertain. It must have been a predecessor of Shishak (or Sheshonk), who invaded Judaea more than 40 years later 1 Kings 14:25; and probabilities are in favor, not of

SOLOMON’S WITH EGYPT, 1 Kings 3:1. 1. Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh — This seems to have been his first act of foreign policy, and was, perhaps, designed to counteract the influence of Hadad the