1 Samuel 19

Chapter 19. Solomon, a Type of ChristAnd Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt…. God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore…. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomons wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom…. The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents,… The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. (1 Kings 4:21, 1 Kings 4:29, 1 Kings 4:34; 1 Kings 10:14, 1 Kings 10:27)He will rule from sea to seaand from the River to the ends of the earth.The desert tribes will bow before himand his enemies will lick the dust.The kings of Tarshish and of distant shoreswill bring tribute to him;the kings of Sheba and Sebawill present him gifts.All kings will bow down to himand all nations will serve him.For he will deliver the needy who cry out,the afflicted who have no one to help.He will take pity on the weak and the needyand save the needy from death.He will rescue them from oppression and violence,for precious is their blood in his sight.Long may he live!May gold from Sheba be given him.May people ever pray for himand bless him all day long. (Psalms 72:8-15)These two passages describe respectively the glory of Solomon’s kingdom and the greater glory of his greater Antitype. While there will always be a few hero worshipers, yet the world cares not for men. We soon weary of the noblest ideal and long for someone more glorious and true, because man at his best estate is only man. All the lives that have lived above the ordinary plane have been but types of the only Man who can ever satisfy God or meet the needs of men, the glorious Son of man who once lived for us an ideal human life and who is coming back again as the world’s true King and blessed Hope. Therefore we pass quickly from Solomon to Christ, from the son of peace to the Prince of Peace, whose coming glory was so greatly foreshadowed by Solomon’s reign. In truth, it required the united lives of David and Solomon to furnish a perfect foreshadowing of our coming King and His millennial reign. David represented rather the militant aspect and Solomon the glorious and ultimate character of Christ’s promised kingdom. The former represents the conflict which Christ is waging today against His foes; the latter the peaceful and worldwide years during which He shall sit with His saints upon His millennial throne and sway the scepter of peace the world around. His Birth Solomon’s birth and its attendant circumstances were strongly suggestive of the gracious character and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ, our coming King. Solomon’s birth was the most emphatic expression of God’s mercy to David. He was born to Bathsheba after David’s monstrous crime. The fact that God should choose the fruit of that union, after it became legitimate, to sit on Israel’s throne at the most glorious crisis of her history, was a most touching seal of the forgiveness which He had extended to His erring child, the mercy of which Jesus Christ’s mission is the most impressive expression in all the history of the world. Solomon never could forget that his very existence and destiny were all associated with the grace of Jehovah. This had already been emphatically expressed in the name given to Solomon when he was born. The Lord called him Jedidiah, which means “the beloved,” and we are told that the Lord loved him. Beautiful type of Him who is the Son of His love and who comes to represent the mercy of God and stand for sinful men. Again, Solomon was not the firstborn, but the secondborn of this union. The first had to die under the ban and doom of sin, but the secondborn lived as the child of grace. This is the very principle of the regenerate life. The first, natural, passes away. The second is the divine and eternal. The first man Adam, sinned; the second Adam lives. The first natural generation perishes; the second birth, regeneration, brings us life and salvation. Solomon represented this, and thus the very germ and principle of the gospel is embodied and impersonated in his life. His Name Solomon’s name means “peace,” and he was the fitting type of the Prince of Peace. David’s reign was associated with war and carnage and therefore he was not permitted to build the temple. Solomon was a man of peace and the chief glories of his administration were the triumph of peace, prosperity and progress. David, therefore, could not represent the millennial stage of Christ’s kingdom, but rather the stage of conflicts that led up to it. Solomon stands for the age of glory when He shall have put down all authority and opposition, and He shall reign over a realm of perfect love and peace. That age is surely coming. Battle flags will yet be furled, the groans of the wounded and dying will cease, earth’s cemeteries shall be transformed into paradises and the curse of ages shall be turned into eternal blessing: not through human culture, not through the development of man’s theories and the improvement of man’s nature, but by the personal advent of the Prince of Peace of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end. His Coronation The circumstances attending Solomon’s coronation and the bitter hostility manifested toward him by his enemies and rivals was a striking foreshadowing of the opposition of men to the advent and reign of Christ. When He comes to reign He is not going to be accorded a public reception by the kings and nations and parliaments of earth. The second Psalm has given us a picture of Solomon’s accession and Christ’s coming. It was written, no doubt, with reference to both, but the temporal allusion soon passes into the higher fulfillment of the distant future. The heathen rage. The people imagine vanity. The kings of the earth are concerted against the Lord and His Christ. The license of man is grinding its teeth against the control of His authority; the proud, willful human heart is crying out, “Let us break their chains,… and throw off their fetters” (Psalms 2:3). But “the One enthroned in heaven laughs” (Psalms 2:4); and by His sure decree and strong right arm “[has] installed [his] King on Zion, [his] holy hill” (Psalms 2:6), and “will dash… to pieces like pottery” (Psalms 2:9) the nations that oppose Him, summoning them to “be wise” (Psalms 2:10), and “rejoice with trembling” (Psalms 2:11), and to “kiss the Son” in lowly submission before “his wrath… flare up in a moment” (Psalms 2:12). This is the picture that we can see already developed out of the vortex of political confusion and contemporary history. The nations are gradually and steadily withdrawing from the control of the Lord Jesus Christ. The concert of the powers which has begun is not to maintain His cause but to protect their little ambitions, aggrandizements and selfish interests; already within a year the concert of Europe has condoned enough unspeakable wickedness against the very children of God and the martyrs of Jesus to bring down upon them God’s eternal curse. The end is not going to be a peaceful Christian confederation of the world, but it is going to be Armageddon, the great day of conflict of earth’s kings against the Lamb of God and the saints of Jesus. All this was foreshadowed by Solomon’s accession. Adonijah, his own brother, reared the standard of rebellion. Joab and Abiathar took his part and multitudes of the people were ready to join them, when by David’s strong determination the opposition was suppressed and Solomon was set upon his throne. So it will be at the end: Adonijah representing the political powers, Joab representing the leaders and military forces, and Abiathar representing the corrupt Church. These are the combined forces that are to resist the coming of Christ and to be broken in pieces by the mighty hand of God, even as Daniel’s stone cut out of the mountains smashed and scattered the image of earthly sovereignties and became the kingdom that filled the whole earth. Judgments The judgments which accompanied the inauguration of Solomon’s reign were very striking and suggestive types of the events that are to accompany the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many instances of men that had lived through the whole reign of David and their darkly dyed crimes had passed with impunity, but their retribution came with the accession of Solomon. One of these was Joab, who had often vexed the heart of David, whose judgment was reserved until the accession of his son. But even Joab was not hastily punished by Solomon but was allowed to show his true character at the end, by joining the standard of Adonijah in open rebellion and thus bringing upon himself at last the deserved doom that David had so often foretold. Another was Adonijah, who was pardoned for his first act of rebellion, but he was likewise to show a little later his true character by a more subtle conspiracy against the kingdom through Abishag the Shunamite, and this brought upon him also the fate that he had already merited. Similar was the sentence of Abiathar, who was set aside from the high ecclesiastical place that he had falsely filled, and Zadok appointed in his stead. The most striking of all these judgments was the death of Shimei, the miserable old churl who had openly cursed David in the hour of his tribulation and who had been magnanimously spared by the king and even granted a respite by Solomon at the beginning of his reign with a definite parole and understanding that if he should break it he should forfeit his life. Shimei was true to his parole for a short time, but he also presumed to despise his pledge of honor and brought upon his own head the judgment that had been pronounced. Thus all these men passed away under the just and terrible retribution which in every case was brought upon their guilty heads by some rash act of their own. So it will be when the greater King shall come. Then how many secrets will be disclosed! How many lives will be made manifest! How many that have long tried the patience and longsuffering of God will be brought to strict account! How many, by some such test of character, will show that they were never really true and will stand revealed and confessed among His enemies and receive His condemnation and His judgment. “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5), for the fire shall try every man’s work (1 Corinthians 3:13). His Reign Solomon’s reign was a type of Christ’s millennial glory. His dominion was the most extensive and his throne the most magnificent the world had seen. All nations, it might truly be said, acknowledged his supremacy and came to pay court at his footstool. His riches were so immense that all the vessels of his court and palace were of gold, and silver was scarcely counted of value in the streets of Jerusalem. He maintained a splendid court and table, a thousand wives, innumerable attendants and a vast army wholly occupied in providing for his household. His throne was of ivory and gold and his palace of cedar and marble took 13 years in building and was a gem of magnificence and beauty. Thirty oxen and 100 sheep were daily slaughtered to supply his own royal table. Forty thousand horses formed his stable. Vast aqueducts were built from the mountains to convey water to his pleasure grounds, and paradises and parks of incomparable beauty were constructed on his vast estates. A splendid palace was reared on the slopes of Lebanon, and as he traveled hither and thither he rode in a chariot of ivory, robed in spotless white, with splendid equipage and state, and great pillars of smoking incense preceded and followed his train. As they saw him approach along the valleys of Samaria, the watchmen on the towers of Lebanon cried, “Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke?” (SS 3:6). Vast forests were cut down and transported from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf and immense navies were built at Ezion Geber at the head of the Indian Ocean. And after a three years’ voyage the ships of commerce returned from India laden with gold, silver, wood, peacocks, apes, rarest incense and spices, and all the treasures of the tropics, and die people of Jerusalem saw the caravans day by day entering their gates and bringing their vast treasures to enrich the king and his subjects. In the early days of his reign, the people shared in this splendid wealth and rejoiced in the sunshine of an extraordinary prosperity, dwelling, as we are told, under their vine and their fig tree in gladness of heart and cloudless prosperity. It was the golden age of Israel and the picture of the summer time of peace and benignity and blessedness which some day will dawn upon this distracted world. His Temple Solomon’s reign was signaled by the building of the temple. Christ’s coming will be marked by the gathering of the Church, the completing of the Bride and the glorious consummation of the new Jerusalem—that edifice of living stones which Christ has been building through the ages and which some day will stand forth amid the admiring gaze of wondering worlds in all the ineffable glory of the vision of the Apocalypse, with the blended light of the jasper and the gold, the sapphire and the emerald, the amethyst and the pearl, the ruby and the diamond, while the glory of God shall flash from His face and the likeness of the Lamb shall be reflected in His glorified and beloved Bride. Israel’s Preeminence Solomon’s reign was marked by the preeminence it gave to the Jewish nation. Israel was the queen of the earthly kingdoms and her supremacy was unchallenged. So it will be when He comes again. He shall restore the splendor of David’s throne and the world shall acknowledge Israel as the chosen race. For this He is preparing her scattered sons today. For this He is giving them the language of the nations, the commercial ascendancy in the markets of the world, and even the literary control of journalism and the politics of nations. The time is coming soon when David shall sit upon His throne, and Israel shall sing once more in the heights of Zion. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May those who love you be secure’” (Psalms 122:6). The Gentiles The reign of Solomon was marked by a very wonderful influence among the Gentile nations. For once Israel outreached her ancient limits and stretched out her hands to all the people around. Her ships went to Tarshish and to India; the mighty Phoenician people in the north were her allies and her friends; Egypt, Assyria, Damascus, Hamar and Hiram of Tyre were in friendly alliance, and from the distant south the Queen of Sheba came, representing the myriad multitudes of the outlying world, to pay tribute at his feet. So it will be when Jesus comes again. Then shall the myriad peoples of earth become the subjects of His kingdom and come to pay their tribute at the footstool of His throne. This is not our expectation in this age. Our business is to bring Him to them through the message of the gospel. His business will be to bring them to Him in the conversion of the world. Today we are gathering for Him a little sample from all earth’s tribes and nations, a kind of firstfruits of His kingdom; then He Himself shall claim the homage of all their millions and He shall reign from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. His Bride One of the most beautiful circumstances of Solomon’s reign was his relation to one loving heart, to whom he seems to have given his supreme affection and who was singled out as the subject of an exquisite romance and the sweetest poem of affection that human language ever composed. It was the beautiful Shunamite of whom he wrote the song of love, the exquisite book of Canticles, and who seems to stand as the very type of the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one for whom He has prepared His kingdom and with whom He is about to share His throne. We cannot enlarge upon this, but we know that Christ is gathering out a Bride for His name, and sweetly calling the hearts that are willing to hearken and obey, to understand His high calling and to know His love and to prepare for His coming. “Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear,” He cries; “forget your people and your father’s house. The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord” (Psalms 45:10-11). Oh, beloved, let us not miss this lesson. Has He offered us this high calling? Has He given us the secret of His heart, the invitation to the marriage of the Lamb? Let us not miss His calling. Let us not miss the slightest whisper of His love. Let us keep in closest touch with Him in these last days of time and be ready at a moment’s warning to meet Him in the air. Greater Than His Throne Finally, the greatest fact in connection with Solomon’s reign was that Solomon himself was greater than all his pageantry of pomp and circumstances that surrounded him. The man was more than the king on the throne. It was not to see his splendor that the nations came, but to hear his wisdom and to come in contact with his personal worth. There are very few of whom this is true. Most persons are made up of their surroundings and their dress. Real beauty when unadorned is adorned the most, and when adorned it transcends its setting. This is supremely true of Jesus only. Greater than all the greatness that surrounds Him, He Himself is “outstanding among ten thousand” (SS 5:10), and “altogether lovely” (SS 5:16)! Oh, have we seen Him in His beauty (Isaiah 33:17)? Do we know Him in His love? Are we longing for Him more than for all He is going to bring, and can we truly say with the old seraphic song, The bride eyes not her garment, But her dear bridegroom’s face. I will not gaze on the glory, But on the King of Grace; Not on the crown He giveth, But on His pierced hand. The Lamb is all the glory In Emmanuel’s land. The Christ in the Bible Volume Three The Kings and Prophets, Psalms, Isaiah by Dr. Albert B. 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