Remember Solomon’s Wealth?  In and of itself I said so what? what does it mean?  Now that wealth, which is at least possible to measure, has been coupled in a promise with a wise and discerning mind¹ which is difficult to measure.  Solomon’s wealth is hard to deny (whether I argue with the superlative degree of it or not).  I am reminded of a story about Jesus (Matthew 9:2-8 NET):

…some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Have courage, son!  Your² sins are forgiven.”³  Then some of the experts in the law said⁴ to themselves, “This man is blaspheming!”  When Jesus saw their reaction he said, “Why do you⁵ respond with evil in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say, ‘Your⁶ sins are forgiven’⁷ or to say, ‘Stand up⁸ and walk’?  But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority (ἐξουσίαν, a form of ἐξουσία) on earth to forgive sins” – then he said to the paralytic – “Stand up, take your stretcher, and go home.”  And he stood up and went home.  When the crowd saw this, they were afraid⁹ and honored God who had given such authority (ἐξουσίαν, a form of ἐξουσία) to men.

The Greek word ἐξουσίαν (a form of ἐξουσία) makes it fairly clear that the crowd honored God for the authority to forgive sins that was given to men.  The authority to say, Stand up and walk, was merely the kicker, so to speak, to persuade the crowd that the authority to forgive sins was truly given to men.

Is it possible that a wise and discerning mind given by God, would not be wise or discerning enough to prevent Solomon’s disobedience to God’s laws?  That’s what the Bible seems to be saying here.  And Solomon’s wealth is sort of the kicker to make that point.  At the moment, however, a more pressing issue gnaws at my certainty and peace of mind; namely, is it possible that one thing—Solomon’s wealth—can be both at one and the same time the fulfillment of God’s promise and Solomon’s direct disobedience to God’s laws for kings?

There is an easy and obvious negative answer to this question, obvious if you have read the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.  A Nietzschean reading of Solomon’s wealth would go something like this: The laundry list (1 Kings 10:14-28) could stand pretty much as is.  The people of Israel were proud of their richest, wisest king, like any prosperous people would be.  The next chapter was just more bragging originally (verses 1, 3, and 8).  Solomon conquered the hearts of many hot foreign women and built places for them to worship their gods.  The other stuff was added in the time of Josiah (2 Kings 22:1-2), a much later eight-year-old king of Judah.

The priests of Judah had eighteen long years (2 Kings 22:3,
8, 10, 12, 13) to falsify the whole history of Israel and present the newly discovered scroll to the twenty-five-year-old king raised under their tutelage.  Even as it stands, however, the discerning reader can see through the Scripture to the historical truth hidden inside.  Solomon worshiped Yahweh just as he paid every other god his due, much like the people of Josiah’s day (2 Kings 23:4).  But the priests of Yahweh wanted more than their due.  They knew that the kingdom was divided in the days of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.  The simple truth that Solomon’s conscription and taxation were onerous on the people and that Rehoboam threatened to be worse than his father was not the cause of the people’s rebellion.  No, it was because Solomon had sinned against Yahweh, broken every commandment they cleverly placed in the writings of Moses to get some control over this new naïve and gullible King Josiah (1 Kings 11:11-13).  Though it was well known that no evil worthy of Yahweh’s wrath came upon Solomon or Israel during Solomon’s reign, the priests had an answer for this as well.  The evil would come on Rehoboam because Yahweh longed to show mercy to Solomon’s father David, the poet king of Yahweh, and man after Yahweh’s own heart.  On the other hand Solomon was too well known for his wisdom and wealth to discard that fact (1 Kings 3:28).  So, Solomon’s wisdom was not an accident of birth, nor the result of privilege and education.  No, it was Yahweh’s answer to an overwhelmed young man’s request for aid in fulfilling his role as king (1 Kings 3:11-12).  Yahweh just threw in the wealth for good measure, since every priest hopes the path of wisdom leads to riches.  (Never mind that they made Solomon’s wealth an act of disobedience to Yahweh’s laws.  Maybe that’s evidence of a theological rift in the priestly caste.  Yeah, that’s what happened.)

On and on this entirely fanciful reading of the Bible goes.  The key is that every word or act, promise or prophecy of God is a lie concocted by priests, because the truth is, there is no God.  Later, after the Babylonian exile, the prophets must have pulled the same nasty trick on the priests that the priests pulled on the kings of Israel.  I’m not really sure who lambasted the prophets, or when.  All this to maintain a faith that should have long ago been abandoned in a failed god named Yahweh.

I’m not saying I subscribe to a theory of Bible interpretation that posits that the Scripture was rewritten at least twice by fanatical people hell-bent on making Yahweh look better than he ought to for their own selfish gain.  I brought it up precisely because I have reasons of my own to believe differently, and I’m ready to plunge headlong into the very thickets this kind of analysis purports to untangle.  I intend to forge ahead with the confidence that God has reasons of his own for the apparent tangle and complexity of these thickets, and He does not require lying priests and prophets to account for them.

So, I’ll expand the context again.  When the elders of Israel first asked for a king, God took it personally (1 Samuel 8:7, 8a NET).

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do everything the people request of you.  For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king [Table].  Just as they have done from the day that I brought them up from Egypt until this very day, they have rejected me and have served other gods [Table].

Addendum: September 28, 2018
Tables of Matthew 9:2-5 and 9:8 comparing the NET and KJV follow.