Solomon and the Word

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119:105)

An acrostic poem

Psalm 119 is by far the longest psalm in the Bible: one hundred and seventy-six verses devoted to extolling the virtues of God's Word. If you look closely at this psalm you'll notice that it's divided into twenty-two groups of verses with eight verses in each group. These groups are called 'stanzas'. A stanza, in poetry, is a group of verses that forms the rhythm, or style, of the poem.

Psalm 119 is a special kind of poem in the fact that it's written in the style of an alphabetic acrostic. That means that each stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet and each verse, within each stanza, begins with the same letter. So, for instance, the first word in verse 1 begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Aleph, and the first word of each of the remaining seven verses of that stanza also begins with the letter Aleph. Then the first word of verse 9 begins with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Beth, as do the first words of verses 10–16, and so on. So you can see this psalm has been very cleverly written.

There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, so there are twenty-two stanzas of eight verses each, making one hundred and seventy-six verses in all. No one knows why it was written in that style, but someone has suggested that because the Word of God is so wonderful, every letter of the alphabet should be used to describe it. I like that answer.

Born sinners

So what does our opening text say about God's Word? It tells us that it's a lamp to our feet and a light for our path. In other words, it shows us the way we should go in this dark world. Who needs a lamp when they can see clearly? We only need a lamp when it's dark, and we do live in a spiritually dark world—very dark.

There are plenty of things that try to guide us on our way in life, even from birth—our sinful nature for a start.

David said:

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)

What he was saying was that we are born sinners. We inherit sin from our parents who, in turn, inherited it from Adam. You only have to watch a child having a tantrum to realize that.

Then, when we start school, other children show us how to live. They show us how to rebel against teachers and authority; how to lie and steal; how to swear and blaspheme God; how to be self-centred; and how to bully and hate people.

Then, when we watch television our education continues. It shows us how to commit crime and rebel against the police; how to murder and inflict pain and suffering on others; how to make money our god; and how to commit every kind of sexual sin and perversion the censors will allow to be screened. And, of course, there's always the tempter telling us what to do (Matthew 4:3).

So what chance do we have of going the right way in this evil world? Thanks be to God for his Word!

Resisting sin

Psalm 119:104 says:

I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.

God's Word shows us the way he wants us to live—the right way—therefore we hate every wrong path.

Psalm 119:11 says:

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Having God's Word dwelling in our hearts helps us to detect sin. When the tempter comes to us, as he did to Jesus in the desert, we can say: 'It is written, Satan… (Matthew 4:4).' And possessing a sinful nature that longs to sin (which is our basic nature), we must saturate ourselves with the Word of God in order to resist sin.

1 John 2:14b says:

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

A Christian might say: 'I don't need God's Word, I've got the Holy Spirit dwelling within me.' But I want to show you, through the life of Solomon in the Old Testament, that we need both the Spirit of God and the Word of God if we're to live effective lives for Christ on this earth, because Solomon was a man of the Spirit, but he was not a man of the Word.

Loved by the Lord

2 Samuel 12:24–25 tells us that when Solomon was born, God sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah, which means 'loved by the Lord'. Solomon was loved by the Lord and, therefore, we can look at his life with interest because we, also, are loved by the Lord (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Three hundred and fifty years before Israel asked for a king to rule over them, God foresaw that it would happen and spoke about it through Moses (Deuteronomy 17:14). That doesn't mean it was God's will they should ask for a king. On the contrary, when Israel came to Samuel with the request, God said that it wasn't Samuel they were rejecting, but himself (1 Samuel 8:4–7). However, Samuel was told to give them what they'd asked for.

God foresaw that one day his people would ask for a king and so, in Deuteronomy 17:15–20, he gave specific instructions for that king and for every king that would succeed him:

He must be the king the Lord chooses (v15a).
He must be an Israelite (v15b). Israel couldn't choose someone from another nation to rule over them.
He must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or send people to Egypt to get them (v16).
He must not take many wives for himself (v17a).
He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold (v17b).
He must make his own copy of the Law, read it all the days of his life and be careful to follow it (v18–19).

1 Kings 3:4–12 tells us that Solomon got off to a good start. He went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices to God and to seek his face. God said to him: 'Ask for whatever you want me to give you.' Solomon humbly replied that he was only a child and needed wisdom and discernment to govern such a great people. God was pleased with his reply and told him that there would never be anyone wiser than Solomon—and God keeps his promises! Of all who have lived on the earth, only Jesus had more wisdom than Solomon (Matthew 12:42).

Solomon's sin

However, 1 Kings 10:26; 28–29 tells us that Solomon accumulated great numbers of horses, some of which he imported from Egypt. This was contrary to what God had commanded. He also had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:1–3). God had said that the king must not take many wives for himself, and that the Israelites must not marry men or women from other nations (Deuteronomy 7:1–4). Taking seven hundred wives, many of whom were from foreign nations, was a gross violation of those commands.

If Solomon had read his copy of the Law every day of his life, as he was instructed to do, he would not have done such a thing. I don't believe that someone who knew God as intimately as Solomon did, could regularly read that he mustn't take many wives for himself, and then marry seven hundred women. Either he was wilfully sinning against God, or he was ignorant of his Word. I believe it was the latter.

If you read the Bible every day of your life it will transform you—it will transform you by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). it will change you into a different person: into a godly person. You will start to think and act as God wants you to think and act. Unfortunately, because Solomon didn't read the Word everything started to fall apart for him, and that was a tragedy.

Let us remember that Solomon was loved by the Lord from his birth. He was a man mightily anointed by God and gifted in wisdom more than anyone else who had ever lived, but he didn't read the Word of God and obey it. In the end it shipwrecked his life because his foreign wives led him to worship gods that were detestable in the Lord's sight (1 Kings 11:4–6).

God had appeared to Solomon twice.
God had graciously revealed himself to this man.
Solomon had the Spirit of God, but he didn't obey the Word of God, and his life is a lesson to us all.

Conclusion

1 Corinthians 10:1–11 tells us that the Old Testament contains warnings from Israel's history that we should pay attention to. Solomon was powerful before God but he went off the rails. It is possible for any Christian to go off the rails, no matter how anointed they are.

1 Corinthians 10:12 says:

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

It is possible for any Christian to fall into sin at any time. None of us should think we are immune to it.

1 Peter 5:8 says:

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

We don't know when temptation will come to us or in what form it will come; all we know is that it will come. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are (Hebrews 4:15), so let's be prepared. Let us read the Word of God all the days of our lives, as God told the kings of Israel to do. The Bible keeps us in contact with God and keeps our consciences sharp. In that way we can discern every evil path and refuse to go down them.

A Christian needs both the Spirit of God and the Word of God.

Michael Graham
January 2002

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