3:1-4 He that loved the Lord, should, for his sake, have fixed his love upon one of the Lord's people. Solomon was a wise man, a rich man, a great man; yet the brightest praise of him, is that which is the character of all the saints, even the poorest, He loved the Lord. Where God sows plentifully, he expects to reap accordingly; and those that truly love God and his worship, will not grudge the expenses of their religion. We must never think that wasted which is laid out in the service of God.

Verse 3. - And Solomon loved the Lord [thus keeping the first and great commandment, the "Shema Israel" (Deuteronomy 6:5; cf. Deuteronomy 30:16; Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27)], walking in the statutes of David his father [i.e., those which David had kept (verses 6,14) and commanded him to keep (ch. 1 Kings 2:4)]: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places. [These words clearly show that the worship of the high places, although condoned, and indeed accepted, by God (ver. 5) was not strictly lawful and right. It was an ignorance that God winked at. The historian, remembering what the worship of the high places became, notices this as an imperfection of Solomon's early reign, though he does not say that such worship was sinful.

And Solomon loved the Lord,.... The worship of the Lord, as the Targum: and which he showed by

walking in the statutes of David his father; in which his father walked, which were the statutes of the Lord, or which he exhorted him to walk in, and were the same, 1 Kings 2:3;

only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places; besides that at Gibeon, which it seems David did not.

3. And Solomon loved the Lord—This declaration, illustrated by what follows, affords undoubted evidence of the young king's piety; nor is the word "only," which prefaces the statement, to be understood as introducing a qualifying circumstance that reflected any degree of censure upon him. The intention of the sacred historian is to describe the generally prevailing mode of worship before the temple was built. The

high places were altars erected on natural or artificial eminences, probably from the idea that men were brought nearer to the Deity. They had been used by the patriarchs, and had become so universal among the heathen that they were almost identified with idolatry. They were prohibited in the law (Le 17:3, 4; De 12:13, 14; Jer 7:31; Eze 6:3, 4; Ho 10:8). But, so long as the tabernacle was migratory and the means for the national worship were merely provisional, the worship on those high places was tolerated. Hence, as accounting for their continuance, it is expressly stated (1Ki 3:2) that God had not yet chosen a permanent and exclusive place for his worship.

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