Solomon's Love of Many Wives and Idolatry. - 1 Kings 11:1, 1 Kings 11:2.

"Solomon loved many foreign wives, and that along with the daughter of Pharaoh." ואת־בּת פ, standing as it does between נכריּות ר נשׁים and מואביּות, cannot mean "and especially the daughter of P.," as Thenius follows the earlier commentators in supposing, but must mean, as in 1 Kings 11:25, "and that with, or along with," i.e., actually beside the daughter of Pharaoh. She is thereby distinguished from the foreign wives who turned away Solomon's heart from the Lord, so that the blame pronounced upon those marriages does not apply to his marriage to the Egyptian princess (see at 1 Kings 3:1). All that is blamed is that, in opposition to the command in Deuteronomy 17:17, Solomon loved (1) many foreign wives, and (2) Moabitish, Ammonitish, and other wives, of the nations with whom the Israelites were not to intermarry. All that the law expressly prohibited was marriage with Canaanitish women (Deuteronomy 7:1-3; Exodus 34:16); consequently the words "of the nations," etc., are not to be taken as referring merely to the Sidonian and Hittite women (J. D. Mich.); but this prohibition is extended here to all the tribes enumerated in 1 Kings 11:2, just as in Ezra 9:2., 1 Kings 10:3; Nehemiah 13:23; not from a rigour surpassing the law, but in accordance with the spirit of the law, namely, because the reason appended to the law, ne in idololatriam a superstitiosis mulieribus pellicerentur (Clericus), applied to all these nations. The Moabites and Ammonites, moreover, were not to be received into the congregation at all, not even to the tenth generation, and of the Edomites only the children in the third generation were to be received (Deuteronomy 23:4, Deuteronomy 23:8-9). There was all the less reason, therefore, for permitting marriages with them, that is to say, so long as they retained their nationality or their heathen ways. The words בּכם...לא־תבאוּ are connected in form with Joshua 23:12, but, like the latter, they really rest upon Exodus 34:16 and Deuteronomy 7:1-3. In the last clause בּהם is used with peculiar emphasis: Solomon clave to these nations, of which God had said such things, to love, i.e., to enter into the relation of love or into the marriage relation, with them. דּבק is used of the attachment of a man to his wife (Genesis 2:4) and also to Jehovah (Deuteronomy 4:4; Deuteronomy 10:20, etc.).

1 Kings 11:7 Parallel Commentaries

build an high

Leviticus 26:30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols...

Numbers 33:52 Then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures...

2 Kings 21:2,3 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen...

2 Kings 23:13,14 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption...

Psalm 78:58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

Ezekiel 20:28,29 For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up my hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill...

Chemosh

Numbers 21:29 Woe to you, Moab! you are undone, O people of Chemosh: he has given his sons that escaped, and his daughters...

Judges 11:24 Will not you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us...

Jeremiah 48:13 And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence.

abomination

Deuteronomy 13:14 Then shall you inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain...

Deuteronomy 17:3,4 And has gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven...

Deuteronomy 27:15 Cursed be the man that makes any graven or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman...

Isaiah 44:19 And none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yes...

Ezekiel 18:12 Has oppressed the poor and needy, has spoiled by violence, has not restored the pledge, and has lifted up his eyes to the idols...

Daniel 11:31 And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice...

Daniel 12:11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate set up...

Revelation 17:4,5 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls...

the hill This was the mount of Olives, which lay east of Jerusalem; and that the Hebrews would consider before it, while the west would be behind it; for the very term used to the east, kedem, means before, while acharon, behind, sometimes signifies the west.

Genesis 33:2 And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph last.

2 Samuel 15:30 And David went up by the ascent of mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot...

2 Kings 23:13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption...

Zechariah 14:4 And his feet shall stand in that day on the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east...

Matthew 26:30 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

Acts 1:9,12 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight...