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1 Kings Chapter
Three
1 Kings 3
Chapter Contents
Solomon's marriage. (1-4) His vision, His prayer for
wisdom. (5-15) The judgment of Solomon. (16-28)
Commentary on 1 Kings 3:1-4
(Read 1 Kings 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.
Commentary on 1 Kings 3:5-15
(Read 1 Kings 3:5-15)
Solomon's dream was not a common one. While his bodily
powers were locked up in sleep, the powers of his soul were strengthened; he
was enabled to receive the Divine vision, and to make a suitable choice. God,
in like manner, puts us in the ready way to be happy, by assuring us we shall
have what we need, and pray for. Solomon's making such a choice when asleep,
and the powers of reason least active, showed it came from the grace of God.
Having a humble sense of his own wants and weakness, he pleads, Lord, I am but
a little child. The more wise and considerate men are, the better acquainted
they are with their own weakness, and the more jealous of themselves. Solomon
begs of God to give him wisdom. We must pray for it, James 1:5, that it may help us in our particular
calling, and the various occasions we have. Those are accepted of God, who
prefer spiritual blessings to earthly good. It was a prevailing prayer, and
prevailed for more than he asked. God gave him wisdom, such as no other prince
was ever blessed with; and also gave him riches and honour. If we make sure of
wisdom and grace, these will bring outward prosperity with them, or sweeten the
want of it. The way to get spiritual blessings, is to wrestle with God in
prayer for them. The way to get earthly blessings, is to refer ourselves to God
concerning them. Solomon has wisdom given him, because he did ask it, and
wealth, because he did not.
Commentary on 1 Kings 3:16-28
(Read 1 Kings 3:16-28)
An instance of Solomon's wisdom is given. Notice the
difficulty of the case. To find out the true mother, he could not try which the
child loved best, and therefore tried which loved the child best: the mother's
sincerity will be tried, when the child is in danger. Let parents show their
love to their children, especially by taking care of their souls, and snatching
them as brands out of the burning. By this and other instances of the wisdom
with which God endued him, Solomon had great reputation among his people. This
was better to him than weapons of war; for this he was both feared and loved.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Kings》
1 Kings 3
Verse 1
[1] And Solomon
made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and
brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his
own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.
Pharaoh — As
being a powerful neighbour, whose daughter doubtless was first instructed in,
and proselyted to the Jewish religion. It seems, this was designed by God to be
a type of Christ, calling his church to himself, and to the true religion, not
only out of the Jews, but even out of the Gentile world.
City of David —
Into David's palace there.
The wall —
Which though in some sort built by David, yet Solomon is here said to build,
either because he made it higher, and stronger, in which sense Nebuchadnezzar
is said to have built Babylon, Daniel 4:30, or because he built another wall
besides the former, for after this time Jerusalem was encompassed with more
walls than one.
Verse 2
[2] Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house
built unto the name of the LORD, until those days.
Only —
This particle is used here, and verse 3, as an exception to Solomon's integrity and as
a blemish to his government, That he himself both permitted and practised this
which was expressly forbidden, Leviticus 17:3,4; Deuteronomy 12:13,14.
High places —
Which were groves, or other convenient places upon hills, in which the
patriarchs used to offer up their sacrifices to God; and from them this custom
was derived both to the Gentiles and the Jews: and in them the Gentiles
sacrificed to idols, the Hebrews to the true God.
Because, … —
Which reason was not sufficient, for there was a tabernacle, to which they were
as much confined as to the temple, Exodus 40:34-38, etc.
Verse 3
[3] And
Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he
sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.
Yet —
Although he miscarried in the matter of high places, yet in the general, his
heart was right with God.
Statutes —
According to the statutes or commands of God, which are here called the
statutes of David; not only because they were diligently practised by David,
but also because the observation of them was so earnestly pressed upon Solomon,
and fortified with David's authority and command.
Verse 6
[6] And
Solomon said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy,
according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in
uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness,
that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.
Truth — In
the true worship of God, in the profession, belief, practice and defence of the
true religion. So truth here contains all duties to God, as righteousness doth
his duties to men, and uprightness the right manner of performing both sorts of
duties.
With thee —
That is, in thy judgment, to whom he often appealed as the witness of his
integrity.
Verse 7
[7] And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David
my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
Child — So
he was in years: not above twenty years old; and withal (which he principally
intends) he was raw and unexperienced, as a child, in state affairs.
Go out, … — To
govern my people, and manage affairs.
Verse 8
[8] And
thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great
people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
In the midst — Is
set over them to rule and guide them. A metaphor from the overseer of divers
workmen, who usually is in the midst of them, that he may the better observe
how each of them discharges his office.
Chosen —
Thy peculiar people, whom thou takest special care of, and therefore wilt
expect a more punctual account of my government of them.
Verse 9
[9] Give
therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may
discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a
people?
An understanding heart — Whereby I may both clearly discern, and faithfully perform all the parts
of my duty: for both these are spoken of in scripture, as the effects of a good
understanding; and he that lives in the neglect of his duties, or the practice
of wickedness, is called a fool, and one void of understanding.
Discern —
Namely in causes and controversies among my people; that I may not through
mistake, or prejudice, or passion, give wrong sentences, and call evil good, or
good evil. Absalom, that was a fool, wished himself a judge: Solomon, that was
a wise man, trembles at the undertaking. The more knowing and considerate men
are, the more jealous they are of themselves.
Verse 13
[13] And
I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour:
so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.
All thy days —
Whereby he signifies that these gifts of God were not transient, as they were
in Saul, but such as should abide with him whilst he lived.
Verse 14
[14] And
if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy
father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.
And if —
This caution God gives him, lest his wisdom should make him proud, careless, or
presumptuous.
Verse 15
[15] And
Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem, and stood
before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and offered up burnt offerings, and
offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants.
A dream —
Not a vain dream, wherewith men are commonly deluded; but a divine dream,
assuring him of the thing: which he knew, by a divine impression after he was
awakened: and by the vast alteration which he presently found within himself in
point of wisdom and knowledge.
The ark —
Which was there in the city of David, 2 Samuel 6:17, before which he presented himself
in a way of holy adoration.
Burnt offerings —
Chiefly for the expiation of his and his peoples sin, through the blood of
Christ, manifestly signified in these sacrifices.
Peace offerings —
Solemnly to praise God for all his mercies, and especially for giving him quiet
possession of the kingdom, and for his glorious appearance to him in the dream,
and for the promise therein made to him, and the actual accomplishment of it.
Verse 16
[16] Then
came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
Harlots —
Or, victuallers: for the Hebrew words signifies both. Yet that they are
unmarried persons, seems probable, both because there is no mention of any
husbands, whose office it was, if there were any such, to contest for their
wives; and because they lived a solitary life in one house.
Verse 19
[19] And
this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
Overlaid it —
And so smothered it: which she justly conjectures, because there were evidences
of that kind of death, but no appearance of any other cause thereof.
Verse 25
[25] And
the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and
half to the other.
Said —
Though with a design far above the reach of the two women, or of the people
present, who probably with horror expected the execution of it.
Verse 27
[27] Then
the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it:
she is the mother thereof.
She is the mother — As
is evident from her natural affection to the child, which she had rather have
given away from her, than destroyed.
Verse 28
[28] And
all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the
king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.
Wisdom of God —
Divine wisdom with which God had inspired him for the government of his people.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Kings》
03 Chapter 3
Verses 1-28
Verse 3
Solomon loved the Lord.
Love begets love
It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence
of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified.
It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent
magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side they are both magnets
alike. Remain side by side with Christ who loved us, and you, too, will become
a permanent, attractive force. This is the inevitable effect of love. (H.
Drummond.)
Love must be paid in kind
“As water is cast into a pump, when the springs lie low, to bring
up more water, so God sheddeth abroad His love into our hearts, that our love
may rise up to Him again by way of gratitude and recompense.” How idle is it
then, to hope to chide ourselves into loving God! The price of love is love;
the origin of it is not found in law or in a sense of duty, but in love, or a
return of gratitude. When the sun of eternal love melts the glaciers of the
soul, then the rivers of affection flow; but if the rocks of ice could all be
broken to shivers with hammers, not a drop of affection would stream forth.
Only a sense of Divine love will ever create love to God in the heart. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Verses 5-15
The Lord appeared again to Solomon in a dream.
Dreams indicate character
Tell me your dreams, and I will read the riddle of your life. Tell
me your prayers, and I will write the history of a soul. Tell me your askings,
and I will tell you your gettings. Tell me what you seek, and I will tell you
what you are. I do not wish to know your possessions--only your wants. I do not
care to know what you have--only what you have not, and desire to have; not
your attainments, but what you have not yet attained and follow after. That
Which comes to you in your victories by day and your dreams by night, the ideal
you set before
you, the things which you approve as excellent, what you seek after and have
given your heart to, these are the measure of the man. In a truer sense than
Shakespeare meant, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” They have no
price in the market, but they, and they alone, give worth and dignity to
life. (Hugh Black, M. A.)
The duty, nature, and blessings of prayer
I. The duty of
prayer. It is a fundamental law of our nature, on the mere supposition that
there is a God in heaven, to ask His help. It is the plain, practical
demonstration of our manifold obligations to God, of our own impotence, misery,
and dependence; of Him as the source of all our hopes, and the one open,
all-sufficient fountain of every blessing of peace and purity and power.
II. The nature of
prayer.
1. It must be the utterance and the feeling of earnestness and fervour, under the
sense of helplessness, misery, and sin, under the persuasion that if God help
us not, there is no store whence shall man help us.
2. True supplication, to which God hath linked a blessing, is
patient, abiding, persevering.
3. Confidence in God is an essential element in gracious and
acceptable prayer. It does no honour to Him to adopt us into His family, that
we should be unwilling on the one hand, or afraid on the other, to lay our
wants, our wishes, nay our sins, freely before Him. As we have a new and living
way into the Holiest, by the blood of Jesus, we may be sure that our entrance
thither must be acceptable unto God.
III. The blessings
of prayer. Answers shall be returned. When God said to Solomon, “Ask what I
shall give thee,” He never meant to mock the youthful monarch.s petition. The
words of Truth Eternal are fully and for ever pledged. “Ask, and ye shall have;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Prayer,
truly, fervently, and faithfully made, is like the bow of Jonathan, it never
returns empty. (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
Lonely communion in view of great duty
In Mrs. Crawford’s recent story of the late Queen
Victoria’s life, she tells the following incident: After the stately and
imposing Coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, Her Majesty returned to her
mother the Duchess of Kent. When they were quite alone she said, “I suppose,
mamma, it must be true that I am Queen of England?” “Yes, love, you see that
you are.” “Well, then, I have a request to make. I want to be alone and
undisturbed for one hour.” She was left alone. How she spent that hour has
never transpired. But surely we can guess. The young Queen was surely holding
fellowship with the King of Kings, seeking His help for her overwhelming
responsibilities. Before our Lord chose His twelve apostles “He went into a
mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” How much more need
have we to bring all our plans and purposes to Him? (H. O. Mackey.)
A Prince at prayer
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, when in his camp before Werben,
had been alone, at one time, in the cabinet of his pavilion some hours
together, and none of his attendants at these seasons durst interrupt him. At
length, however, a favourite of his having some important matter to tell him,
came softly to the door, and, looking in, beheld the king very devoutly on his
knees at prayer. Fearing to molest him in that exercise, he was about to
withdraw his head, when the king espied him, and, bidding him come in, said,
“Thou wondetest to see me in this posture, since I have so many thousands of
subjects to pray for me; but I tell thee that no man has more need to pray for
himself than he who, having to render an account of his actions to none but
God, is, for that reason, more closely assaulted by the devil than all other
men besides.”
Effectual prayer
The passage before us is the record of a dream which this great
man had one night at Gibeon, a place celebrated in the Old Testament but not
mentioned in the New, and whose geographical position cannot be determined with
any certainty now. There are two things very noteworthy in this dream.
1. The blending of the human and Divine. There is much that you can
trace to Solomon’s own mind in the nocturnal vision recorded here.
2. The suggested conditions of successful prayer. The prayer of his
dream was answered in his actual history.
I. That effective
prayer must be Divinely authorised. At the beginning of the dream Solomon
received an authority to pray. “And God said, Ask what I shall give thee.” Such
an authority is evidently a necessary condition Unless the Eternal gave us a
warrant to address Him, our appeals would be impious and fruitless. Have we,
the men of this age, a Divine authority for praying? H not, our appeals to
Heaven are worse than idle breath. “Ask what I shall give thee.”
1. This authority to call upon God in prayer agrees with our
religious instincts. Prayer in some form or other is the natural cry of the
soul Tile child in distress does not more naturally look to his fond parent for
help, than the human soul in sore trouble and danger looks to the heavens for
aid. Even men who in theory deny the existence of a God, urged by this instinct
will cry to Him in danger.
2. This authority to call upon God in prayer is encouraging to our
hope as sinners.
II. That effective
prayer must be earnestly spiritual. By this we mean that spiritual interest
must reign supreme, that spiritual motives must be predominant. It was so now
with Solomon in his prayer.
III. That effective
prayer must be thoroughly unselfish. What he prayed for was “an understanding
heart”; and he prayed for that, not that it might serve his own interest, but
in order, as he says, “to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and
bad.” (Homilist.)
The first thing to do
When into any Old Testament incident there can be pressed the
whole significance of a New Testament precept, the study of both becomes a
still more eager pursuit. Thus we know that God is the same in character, and
the Gospel m the same in purpose, through all the ages.
I. Every
revelation of Divine Grace is definitely conditioned upon prayer as the
instrument of its attainment. Evidently God is purposing to do him a great
favour; but all that the voice says is that he is to “ask” before anything is
to be granted. God says “ask,” and Jesus says “seek.” Only we ought to remember
that we in an age of blessedness and light, we in these latter times of clearer
revelation, have one supreme advantage over those who sought their help under
the teaching of that former dispensation; this is no longer a dream-voice that
we hear from heaven, but the intelligible living message from the lips of God’s
Son.
II. Reminiscences
of previous help are an excellent advantage in preparation for present
petition. When we find so young a king referring to former histories in the
household and the realm, it becomes clear that he kept his eyes open and his
mind thoughtful while the story of Absalom and Mephibosheth in the old times
was working itself out.
III. The
consciousness of real need in carrying out the Lord.s purposes is a forcible
argument for importunity in supplication.
IV. A weighty
responsibility in duties constitutes a motive for asking God to interpose with
his benediction of help. A burden of care is His reason for seeking audience
with his King.
V. The first thing
to be asked for in God’s grace is a new and “understanding heart.” The idea
here is a heart of discrimination, a power to discern conscientiously between
right and wrong, and to pronounce unerringly for the right.
VI. He will quickly
succeed in life who has the testimony that he pleases God. From these words any
one could predict the future of this young king; for the Lord announced Himself
his friend.
VII. We may learn,
once more, that a new heart, wise and understanding, is a better benediction
than any other which human wishes could desire.
VIII. With this chief
blessing of a new heart sought and gained, God grants everything else that is
needed. Solomon took occasion a long time afterwards to put this thought in
among his Proverbs.
IX. With present
answers to prayer always come assurances of continued love and grace to the
faithful for the future. The great Augustine was right when once he exclaimed,
“ We must hold our empty vessel to the mouth of so large a fountain.” And
indeed, if God.s covenant engagements have so fine an indorsement that they will
circulate as petitions, it would be well to use them literally and often. It
was the lamented Humphrey who was said to have had the power of weaving
together the Scripture promises so appropriately into his prayers that his
exercises of devotion seemed like cloth of gold. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
True aims and false aims
The men whose names the world will not willingly let die are those
who find in others good their chiefest, greatest joy. The names of
self-gratifiers, self-seekers die out. They lay hold for a time of the memories
of men, but never of what is firmer, their respect. Selfishness never has
imbibed life from the principle of immortality. The men who come up to the
height of a great choice “Give me these that I may judge Thy people, that I may
civilise, that I may educate, that I may evangelise, that I may bless my
generation”--their names become the echo, ever sounding throughout the ages of
the sacrifice they once chose to make for others.
I. God does come
to every one saying, “choose what I shall give thee.” Goethe said that he
admired the man who knew precisely what he aimed at in life. God wishes you at
the commencement of your career to come up to the height of a great choice. You
have all read Carlyle’s description of the Sphinx sitting by the wayside
propounding her riddles to every one that passed; and if the passer-by answered
correctly it was well for him, but if he did not answer the riddle he was
destroyed on the spot. I have watched young men and others, and I say that life
comes to every man in this world with its riddle, and if he answers it aright
it is well with him, but if he tries to go on neglecting the commandments of
the Giver of life; if he tries to go on living in his own way, and not in God’s
way, life to him will be a thing of loss, and he will become an object to be
wept over. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” One of the latest
discoveries I have read of is a spy-glass by means of which a man can see the
sunken ships in all quiet seas. Oh that I could put a glass in the hand of
every young man that would enable him to see the wrecks of the last twelve
months in this great population! It would wring a prayer from your heart this
minute--the very prayer of young Solomon, “Give me therefore an understanding
heart, that I may discern between good and bad.” It must begin with the heart.
“The pure in heart alone can see God”; and if you cannot see God in the world,
you cannot see anything else in its true proportions. There are only two kinds
of companions, and if you play and dally with the wicked companions woe be to
you. One rotten apple affects the whole store, one putrid grape will spoil the
sound cluster, one sinner destroyeth much good. Why should you read a bad book?
You will be sorry for it, perhaps, in twenty years, as Angell James was. If you
read a corrupt book, a bad book, you will hang up a picture in your mind that
you can never turn to the wall, that you can never pull down. And why should
you do it, with all the noble literature that is about you? It was a splendid
motto for you, that saying of John Foster, “This soul of mine shall rule this
body of mine, or else quit it; I will not be here a tenant unless I am a
master.” We are placed here naked as the giant of fable to wrestle with the
rude elements of the world, to conquer in the midst of its varied probation;
but remember this, no devil nor devil’s child can ever cast you down without
your own consent.
II. If any one
comes up to this choice, or chooses a right aim in life, it will be said of
him, as it was here said of young Solomon, “and the speech pleased the Lord
that Solomon had asked this thing.” It was this thing in contrast to three
other things that he had rejected. He rejected the false, and the false are
here enumerated: “Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for
thyself long life.” Then is that a wrong desire? Well, it is a nobler thing to
act well your part than to be constantly thinking of living a long life.
Religion is unquestionably favourable to length of days, but it is a very low
aim of life to be constantly nursing yourself, and to be thinking of yourself.
Life is not measured by length of days. Old Methuselah lived to 900 years, and
never said a word worth putting down in the Bible. He lived for nine centuries
and never did a
single act worth reporting. He vegetated like a tree that was not living. Then
it pleased the Lord, “Because thou didst neither ask riches for thyself.” Then
is it wrong for us to desire riches? As the great absorbing passion in life it
is wrong. It pleased the Lord, “Neither hast thou asked the life of thine
enemies.” They say that it is the sweetest thing in life to have revenge upon
an enemy. Another has said, “Revenge is mine, saith the Lord.” And I thank
heaven for that, or else public men would not live twelve months. Christianity
is the only religion that teaches all men to give over their vengeance to the
Lord. It is said that Leclair, the great critic, was one day going along the
streets of Paris, and he trod on the foot of a young man; the young man at once
raised his hand and struck him a blow in the face. Leclair turned round
quietly, and said, “Sir, you will be sorry that you have done that, when you
know that I am blind.” He could have cut off his hand.
II. The reasons are
here assigned why it pleased the Lord that Solomon rejected the false and chose
the true aim in life.
1. Because he chose what enabled him to be serviceable to others. Our
great poet has told us that Heaven does with us as we do with torches, not
light them for themselves. We are lit in order to be the light of the world,
and it can be said of every other life that “the game is not worth the candle.”
2. Again, it pleased the Lord because he chose to walk in the
statutes of a good father, and so to encourage him in his last days in his
faith in God’s covenant.
3. It pleased the Lord because he chose God Himself as his portion
rather than all His gifts. “And Solomon loved the Lord.” Young men, trust the
Lord, there is honour in the Lord. He will give you more than you ask,
abundantly more. (H. Evans.)
Solomon’s choice
The Gospel means, not that these old visions have vanished away,
but that all that was true and substantial in them has simply been, as in a
painting, made to stand out in
greater vividness and nearness. The Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel stands
before us, and says, literally, “Ask what I shall give thee.” The thing to
notice is, that Solomon showed that, humanly speaking, he was worthy of this
chance, by the way in which he did not jump forward and eagerly ask for some
temporal thing. Solomon showed his wisdom, his preparation for the great
largess of bounty in which God came to him, in the way in which he did not use
his imperative of asking upon God’s imperative of offer. He seems to take a
round-about road. He started off and said, “Thou hast showed unto Thy servant
David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before Thee in truth and
in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with Thee.” Strange--is it
not?--that when God comes to him with this great offer, the first thing that
springs before his mind is the image and memory, the life and character, of his
father. Now, I want you to reflect before you make up your minds--to do what
Solomon did. It was human and heavenly wisdom combined that made him look back
and see what his father did. Solomon does not indulge in great praise nor in
great depreciation. David was a man that you could have overpraised. You could
have talked of David as if there was never such a man. And if you were the
other kind of temperament, you could have found other things in David that
would lead you to run him down. Now, Solomon did neither the one nor the other.
Now, we are not asked to do more than Solomon did. I neither ask you to praise
your father or mother up to the skies, nor to run them down; but if you look at
them fairly you can strike this average, and say what Solomon said. When I look
to those who stand immediately behind me, and have been living longer than I
have, I can see what Solomon saw in his father, that religion was either the
best or the worst thing about them. The best thing about your father was his
religion, or it was the worst. If he was a true and real follower of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that was the best. You are not asked to say he was perfect, but
to know and rate him according to that. It may be he was only a hedger or
ditcher; he may not have been a great man at all. But what was he before God?
Solomon had this great advantage, that when he looked back on his father, the
light that shined from his father’s record would guide him to a right decision.
If it is not so, the very dimness and darkness that comes from ungodly parents
should be a beacon light to put you right where they went wrong. Do not despise
your father; do not despise your mother. They know what life means, and you
have all that to learn yet. Solomon said, “I can see the best thing about my
father was this, he rose and prospered in so far as he walked in truth and
sincerity before God, and I will try to do like him there. It was religion that
made him the man he was.” Do not despise the religion your father had, the
religion that your mother had. Depend upon it, it was the very best legacy they
left you. Solomon continues: “Thou hast made me king,” etc. There he looked
into himself, and he passed an opinion upon himself and his powers and
attainments, which is so uncommon among young people. This is where the
greatness of Solomon comes out. Would God he had always remained at this point.
Now, what is wrong with some of you up to this hour is the want of that
humility. Be not highminded. Then Solomon looked round about him: he prospected
a bit. Out in America and Canada, that great country where fortunes are made,
so they say, and lost whether they say it or not, men go into certain regions
prospecting. They are wanting to open a mine, and they see what a certain
region is like. They tap here and there to see if they are going to make a
fortune out of its rocks. So Solomon was prospecting the future. He felt life
here and there, and touched its current, and he passed this verdict upon it: “I am in the
midst of Thy people, which Thou hast chosen; a great people.” And I think he
meant, “Life as far as I can prospect it is going to mean for me hard work and
plenty of it.” Am I saying that you have mean ability? No, but with the best
ability you will not necessarily get on. Young girl, you are sweet and fair
to-day; you will grow up, marry, fall into ill-health; you will have children,
maybe, and that will bring you more trouble, and by the time you are forty-five
or fifty years of age you will be bent and weary to get away. Life, for a great
many of us, means that. One by one the gorgeous dreams of south disappear; the
rosy hopes go out into blackness; the bright expectations illumine the horizon,
and then fade into the light of common day; and even if you were kings upon a
throne, life would mean what I have said already. Now, will you settle yourself
for the work? Life means business, toil, trouble, sweat of body and brain.
Brace yourself for it; gird yourself for it. Be sure that is what is coming.
Then, after looking back to his father and summing him up, and summing himself
up, and saying, There is nothing in me; and, after summing up life and saying
it means duty, it means hard work, and plenty of it, then he looked up. You see
the process--backward, inward, outward, upward. He said, “Give me a wise and an
understanding heart; build me up just where I am broken down; put the plaister
on the weak place; put in Thine own great almighty arm just where I need
nothing less than almightiness to under gird me.” “And the speech pleased the
Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.” That is just another way of asking to
be converted. The Old Testament phraseology and the New Testament phraseology run
into one. It is just the same as saying, “O God, save me from my foolishness
and wrong opinions, direct my unwary feet. O God, be Thou my sufficiency, my
help.” Will you choose God to-day? (J. MacNeill.)
The wisdom of Solomon
I. The honour of
this precocious wisdom is perhaps due more to David than to Solomon himself.
His understanding, his feelings, his desires are what they are; in one word, he
is what he is only because he has the inestimable privilege of succeeding much
a father as King David. His dominant thought, from which spontaneously springs
his prayer, is that of the immensity of his task and his incapacity to perform
it. He feels his profound need of God’s help. He learns to rely upon it. He has
recourse to it with confidence. What a help to find in the memory of a father,
as a second conscience accompanying us through life! Like the Polish King
Boleslaus, who carried about with him the portrait of his father, and for whom
it was enough, in
cases of difficulty or peril, to cast a glance upon the revered image and say,
“Boleslaus, thy father sees thee!” to recover his wisdom and courage about to
forsake him.
II. A proper
distrust of himself, very rare at his age and in his circumstances (verses
7-9). It was no trifling matter to be called upon to govern so important and
unmanageable a nation as Israel. Generally speaking, men see the pleasures and
privileges of power before they are made aware of its duties. An exalted
position is always an object of envy and ambition. But at the age when one casts
on life that long look of confidence and hope, which smooths down beforehand
all its difficulties, and takes in only its bright and sunny aspects; at the
age when one believes and hopes all things, how many others would have become
intoxicated with pride and self-confidence!
III. His wise
appreciation of earthly blessings. To this offer of the Almighty, “Ask what I
shall give thee,” who would not expect to hear a young man, scarcely yet seated
on the throne, reply by demanding what men most desire on earth--a long and
happy life, unlimited and undisputed power, a glorious reign, and unbounded
wealth? Not so, however; Solomon begins life by wisely putting all these things
in their proper place. There before us success, wealth, the open fountain of
all earthly felicities, a choice to make from among the prizes which the world
temptingly offers its elect. Who, having communed with himself, would say,
“Lord, give me the wisdom and grace I need to accomplish faithfully Thy work
here below! That is the limit of my desires; I would it were also the limit of
Thy gifts”? I fancy I hear, bursting forth from the silence of your hearts some
such prayers as these: “Lord, raise me above my fellow-men; give me, in the
profession I have chosen, such facilities as will secure for me undisputed
success; make me rise promptly to that fame which appears to me from afar as
the sweetest of all enjoyments.” That is a young man’s prayer, no doubt. “Lord,
give me all the outward advantages of beauty, grace, wit, all that gratifies vanity.”
That is, the prayer of a woman who perhaps does not think herself
worldly-minded. “Lord, be pleased to increase by successful undertakings the
patrimony I have received of my ancestors; assure me an exalted and wealthy
station; grant that I may provide for my children such positions as will enable
them to move in the highest circles of society.” That is perhaps the inward
request of a man of deep convictions, and well known in the field of Christian
activity. I dare not proceed! God is wise not to lead us into temptation by
permitting us, as he did Solomon, to pray for the satisfaction of our earthly
desires. (Homiletic Quarterly.)
The highest order of wisdom
Solomonic books have some incomparably splendid passages on
wisdom; and if Solomon had fallen, and repented, and risen again, and begun
again, till he ended in living up to his own sermons on wisdom, what a glory,
both in sacred letters and in a holy life, Solomon’s name would have been. “Wisdom,” says
Sir Henry Taylor, one of the wisest writers in the English language, “is not
the same with understanding, talents, capacity, ability, sagacity, sense, or
prudence--not the same with any one of these; neither will all these taken
together make it up. Wisdom is that exercise of the reason into which the heart
enters--a structure of the understanding rising out of the moral and spiritual
nature. It is for this cause that a high order of wisdom, that is, a highly
intellectual wisdom, is still more rare than a high order of genius. When they
reach the very highest order they are one; for each includes the other, and
intellectual greatness is matched with moral strength.” And then this fine
essayist goes on to point out how Solomon’s great intellectual gifts, coupled
as they were in him with such an appetite for enjoyment, together became his
shipwreck. And Bishop Butler, though he does not, like Sir Henry Taylor, name
Solomon, surely had him in his eye when he penned that memorable and alarming
passage about those men who go over the theory of wisdom and virtue in their
thoughts, talk well, and paint fine pictures of it, till their minds are
hardened in a contrary course, and till they become more and more insensible to
all moral considerations. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
On the youth of Solomon
It is not from the peculiar situation of Solomon that the beauty
of this memorable instance of devotion arises.
1. The charm of it chiefly consists in its suitableness to the season
of youth; in its correspondence to the character and dispositions which
distinguish that important age; and which no length of acquaintance with the
world prevents us from wishing to find in the young.
2. The piety which is formed in youth has a different character, and
leads to very different effects. It comes not, then, to terrify or to alarm, but
to afford every high and pleasing prospect in which the heart can indulge,--to
withdraw the veil which covers the splendours of the eternal mind,--to open
that futurity which awakens all their desires to behold, and, in the sublime
occupations of which they feel already, as by some secret inspiration, the home
and destiny of their souls. At such a period, religion is not a service of
necessity, but of joy.
Wisdom
To look through the shows of things, into things themselves. (Carlyle.)
Solomon’s choice
I. Every new
opportunity demands a peculiar choice. “Good” and “bad” are not
changeable terms, yet in every new personal or public responsibility the sacred
words seem to be spoken, “Ask what I shall give thee.” As king, Solomon must
make a new choice, differing from any he had hitherto made. In civil life this
law everywhere obtains. The responsibilities of the judiciary differ widely
from those of the executive, and these in turn from the legislative. The same
question comes to each; but each case must call forth a peculiar answer. So,
likewise, consider the different factors of society. No two persons can make
the same reply. Each day’s duties differ from all that have preceded, hence
every day we must give answer to Him who speaks. The importance of our choice
is emphasised by our power for good or evil.
II. Every choice
involves character. We are known by what we choose. A defective choice means a
defective character. The choice of Solomon was good as far as it went; but it
had relation merely to his kingly work, and only incidentally to himself. In
some respects Israel’s wisest king was the saddest of all scriptural
characters. Notwithstanding his visions from God, his history is largely
secular. At the beginning of the Homeric age in Greece, this greater than Homer
made Palestine the centre of art and the treasury of wisdom. The mines of the
known earth were delved for their riches to adorn the Temple, to whose beauty
every forest contributed. He symbolised in these visible splendours the
invisible God, only at last to become a worshipper of idols. The incense that
floated in the clouds from the Temple in Jerusalem was mingled over Olivet with
that from the altars of Phenicia and Moab, and above all with that of
Moloch--the altar of human sacrifices--and all under his reign. His dream
depicts him as praying for right dealings towards and among the people; and yet
his later years inflicted an unbearable tyranny on that same people.
III. The highest
choice is wisdom. His choice marked a new epoch. Before his time all kingly
power was marked by standing armies, by riches and pomp. Each ruler was thought
to need a long life to ensure the success of his plans; but here was a strange
request. Under his reign was demonstrated for the first time the power of the
brain in the conquests of nations and men. His was the golden age of Jewish
literature, himself the founder. If intellectual power could save an empire,
the trial was being made, but worms were eating at the roots. All nations owned
his intellectual greatness--wiser than their wisest men. Phenicia, proud mother
of letters, was dumb in his presence. Tyre spread her purple over his throne.
India minted him her gold. We speak of our Linnaeus; but Solomon, the first
great botanist, “spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon to the
moss that springs out of the wall.” We boast of our Cuvier; yet Israel’s wise
king, the first great naturalist, spake “of beasts, and of fowl, and of
creeping things, and of fishes.” Upon his wise words Aristotle based all that was
best of Grecian philosophy. The Wordsworth of Jewish poets, he laid all nature
at our feet. Wisdom, however, means more than knowledge. Many a learned man is
not wise. Knowledge is the apprehension of facts or relations; wisdom denotes
“the use of the best means for attaining the best ends.” Wisdom is never shown
in choosing what is always to remain exterior to self.
IV. The highest
wisdom is evidenced in most common thugs. The wisest men use the simplest
speech. The smallest children speak largest words. Simplicity of construction
is the secret of the best invention. God’s mightiest forces are uncomplicated.
The rattling shuttles of a mill are a wonder; but more wonderful still that
noiseless, shuttleless weaving of the lily, whose fashioning none of us has
ever seen. There is no book so full of thoughts for practical everyday life as
the Book of Proverbs, yet that very simplicity is Divine.
V. Unsought
blessings are given the truly wise. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Solomon’s choice
I. God regards
with special favour
those who honour Him. It is idle to speculate as to whether Solomon would not
have received the same blessings if he had not sacrificed and prayed. The fact
was, that sacrifice and prayer were the immediate antecedents of the blessings,
and are represented as having direct relation to them. Such a fact is
sufficient answer to all philosophical objections to prayer, and an emphatic
rebuke to those who say it is nonsense to insist that God has any pleasure in
our worship and formal expressions of homage.
II. With proper
regard to God’s will we may pray for special blessings. It was not presumption
for Solomon to take God at His word. It would have been unpardonable unbelief
had he replied to His offer of good that he could not presume to make mention of
what was uppermost in his heart. God never trifles. His offers are never to be
regarded as only general evidence of a willingness to do us good, but as real
invitations that we make known our requests. There is proof enough that our
Father is pleased to gratify the wishes of His children, and it is no pleasure
to Him that they pray only in vague and indefinite generalities. The very idea
of the relationship forbids such prayer; the idea of prayer itself is opposed
to such expressions of desire.
III. We may make the
experience of others a plea for good to be granted to ourselves. Solomon made
mention of David’s life and reign as having been pleasing to God, and of God’s
great mercy to him, and urged this as proof that a purpose to be upright may
become a ground of hope since He who does not change will grant favour always when the
required conditions are fulfilled. The faithfulness of God is the real stimulus
to prayer.
IV. Blessings
incomplete in their nature may be pressed as an argument in prayer for their
completion. In David’s dying charge to his son he reminded him of God’s
declaration to himself: “If thy children take heed,” etc. Solomon made this
declaration the basis of his plea with God in this interview. A large part of
Christian work is in progress, the execution of plans which require time and
persistent toil. We need not fear lest God will weary of co-operation in such
work.
V. Consciousness,
and even confession of inability to perform duty may become a further warrant
for help from God when the duty is clearly assigned by Him. The same conviction
oppresses many a Christian whom God has called to do work in the different
departments of His service. This should not cause him to faint or despair or
retire, but should rouse him to greater confidence in prayer while he resolves
to stand in the place assigned him.
VI. God does not
content Himself with granting simply what we ask when we have the spirit He
approves. His answer to Solomon’s prayer was: “Behold, I have done according to
thy words.”
VII. Thanksgiving
for answer to prayer should be prominent and in the most positive form of
expression. (J. Eells, D. D.)
The story of a right choice
Significant the familiar lines of Lowell--
Once,
to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In
the strife of Truth with Falsehood for the good or evil side;
Some
great cause, God.s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts
the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right
And
the choice goes by for ever.twixt that darkness and that light.
And not once only, but many times does such choice come. For to
live is to choose. Life is but a series of choices. Though just as the current
of the river, notwithstanding refluent ripples, carries with it in one main
direction the multitudinous drops of water which go to make the river, so in
life one main and dominating choice gives impulse and direction to the ten
thousand lesser choices with which the days are filled. I am appalled at this
power of choice. I do not think any one in the least thoughtful can help being.
I was looking through the glass sides of a beehive. All was orderly and
unclashing; none of the pain and disturbance of errant and rebellious wills;
each bee doing just as each bee should, just the thing each was designed to do.
And I asked myself, Why did not God make men thus? Why did God put men among
the crowding dangers of the retributive results of their bad choices? There are
only two answers to such questions: God has not made men thus; if God had made
men thus men would not be men. No; real and shadowing is the fact of choice.
Our Scripture tells the story of a right choice.
I. What such right
choice involves.
1. Purpose of inward worth. Solomon prayed that he might have an
“understanding heart.” He wanted the real gold, not tinsel. That is a great and
constant trouble, that men are so willing to seem to be rather than to be. Here
is the precise reason for the defalcations which too often and so sadly startle
the community.
2. Such true choice involves recognition of duty. Duty is the child
of relation; is that which is due because of the relations in which one is set
Godward, manward. The true choice involves recognition of the duties springing
out of the relations in which one is bound.
3. Such true choice involves determination to practise along the line
of duty; “that I may judge this people.” As long as Solomon did this, how great
and wise! But when he practised otherwise, how sad his fall l
4. Such true choice involves dependence on God. “Give, therefore, Thy
servant an understanding heart.” Solomon felt himself insufficient. He must
have and hang on God.
II. In what such
right choice results.
1. In pleasing God (verse 10).
2. In Divine ratification (verse 12).
3. In external prosperity (verse 13).
4. In internal prosperity. Solomon, conscious of pleasing God, must
have had peace and joy. (W. Hoyt.)
Solomon’s choice
1. The address which God made to Solomon, when He said, “Ask what I
shall give thee,” He does in effect make to each of us, especially to the
young. By erecting a throne of grace in heaven, opening the way to it, inviting
us to come to Him with our requests, and promising to grant our petitions when
they are agreeable to His will, He does in effect say to each of us, “Ask what
I shall give thee.”
2. Though we are not, like Solomon, kings; and therefore need not, as
he did, qualifications requisite for that office; yet we all need spiritual
wisdom and understanding, and may therefore all imitate his example in making
our choice. Every parent, also, has reason to adopt the prayer of Solomon.
Professors of religion have reason to imitate the example of Solomon.
3. That God is pleased with those who make the choice and sincerely
offer up the prayer of Solomon.
4. All who make his choice, and adopt his prayer, shall certainly be
favoured with a wise and understanding heart. That God will gratify the desires
of those who thus pray for wisdom, is evident from His express promises. If any
of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth liberally to all men and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (E. Payson, D. D.)
A wise choice
There are around the city of Chester high walls, on the top of
which runs a much-frequented path which is reached by a flight of steps. It is
said by the people of the place that whatever you wish for when standing on
these stairs you will get it in a year’s time, and so they are called the
“wishing stairs.” What would each of us now wish for if we were on these steps?
“What is it exactly that I most desire?” we are often at a loss to know. It was
not so with Solomon. He did not find it difficult to answer when asked what he most
wanted.
1. Solomon prayed for an understanding heart, to discern good from
evil, because he felt the responsibility of his position. He knew that without
God’s guiding Spirit he could not rule so great a people. If we do not feel the
same need of an understanding heart, may it not be because we refuse to look our
responsibilities in the face? If for nothing else, we are all responsible to
God for the management of the life He has given us. Then there are always other
lives that depend upon us, more or lees. Poor Margaret Fuller, recording in her
diary the birth of her child, expressed a feeling of responsibility with which
many parents can sympathise: “I am the mother of an immortal being? God be
merciful to me a sinner!” But what exactly is this understanding heart for
which Solomon prayed? It is that wonderful thing which is so much spoken of in
the Bible under the name of Wisdom. It is goodness or the fear of the Lord, the
opposite of godless wickedness, which is “folly.”
2. Again, those who ask for and receive God’s Holy Spirit get also
the highest kind of riches. They are content, and he who is most contented is
the richest of men. Perhaps it may be said that nearly all people do desire an
understanding heart, and that they need not be urged to make the choice. Yes,
they desire it; but they cannot be said to choose it. They desire to be
educated; but there are myriads of desires that never ripen into a choice, as
there are a million blossoms and comparatively few apples. When those who
desired to be educated saw that a choice would involve self-denial and
drudgery, they preferred to put it off till to-morrow, or next week, or next
year, and to take the consequences. A young man desires to be rich; but as soon
as he finds that gaining wealth requires self-denial, painstaking, industry,
and integrity, he does not choose riches. He chooses self-indulgence; he
chooses pleasures. Men desire to have an honourable character and the happiness
that comes from well-doing. They desire it; but whether they choose it or not,
we can only tell when we sea how they act. In the same way many persons desire
to obey Christ, and hope that one day they shall do so. But do they choose to
have in them the mind of Christ or an understanding heart to discern between
good and evil? It is easy to desire, it is difficult to choose, and this is the
explanation of the religious sentiment which produces little or no result in
life. (E. J. Hardy, M. A.)
I have given thee a wise
and understanding heart.--
Acquisition of knowledge
I. That first
steps in knowledge and in holiness must be taken by ourselves. Solomon gave his
heart to seek and search out all things under heaven. When a choice of gifts
was afterwards placed in his power by God, he had acquired intelligence enough
by his previous industry to be enabled to choose aright, and to select wisdom.
Like the youth told of in American story, we must fix our eyes upward, and
scale the scarped rock slowly by cutting clefts for our hands and feet in its
steep side, each foothold that we cut helping us to reach onward to cut
another. To gain some knowledge helps us to acquire more; to learn to
distinguish between the jewel truth and all the worthless spangles of falsehood,
enables us to discern that “pearl of great price” which sooner or later God
offers to every man.
II. That if we seek
the highest good, God will in His bounty give us, as our need may require,
lesser blessings also. (Homilist.)
The heart as organ of insight
The emphasis of current thought lies on light rather than on heat.
A bright man is listed at a higher figure than a man with fervid impulses.
Brain counts for a good deal more to-day than heart does. It will win more
applause, and earn a larger salary. Emotion we are a little afraid of. We
caution people not to let their feelings run away with them. We want to know
that a conclusion has been reached in cold blood before we are disposed to
assent to it, or to submit our own judgment to it. Convictions formed heatedly
we are not supposed to publish till they have been reviewed and revised at a
low temperature. Exuberance is in bad odour. Appeals to the heart are not
thought to quite be in good taste. People are not disposed to surrender
themselves to any influence or impression that they cannot intellectually
construe. The current demand is for ideas. But the fact that our thinking is
keen and alert is no indication that we reach, or have any relish for, the
inward substance of the truth upon whose glittering surface our thoughts so
jauntily divert themselves. This holds of religious truths exactly as much as
of any other. If a preacher handles his matter with dexterity, and if in the
process his own mind is quickened into any degree of activity, this activity of
his will communicate itself to the machinery of his hearers minds, just as the
movement of one cog-wheel communicates revolution to the companion wheel that
it gears into. This movement of their intellectual gearing amuses them. They
enjoy the sensation of feeling it go. The point is, that intellectual activity
upon Christian themes is not Christianity, any more than working a flying
trapeze m a church is “godly exercise.” An ox can devour the painting
accidentally left upon the easel out in the pasture where he is grazing, but
that does not help to make the ox aesthetic. The creature has dealt with the
painting purely on the basis of his brutality; he has not chewed it with any
reference to the spirit of beauty which the canvas incarnates. So it is the
peculiar function of pure intellect to deal with the forms of truth, with the
shell in which the truth is encased, without any necessary regard being had to
the meat that is packed inside the shell; just as children can play with
diamonds, and yet if you take away the diamonds and give them cheap beads, or
even white beans, the probability is that they will go on with their play just
as satisfiedly, because it is the shape and the glisten of the thing and not
the quality of its interior substance that amuses them. That is the kind of
thing pure intellect is; not to be trusted to prick through the cuticle of
truth into its quick; brilliant as winter sunshine, but cold and
surface-grazing as the frosty splendour of January; which has scintillant agility
enough to whiten the hair without being competent to brush away the snow, eat
through the ice, bore into the ground, unlock the fountains of fertility, fire
the pulse of this ague-stricken old earth, warm it into springtime, and garnish
it with summer life and loveliness. It is worth a great deal to have blood, and
it is as essential to the intelligence as it is to the body. There has never
been a thing said, more fundamental to the appreciation of the matter we have
just now in hand, than what Solomon said three thousand years ago: “The issues
of life are out of the heart.” Passion is axial. Power begins in heat. In the
last analysis there is scarcely a terrestrial activity in either earth, sea, or
air, that does not owe itself to the great sphere of material passion that we
call the Sun. The throb of the sea, the currents of the air, the very coal on
the hearth, that converts winter into summer, and turns evening into daytime,
is every whir of it old sunshine, cosmic fire, preserved and translated into instant
effect. God means something by all that. It is a Divine satire on
cold-bloodedness, and it is the way Heaven takes to rebuke the notion that
results in the intellectual, artistic, moral, and spiritual world can be
hammered out by cold calculation. All the best thoughts in the world, into
however solid and granitic a form they may eventually have become chilled and
compacted, are ingots moulded from metal once molten, mayhap a thousand, two,
five thousand years ago. Man’s first language is music. Prose is poetry cooled
down. Geology tells us that the world began hot; so every thought that has had
a history began as a passion. You can manufacture in cold weather, but all
creating is done under a high temperature. What is true of thought is just as
true of art. Art is enthusiasm become shape. The grand cathedrals are old,
petrified pulse-beats. The master paintings--and they are all religious--are
holy medieval passion flung on to canvas. Art is imitative now rather than
creative, because the thermometer is down. We can make waxwork with the mercury
at zero, but we cannot grow flowers there. Moses built the tabernacle, and he
patterned it from what he caught, up in the Mount. A man can be an acute
theologian without having any juice. It is clear, then, that we are not
criticising Christian truth; our censure is only upon intellectual dexterity
considered as a means of dealing with it. Intellectual dexterity cannot deal
with it. Intellectual dexterity does not know how to deal with it. Truth has a
heart, and only heart can find it. What we understand by dogma to-day is what
is left of some old holy vision, but with all the original heavenly light died
out of it. It is truth s body, but in which the warm currents of truth’s blood
no longer circulate. The theologian constructs his system of theology out of
truths that have ceased to beat, very much as the botanist constructs his
herbarium out of dead flowers. All the theology that is in the Church to-day is
in the Epistles, but it is not there as theology. So all the bone-dust that is
in our graveyards to-day was once in society, but it was not there as bone-dust, Intellect
is not vision. The sum of the whole matter is this: that In the sphere of truth, in the domain
of life, and in the higher ranges of religious discernment and of Christian
appreciation and aspiration, pure calculating intellect is being worked for a
great deal more than it is worth. It is heat that makes the world a live world,
and not light. It is heart that composes the core of Christianity, and not head.
(C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
.
Verse 14
I will lengthen thy days.
Long life
I get a good deal of comfort out of that promise, “with long life
will I satisfy thee.” I don’t think that means a short life down here--seventy
years, eighty years, ninety years, or one hundred years. Do you think that any
man living would be satisfied if he could live to be one hundred years old, and
then have to die? Not by a good deal. Suppose Adam had lived until to-day, and
had to die tonight; would he be satisfied? Not a bit of it! Not if he had lived
a million years, and then had to die. You know we are all the time coming to
the end of things here--the end of the week, the end of the month, the end of
the year, the end of schooldays. It is the end, end, end all the time. But,
thank God, He is going to satisfy us with long life; no end to it, an endless
life. Life is very sweet. It would be a pretty dark world if death were eternal,
and when our loved ones die we were to be eternally separated from them. Thank
God, it is not so; we shall be reunited. It is just moving out of this house
into a better one; stepping up higher and living on and on for ever. (D. L.
Moody.)
Verses 16-28
Then came there two women.
The true mother
I. That sin
produces suffering. The two women who came for judgment to Solomon were
harlots; and the offsprings of their impurity were the means by which they were
afflicted. The sin of unchastity is one of the most grievous of offences,
because it is the one whose results are the most debasing and the most
far-reaching. Of this sin, as of all others, it is eternally true, that the
wages of sin is death.
II. That in the
most degraded natures some noble trait remains. Some relic of a vanished Eden
lingers in the worst of us, although the slime of the serpent may be over it
still. These women, though sinners, loved their children. There is hope then
for the worst of offenders, inasmuch as in every human soul there are dormant
spiritual symphonies, which, when the dark night of sin is over, shall, at the
dawning of a brighter day, be wakened by the touch of sympathy, like Memnon’s
statue, into music and into life.
III. That where the
ignorant can see only cruelty and disorder, the wise and faithful can recognise
beneficence and order. The king, calling for a sword, ordered the living child
to be divided. A cruel decree, superficial thinkers would say; but it was only a test after
all, devised by true wisdom, in order the more readily to reveal the true
mother. When men are so hasty in impugning the action of the Deity, and in
imputing cruelty or unconcern to God at any period of public or private
calamity, it would be well for them to bethink them of their own ignorance. So
to us, who see but here in part through a glass darkly, the operations of God
in grace and in nature must present many difficulties and apparent anomalies.
IV. That not by
outward professions, but by the sentiments of the heart, must each of us be
judged. Both these women professed equally to love the living child; but it was
seen speedily in the hour of trial as to which of the two had real feelings of
maternal affection in her heart. It is what we are, and not what we have pretended
to be, that will avail us “in the hour of death and in the day of judgment.”
V. That often,
when God gives to us a living talent, as a living child was given to each of
these women, we, lazily slumbering away our time, fail to be thankful for it,
or to utilise it as we ought. By negligence on our own part,--as in the case of
the woman who overlaid her child,--or by the craftiness of other agencies, be
it those of world, flesh, or devil, taking advantage of our own supineness,--as
in the case of the woman whose child was stolen while she slept,--we lose our
gift from God, our living grace, and find, when we awake from our slumbers,
only a dead image of a departed spiritual beauty, which no shedding of our
heart’s best blood can again quicken into life. (R. Young, M. A.)
The mother
Musicians strike a key or note which they call a “natural,”
sometimes. It was for this note that Solomon was listening--the note of nature.
The soldier’s naked sword gleamed close to the baby’s naked flesh, and, like a
tuning-fork, it struck its note before it struck its blow. Its note was
differently read by two different auditors. Two women’s hearts took up the key.
The one followed it with a murmur of contentment, willing that its work of
blood should be accomplished. The other caught it with a cry of horror, as if
it struck a discord in her soul. The sword was the baton of harmony to
jealousy, but of horror to motherhood and love. There was nothing unnatural to
the vixen heart in the decree to cut the babe in half. But the voice of
motherhood found vent in a shriek which preferred anything to that, and
accepted bereavement and injustice rather than that innocence be harmed.
1. And this is the first instinct on which the relationship reposes.
Instinct is a shorter and surer way to right conclusion than reason. It reaches
it by a passionate leap, rather than by a patient process. Inference, sequence,
deduction, calculation, hypothesis; these are the cumbersome machinery of what
calls itself philosophy; and they almost always lead to a separate result in
each separate mind which uses them, when they lead to any result at all; so
that the only certain issue of their use is confusion worse confounded. With
instinct it is all postulate, and all that complicates the logic of love, or
encumbers the swift process of its flight, must be conceded, or it will be
taken for granted. With the love that springs out of any relationship this will
be more or less the rule; but with maternal love it is pre-eminently so.
2. If the mother-instinct pervaded all humanity, there would be no
intricate question created out of the vivisection stir, on which science,
“falsely so called,” is condescending to dispute. It would be taken for granted
that it was base and brutal; and that higher reason, to whose platform instinct
often vaults by its own innate buoyancy, would declare that true science has
resources too vast to be compelled to criminality to reach discovery; that the
intelligence that would grope its way through cruelty to daylight misses its
path, and takes a false name; and that men who pretend to find instruction in
the infliction of agony on what is dumb and defenceless, instead of being a
little lower than the angels, are a great deal lower than the beasts they
butcher. But if the very principle of motherhood is instinctive and
unreasoning, its developments are not unfrequently capricious and unreasonable.
Maternal love is often diluted by maternal cares. Necessities increase with
each renewal of the relationship; but the means of meeting them too often
diminish. The natural selection of the mother’s heart is towards the weakest
and most helpless; and the survival of the fittest in the breast which is
maternal, is asserted by feebleness rather than by strength. The mother loves
that best to which she can give most.
3. It comes within the mother’s province to lead the child into the
fragrant orbit of religious influence, and to guide its feet when young amidst
those scenes which shall colour its whole life, giving ballast to its youth,
strength to its prime, and light at eventide to illumine its old age. Then if
you would not burlesque that religion and repel the child, gild it with the
sunshine with which its Author fills it. Let it be a garden of flowers, not an
Egyptian brickfield of toil. The patience and the ingenuity of motherhood are
boundless, and in no sweeter mission can they be embarked than in leading the
children to the Saviour. Show them His sweet example. The wisest and the truest
mothers axe the Hannahs who give their children to the Lord. (A. Mursell.)
Evil of divisions
Now, by the same law that it would have been wicked in Solomon to
have divided the child, is it wicked in us to divide our affections. Divisions
at all times are
bad. Whether they harass a church, which should be of one mind and one body; or
a family, which should be united and strong in fellowship and love; we may rest
assured, that evil consequences must arise, most injurious to individual
members. And as for a house, we are told, if it be divided against itself it
cannot stand. The Jew and the Gentile were two distinct persons, but
Christianity made them one people. By the universality of the Gospel, all
nations were united; by embracing the same faith they became one; a distinct
people, having an appointed priesthood, with the great Author of our religion
as their Head. They became indeed a church--one body, with one spirit--“a
congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached,
and the sacraments are duly ministered, according to Christ’s ordinance, in all
those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” (E. Thompson, D.
D.)
Administration of justice difficult
James the First is said to have tried his hand as a judge, but to
have been so much perplexed when he had heard both sides that lie abandoned the
trade in despair, saying, “I could get on very well hearing one side only, but
when both sides have to be heard, by my soul, I know not which is right.”
Judgment obtained by appeal to the principle of affection
Among the heathens we read of similar decisions. We read of an
emperor having discovered a woman to be the mother of a certain young man, whom
she refused to acknowledge as her son, by commanding her to marry him; but
rather than this, she confessed the truth. Another instance we read, is that of
the King of Thrace, being appointed to decide between three young men, who each
professed to be the son of a deceased king, and claimed the crown in
consequence; but Ariopharnes found out the real son, by commanding each to
shoot an arrow into the body of the dead king; two of them did this without any
hesitation; the third refused, and was therefore judged to be the real son. In
both cases an appeal was made to the principle of affection; and the truth was
discovered, as in
the case of the mother of the living child. (E. Thompson, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》