Deep Dive with Solomon

Episode focus: Solomon’s promised peace, compromised heart, and the difference between possessing wisdom and applying it.

In this episode, Hems and Ems follow a biblical “rabbit hole” that began with a text-message discovery while reading Chronicles. They revisit Solomon’s many marriages and ask a central question: if God had already promised Solomon peace from his enemies, could political alliances really explain his marriages?

Reading from 1 Chronicles 22:9–13, they emphasize God’s promise that Solomon would be a man of peace and that Israel would experience rest during his reign so that he could build the temple. This leads them to consider whether Solomon’s actions came from a lack of trust in God’s promise, from personal desire, or both.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, I'm Hems. And I'm Ems. And welcome to Hems and Ems. So we did give you guys some warnings in advance of sometimes we might go down a rabbit hole with some of the information that we find or we think about.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Because ultimately what we're doing is taking your questions and then deep diving into whatever we find. And sometimes we deep dive more than we think.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, sometimes it's not even intentional. It is like with what we're talking about today, it wasn't even it wasn't even intentional.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Picture this, okay? It all started with a text message. I am on my sofa watching TV. And M's. I was swinging away in my hammock. I randomly watching TV receive a bing. And I'm like, ooh, I like being social.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Let's see what's up. And I guess the just the the pre the pre-text message was I sat down to read my Bible that morning and I've been going through Second Chronicles. And I that morning I was like, God, you need to give me something exciting because I want to be excited to read this. And he did not. He did not fail.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

There was no failure there. And that is a slight side point or parenthesis about how when you pray and enter God's word, he can make it very interesting in ways that you can never imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

So July 7th, 9 43 a.m. Hems is on her couch. I am in my hammock. The text message is sent.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

And do we read it at just like what it is? I feel like yeah. Okay. Would you like to read it? It's your words.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Of course. So it goes ping. And Hems picks up her phone and she looks and it says, What's crazy is I'm reading First Chronicles, and in chapter 22, verse 6 to 10, God promises that he will give Solomon rest and peace on every side from his enemies. So Solomon actually didn't have to strategically have all these marriages. God was gonna take care of it. And I'm sure the plan wasn't for him to marry and have a divided heart.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So, backtrack a tiny bit. If you haven't watched our live our last episode on Solomon, go watch it. Or listen to it, I should say. Yeah. This would be the time. This would be the time to go listen to it. But if you have listened to it, we did make the conclusion that Solomon would have married all these wives, all these baddies, because well, it's politically advantageous. That's I messed that up, but it's okay. It's okay. She's French. But basically, there was an advantage to all these marriages because politically it is not the era of, you know, wars could happen. And if you marry with other countries, or at the time it wasn't countries, but these affiliations, well, there's more peace in the land. This changes things.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Because essentially, before Solomon became king, there was this promise that as long as he followed the things that God was asking him to follow, he would have there would be peace on all sides. There would be no war so that he would be able to build the temple.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Exactly. So let's go really into the Bible. 1 Chronicles 22, 9 to 13. Let's read it well for ourselves. So, but you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all of his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build a house for my name, he will be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever. Now, my son, the Lord be with you, and may you have success and build the house of the Lord your God, as he said you would. May the Lord give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the Lord gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or discouraged.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Da-da-da. So you read this, and then you're like, So did Solomon have to How can we argue that Solomon had these marriages to keep peace when God literally promised peace right here? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So that brought us down the rabbit hole where we said, okay, if God promised Solomon rest and peace, can we say that his motive for these marriages was political? There's two options. So one is his heart's desire was more important to him, which is a possibility. Or two, he didn't have the faith that God would keep his promise. Those are the two options he could be thinking if he did do the political marriages when he didn't have to.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And it's so interesting to look at the difference between Solomon and David. Because back in 1 Chronicles 22, 17 to 19, after David gets this message from the Lord of what will happen, uh it says, Then David ordered all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon. He said to them, Is not the Lord your God with you? And has he not granted you rest on every side? For he has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand. The land is subject to the Lord and to his people. Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and the sacred articles belonging to God into the temple that will be built for the name of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

So the same way Solomon had to know he shouldn't have marriages with other nationalities. He also, there's no way he couldn't have known that God had promised him peace. There's no way. Because as I'm not a father, but if God had promised my son something, bear with me. I'm sure I would tell that to the son for sure. Not only, and God spoke to Solomon as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, and also David told all of the leaders of Israel that there's going to be peace. You know, help my son, there's gonna be peace, but help him in what it is that God is asking him to do.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

So with all this, there's no way that Solomon did not know. So again, there's only two motives left, which is his heart's desires or the faith that God wouldn't keep his promise.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And we don't actually see, well, I mean, okay, we're gonna get to this, no, no spoilers, but you can't find a verse in the Bible that says, and Solomon doubted that the Lord would keep the peace. We don't actually see Solomon addressing the fact that God was giving this peace.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, that was definitely well, at least according to my reads, and exactly it's not something we see, but this does bring a really uh interesting point of how much the Bible foreshadows what's going to happen. It's like, yeah, and it in a sense, this is this is a promise that God gives. There will be peace. So there wasn't other motive. So if peace is granted, like it's promised, and there's nowhere that he doubts, there's only one option left. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

So it's just so disappointing. I don't know. Like, and I just feel like if you don't actually go into these different books and do all of the reading, you just think like I always thought Solomon was such a good, like smart, wise guy. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Like it is the typical, like in Sunday school, let's say who is the wisest of them all.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It's like Solomon, and it's wish to have Solomon's wisdom, exactly, and it's the like everyone's prayers to be as wise as Solomon, and also the idea that um, yes, we knew he fell astray, but it was never, at least in my perspective, and M's, you can tell me your perspective after, but to me, it was never really shown how much he had gone astray and how much what was promised.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

And that it wasn't just a little, it wasn't a little stumble that he just happened to happen upon, right? This is something that he had been dealing with from the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, yes, because that is also what we had talked about, how he had a son with Nama. Yeah, but yeah, he had a son before and she was not an Israelite, she was not an Israelite. So if you really take about that, God is fulfilling his promise to a compromising man from the get-go. Yep. Which is crazy. And the other thing that we don't uh really talk about is Solomon disobeyed Moses' law. But in here, if we look at 1 Kings 11, and I want to specifically go to verse 9, the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Yeah. And so that just confirms our hypothesis. It was not just, oh, political, no, his heart desired this, and he decided to go that direction. And God noticed. But did God keep his promise? He did. He did. Ems is nodding.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

I'm nodding, sorry, I realize nods are not audible. But even uh before that in chapter 11, right, it talks about how as Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of his father David had been, and he followed Ashtarath, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not follow the Lord completely at his as his father David had done. So it wasn't even just that he had these marriages, he willingly compromised and allowed his heart to be turned away from God.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

And as much as, you know, God has grace and God loves us, that is a direct I mean we got Ten Commandments. Exactly. And the Lord does become angry with him. Yeah. But, and this is we go back to the original story of our text message. This is what we also had thought was really cool. How it really shows the human struggle to rest in God's promises. This is M's words, I'm not gonna lie. But it but at the same time, it also shows how our faithfulness runs down to generations. How, you know, David's faithfulness allowed Solomon to have his reign in peace because he started off okay, but then after that, the lack of faithfulness of Solomon spread down to his son after that.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, so we can't say that God didn't keep his promise because God kept his promise. There was peace even while Solomon was doing all of these things. And I wonder if he was like, Yeah, you know, there's peace because I had all of these, like if he tried to justify his actions. Oh, that I I would kind of like to talk to him about that because it's so true.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

It's so the typical response of like, oh, it's I'm not doing this for me. No, no, no, no. There's it's completely because I want peace in the land, and that is the best way to get it because I know so. Yeah. I like the way I the so Solomon was wise. Can you could you say that? Ems Ems texted me a phrase and I want that exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

I was so upset, guys. This destroyed my hammock time. Like the hammock is supposed to be a nice, peaceful place of rest. I sit, the water is close, you can all I'm I I was I was crashing out a little bit. Um, so Solomon was a was wise intellectually and philosophically, but in his personal life, he was quite a fool. Um, and we see the fact that, you know, he heavily, and that comes a little bit after, he was taxing the people very heavily for the temple and for his palace, which means that afterwards his kingdom ends up being divided after his death because of the unrest. And apparently he's often called the wisest of fools.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

And this brings us to what I found as well. Um, I may be skipping a thing, so let me know, M's, but it comes back to something I found, which was called Solomon's Paradox, which I did not know was a thing until ironically, Instagram taught me something very useful, unlike other times. But Solomon's Paradox is a psychological phenomenon where individuals are much better at reasoning about and solving others' problems than their own. And effectively, this is uh the summary that Google gives, but it's named after the biblical King Solomon, who is renowned for his profound wisdom, yet made disastrous personal choices. It highlights how emotional proximity clouds our judgment and objectivity.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And how many times does this like we see this so often, where someone can be great at giving advice or dealing with other people's situations, but then when it comes to their own situations or when it comes to our own situations, we're like, no, like that's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

That's I'm excusing it.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

And this is where in our own life sometimes we have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, or even get wisdom from somewhere a little bit higher up. And we thought of Proverbs 4, 5, and 6 to really demonstrate that that says, get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget my words or turn away from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you. Love her and she will watch over you. So Solomon is an example of someone who had wisdom, however, he chose to forsake it.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

And it's again, it's insane to me the fact that Solomon like asked God for wisdom and he received this wisdom. And it's not like God gave him the wisdom and then never showed up again. After he had, um, after Solomon had dedicated the temple, the Lord appeared to him. Uh, and it's in 2 Chronicles in chapter 7, verses 17 to 22. Um, and it's God talking to Solomon, and he says, As for you, if you walk before me faithfully, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with David your father, when I said, You shall never fail to have a successor to rule over Israel. But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands that I have given you, and go off to serve other gods and worship them, is that what he did? So imagine doing that after it says, Then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given to them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass will be appalled and say, Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple? And people will answer, Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt and have embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them. That is why he brought all this disaster on them. How is it that you sit there and you hear God say this and you go, uh-huh, and in all of your wisdom, do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Do it anyways. And but that is brings an interesting point about the heart. Yeah. Like that thing must have motivated Solomon to another degree, like because he knew, not only he knew because God told him so, which already then is like in French, we would say clean. But basically it's handed to you directly. Like there Solomon knew, but he's also wise. So it's safe to assume that he knew based off of his wisdom of like, yes, if I do follow God, that will be the best thing. And yet the heart still prevailed. And this brings me to uh Jeremiah that actually kind of warns about it. And it's it's in chapter 17, and I'm starting at verse five. This is what the Lord says cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands, they will not see prosperity when it comes, they will dwell in parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worry in a year of drought, and never fails to bear fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

It's really clear looking at Solomon's story that the problem wasn't actually whether or not he had the head knowledge, right, of what needed to be done.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

His mind was clear.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

It was his heart.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

It was his heart. And so that asks of you, you know, the listener out there. Sometimes we have to search our own hearts and see are we purposefully ignoring something that we have that God has purposely, you know, warned us about? And maybe in a clear, you know, God told you so and you're clearly going the other way. Or sometimes it can be a subtle thing that's just nogging and you're just finding excuses.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

So in Psalm 139, for example, is when uh it's David and he says, Search me, God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. And the verse that I really like is where it says, See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. It's really important to say this prayer. It's a dangerous prayer to pray. Oh, yeah. Right? Because it's like, God, like if there's anything offensive in me, if there's something that I'm not seeing, like, show me. And the thing with David is that he was nowhere near perfect. Right. And he is not known for being wise the way that Solomon was known for being wise, but his heart was after God. And he didn't just keep to himself any of the things that God had revealed to him or any wisdom that he did have. He actually applied it, right, in his life, in asking God to search his heart, in the way that he repented, in the different things that he did. And we don't see that with Solomon.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Solomon had all of the wisdom for everybody else, but he didn't actually apply it to himself, which unfortunately not only led to his demise or the demise of Israel, it went down generations and generations and generations. And that was again, he had all the head knowledge. He knew, he knew, but it's not sometimes just about what you know, it's about how you use it and what your heart is at.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And I think it's so important for us in our own lives to evaluate this, right? Yes, to ask God to reveal anything that's offensive in us or anything that's not of him. But then, if you know, maybe it's a friend that comes soon is like, hey, like I've been noticing this about you. I think a lot of the time we end up getting defensive and be like, What are you talking about? That's not me. Why would you say something like that? That's so mean, you know, but actually being open to having God work on us, whether that's just him directly working on us or whether it's revealing things about us through other people, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, keeping that, you know, malleable spirit or that malleable heart where letting God and even people around you um help you get towards the ultimate goal, which is to be more like God, to be more like Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah. And I mean, we see that example with Solomon's son.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Right? Where he didn't actually consult or he consulted the wise people. Yep. And then instead he went to the people who he knew would agree with him. And again, I think when we have when we have wisdom, when God reveals things to us, it's so important to not just like store it and be like, God revealed this to me, and I know. I know. Hemz, you know, because you don't know. God told me he didn't, he didn't tell you, but I'm not doing anything with it. But yeah, you stay with your bucket over there.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Uh-huh. What's the point? There's no point.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

So can you believe all this from one text message? Sometimes you really just have to sit in a hammock and read chronicles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Deep dive in that word. You never know what can come out of it. No.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

I can tell you we had fun. It was so much like just the voice notes. There was just such anger.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

You if we if we if you could see just the messages that were sent with the all caps and the like and just the mind-blown of what was going on.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah. So we encourage you, go into your word, see if God can show you something cool like that. And for at least this episode, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

We had fun. Thank you for coming along with us on this deep dive. Dive deep too in the deep end. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for sending in your questions. We had a great time answering it. Please make sure to send in some more questions because we want to keep doing this. This is fun. This has been Ems and Ems. Bye!