The Miserable ‘Fool’ Solomon and his Kingdom
The name Solomon derived either from Shalom or Shlomon is one name that people world over are in love with but which keeps making me wonder why any one would want to name his or her child after such a miserable ‘fool’ as King Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
In 2014, one survey found that it was the 314th most popular name in the world. Remarkable! It means ‘peace’, ‘completeness’, ‘wholesome’ or ‘full’. The similarity between the sound of the last and my conception of Solomon as a grand ‘fool’ is not a coincidence but a point that needs to be proved in this article.
The Bible tells of a randy king who went by the name ‘’full’’ or wholesome and he had women in full. With a world record, possibly an eternal record of 700 wives and 300 concubines, he may never lose his distinction as the world’s most prolific husband. I do not begrudge his record; neither do I intend to compete with his peccadillo because the consequences will only chase chastity into oblivion. My interest in the name Solomen and by extension the most famous fore-bearer of the identity is that he is reputed to be the wisest man to have ever lived. Wise?
‘’King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter — Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray’’
— The Holy Bible, 1 Kings 11:1–2
How wise was it for a man whose father was forbidden from building God’s temple to have spent most of his tenure attending to women? Of all the kings of Israel, he alone had the distinction of causing heavenly commotion that led the descent of the glory of God as it was in the days of Moses. I find that it is ‘contradictory in some parts, curious in others and generally shows that solomon lived a life far away from his renown wisdom.
The book of Proverbs which contain many of his ‘wise’ counsels is ladden with warnings about women. Where he was not threatening the young men about women, he was engaged in exhortatory discussions about how not to be unwise with women when he himself was clearly over the top in his dalliance with them. Take the book of Proverbs, authored by Solomon for example, he warned the young man to be wary of the evil woman: (Proverbs 7:24–26),
Now therefore, listen to me, my children;
Pay attention to the words of my mouth:
25 Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways,
Do not stray into her paths;
26 For she has cast down many wounded,
And all who were slain by her were strong men.
In the midst of many women, more evil may be found. When the English says that two is company and three a crowd, what would you call a throng of 1,000 women desperately seeking to capture the attention of one man and dying while trying? Proverbs 21:19 says that it would ‘better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.’ In another verse, he says in Proverbs 25:24 ‘It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.’ Out of the 700 within and 300 without, can some one tell how many would be quarrelsome? Which wise man acquires more problems than solutions?
If as Proverbs 23:27–28 says ‘A prostitute is a dangerous trap; a promiscuous woman is as dangerous as falling into a narrow well. She hides and waits like a robber, eager to make more men unfaithful,’ it means that Solomon fell for her type several times running and falling for another when he found out the truth about her.
In marketing, Solomon is a bad purveyor of the good news of avoiding evil women, he didn’t most of his life. He certainly lived a miserable life jumping from one smoldering hope to another in the supposition that he would find the good woman that would make him live ever happily after. What he got for all his hopping around searching for the ideal woman, was heartache, loneliness in the midst of a crowd and confusion of the worst order.
If this correct, why would anyone wish these catastrophes on his child by naming Solomon? Although it is true that in his old age he found out how foolish he had been, it is undesirable to call him the wisest when he spent the most part of his life being the opposite of that. The most I can say of him is that he was a foolish-wise king.
