Scripture Daily

Context No. 868 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 10:23-29: in context

23So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. 24All the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart. 25Year after year, every man brought his tribute, vessels of silver, vessels of gold, clothing, armor, spices, horses, and mules. 26Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. He kept them in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem. 27The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and cedars as common as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland. 28The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt. The king’s merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price. 29A chariot was imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty shekels; and so they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Syria.

Solomon is at his height. The whole earth seeks his presence to hear the wisdom God put in his heart, tribute flows in year after year, and silver becomes as common as stones in Jerusalem. The passage lists his chariots and horsemen, a thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, and notes the horses were brought out of Egypt and traded onward to other kings.

On the surface this is the summit of the blessing, a king wiser and richer than any other. But scripture has planted a quiet warning under it. Back in Deuteronomy, the law for a future king said three things: he must not multiply horses for himself, and above all not send the people back to Egypt to get them, and he must not multiply silver and gold, nor multiply wives. Read against that page, this glowing inventory is also a ledger of the exact lines Solomon is crossing. The horses from Egypt, the silver like stones, and in the next chapter the wives, are the very things the king was told to refuse. The greatness and the drift are the same sentences. Prosperity is doing to Solomon what open enemies never could, and the text lets us feel the shine before it shows the crack.

What good thing in my life is quietly growing into the very thing I was warned not to trust in?

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