1 Kings 11:14-21: a reflection

14The LORD raised up an adversary to Solomon: Hadad the Edomite. He was one of the king’s offspring in Edom. 15For when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the army had gone up to bury the slain, and had struck every male in Edom 16(for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom), 17Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go into Egypt, when Hadad was still a little child. 18They arose out of Midian and came to Paran; and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house, and appointed him food, and gave him land. 19Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him as wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. 20The sister of Tahpenes bore him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh. 21When Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me depart, that I may go to my own country.”

As Solomon drifts from God in his later years, the text records a sober turn: the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, a man named Hadad the Edomite. Hadad had survived a brutal campaign against his people in David's time, fled as a child to Egypt, and found refuge and favor there. Now, years later, he returns to trouble Solomon's kingdom. The peace and security Solomon had enjoyed begins to fray, and it is God himself who is behind the rising opposition.

Two threads run through this. First, the adversary's grievance reaches back into the past, to old violence done in an earlier generation; the consequences of what was done long ago surface again now. Second, and more importantly, God is the one raising up this opposition, as a discipline in response to Solomon's drift from him. The king who had known unbroken peace while he walked with God now finds his security disturbed as he turns away. The rising trouble was a summons, a warning meant to draw him back.

There is a sober pattern here worth noticing. When we drift from God, the peace and security we had enjoyed may begin to fray, and the troubles that arise can be God's own gracious discipline, meant to get our attention and draw us back before we drift further. If you find opposition and difficulty rising in a season when you have been pulling away from God, do not merely resent it. Ask whether God may be using it to call you home. His disturbances of our comfort are often mercies, meant to turn us back to him.

Lord, as Solomon drifted from you, you raised up adversaries to disturb his comfort, a discipline meant to draw him back. When trouble rises in a season when I have been pulling away from you, keep me from merely resenting it. Help me to ask whether you are using it to call me home. Thank you that even your disturbances of my comfort can be mercies. Turn me back to you before I drift further. Amen.