Commentary on 1 Kings 11:1 (Summary)

As we come to 1 Kings 11:1–43, we come to the great turning in the reign of Solomon. Commentators have found what they call bookends in this chapter. They are, first, a bookend that points backward to a contrasting bookend. Davis finds the closing bookend in the clause, Solomon loved many foreign women, and he points backward to the clause, Solomon loved the Lord, in 1 Kings 3:3.¹ 

The writer gives us the ethnic origins of at least some of the foreign wives, which are Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. The nations represented here would seem to fall into two categories. The first three listed are people related to Israel, for both Moab and Ammon were descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and Edom was descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother. The last two mentioned were of Gentile national origins, not related to Israel. Sidon was a Phoenician city, while the Hittite empire was one of the great pagan powers of the era.

We might say that Moab, Ammon, and Edom were apostate nations, since their founders were worshippers of the Lord. Any apostasy of the Sidonians and Hittites must take us back to Noah and his sons.

These verses bear not only the contrasting bookends noted above but also a complementary bookend that points back to 1 Kings 3:1, where we are told that Solomon married Pharoah’s daughter. She was also a foreign wife, and it would appear she stands at the beginning of the dangerous practice of marriage to pagans. Some commentators defend the earlier marriage of Solomon on the grounds that Deuteronomy 7:1–26 does not specifically name Egyptians in the prohibition. Yet, if Solomon’s action did not violate the explicit letter of the law, it violated the spirit of it.

We should not assume that the gods of Egypt, whom the Lord had defeated in the exodus, were safer for Israel than the gods of the people of the land that the Lord wished to destroy in the days of Joshua. Furthermore, the inspired writer includes Solomon’s Egyptian wife as he writes that the other wives are to be included with Pharaoh’s daughter.

These pairs of bookends are related to one another. The relationship is one of cause and effect. The marriage to foreign (and pagan) women was the cause, and the turning of Solomon’s heart away from the love of the Lord to the worship of foreign gods was the effect. These bookends play a part in showing the turning point in the books of Kings. 1 Kings 1:1–10:29 presents an overall positive picture of Solomon and his kingdom, at least positive from an outward perspective