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I Kings 10:18-20
Excerpted from: God's ThroneWe are supposed to say any other kingdom in the area, maybe in the world.
So this was a top-notch, A-plus, number one throne that was far and away better than any other throne in the world. It was grand and it was imposing. A lot of other kings just had chairs on a raised step, but Solomon had six steps and his throne was on the seventh level, you might say.
Now we have to understand here that this throne, this description of the throne appears in a list of Solomon's wealth. And it contains though, not just an idea of, Wow, Solomon was really rich, but it contains a subtext regarding his power. You can say that underneath all this extolling of his wealth is the idea that "he who has the gold makes the rules." That he, being the richest of all monarchs, was also the most powerful of all monarchs. He had the money to back up his mouth and so he could do whatever he wanted.
And his throne is imposing in the same way. That, because he had built this edifice in his throne room—if we think of like a 7-inch step or something, the bottom of his throne was up about four feet above the rest of the floor, the bottom where everybody else would stand or sit (usually you would stand in the presence of a king rather than sit), but he was up and shown as the eminence. He was the one that everybody had to look up to, and way up to in terms of the standards of the time, if you will. The seat itself was magnificent, made of ivory and overlaid with pure gold. If we would go to II Chronicles 9:18 (we will not), but it says there that the throne also had a golden footrest, probably made of pure gold. Who knows, maybe it was ivory overlaid with pure gold like the rest of the throne was. But everything was just made to impress and to say, this man has power.
Now we do not know what the six steps were made of. It does not say. It could have been stone, it could have been wood, could have been marble, onyx, we do not know. We do know that they knew how to work with all that sort of thing, so it could have been very impressive. And each step going up had a lion on the side, one on each side, so there were 12 lions as you approached the throne. And then there were two right next to his hands, where he rested his arms. Hard to say what the lions represented. Of course, the lion has been often considered a royal symbol, but it was also the symbol of Judah, the lion of Judah. So who knows what it was.
It says the throne itself had a rounded back, but there is a way to read that in the Hebrew that it is referring to the head of a calf. Now, I do not know what to make of that. It could be idolatrous, we think of the Golden Calf, but I believe that the calf was the symbol of Joseph. I think it may be either Joseph or Ephraim, Ephraim the bull, and this could be a nod to Judah with the lions and then Israel with the calf. I do not know. But the faces of lions and calves, or bulls, also appear at God's throne. And this is very interesting because that is exactly what this throne is.
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