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1 Kings 11:6  (Amplified® Bible)
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<< 1 Kings 11:5   1 Kings 11:7 >>


1 Kings 11:4-6

Notice that this occurred when he was old and his heart had almost stopped following the Lord. He did go after the Lord, but he did it in a haphazard way. Solomon is perhaps the most vivid example of a Laodicean in the entirety of the Bible (Revelation 3:14-22).

His downfall began with laxity toward being careful about keeping God's commands regarding idolatry. Laxity is the first stage of lawlessness. The more lax he became, the more double-minded he became. A double minded person loses his grip. It is like trying to grasp two different objects in one's hands. If one is not really sure which he wants to hang onto, and his mind is playing back and forth between them, his grip will loosen on one or the other, because he will want to let go of the one in order to secure the other, if he feels he has a better chance with the other.

In Solomon's case, it is his mental, spiritual grip that is suspect. He gradually came to the place where he was not really hanging onto anything but straddling between choices. This made him become increasingly unstable, unsettled, and even deceitful until he became completely reintegrated into the world. He began to be moved almost entirely by human nature once again.

Why is the first commandment listed first? It is the most important of all the commandments. God wants to draw special attention to it because it is the one that is also most easily broken.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Deception, Idolatry and the Feast of Tabernacles



1 Kings 11:4-8

Even though the common people of Israel were frequently involved in idolatry (because they ignored God's words about being separate), the high places and associated pagan rites did not have official acceptance until the later years of Solomon—a king whose reign began so well.

Solomon set an example that many later kings followed, and the high places remained a facet of the societies of both Israel and Judah—a thorn in their spiritual sides—until their violent subjugations by Assyria and Babylon. This negligence was no small matter. Because Solomon turned away from God and embraced the high-place paganism of the heathens, the northern ten tribes of Israel were torn from the line of David in Judah, and the two kingdoms have yet to be reunited (I Kings 11:9-13; see Ezekiel 37:15-26).

Burning incense to a pagan god on top of a hill does not probably tempt us. However, the lessons and warnings still apply because, symbolically, a high place can represent anything that leads a person away from the true God—anything that leads to spiritual weakness or distracts us from our high calling. It need not be as blatantly pagan as Christmas, Easter, or the occult. Just as the natural elevations of the Promised Land were not of themselves evil, so also many of the things we encounter in life and participate in may not be morally objectionable. However, how they are used becomes the critical issue: If they lead us to embrace the world and its ways, our rightfully jealous God begins to be squeezed out of our minds. Left unchecked, the end will be just as disastrous as that of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

David C. Grabbe
The High Places (Part One)



1 Kings 11:6-10

God was not well pleased with Solomon. Influenced by his many foreign wives and concubines, Solomon became enmeshed in pagan worship. Failing to heed God's warning of the "snare" which foreign wives would become (Exodus 34:11-16), he allowed his wives to turn him to false gods. I Kings 11:4 sums up the matter of his turpitude: Solomon's "heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David."

Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Five): Solomon and the Divided Kingdom




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing 1 Kings 11:6:

1 Kings 3:5-10

 

<< 1 Kings 11:5   1 Kings 11:7 >>



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