Sunday 9th June
Read Psalm 60
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
The title of this Psalm refers to great victories of David in the early part of his reign (2 Samuel 8). Yet the Psalm isn’t one of rejoicing. It starts off with, “You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us; you have been angry – now restore us!”. The Psalm goes on with pleas for help, “Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless” (v11).
It can sometimes be the case that when things are going swimmingly for us, a great fall comes. David seems to have suffered a bad defeat and he feels God is angry with him. Yes, despite our New Testament trumping about God’s love for us, there are times when our behaviour arouses his displeasure and when that happens, we probably need to turn to this Psalm. It tells us that victory in our life comes heeding God, not ignoring him.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
Monday 1 Kings 9:10-28
After 20 years of building, gaining much help From Hiram King of Tyre, Solomon decides to give him 20 towns in the North as a token of thanks for all his help, however it doesn’t seem to have been well received. When Hiram visited the towns, he complained that they weren’t worth much at all and was offended. I wonder if we show proper gratitude to those who do things for us? This is certainly a story to give us pause, when we seek to show gratitude, it ought to be genuine and generous.
Another gift is mentioned but this time from Pharoah to Solomon. At the time of his marriage to Pharoah’s daughter Pharoah granted the town Gezer to Solomon. Pharoah had captured, burned and killed all its inhabitants (v16). These two incidents show the element of brutality and inhumanity that existed at this time in the Middle East and in addition we see that, in detailing the extensive building work that Solomon did, the writer tells us it was by forced labour (v15). This enslavement of conquered peoples is mentioned in verses 20-23 though the people of Israel were not enslaved (this in keeping with the law of God of course).
We can begin to detect a kind of life that existed in the lands of the Middle East which the Israelites copied. It was not a lifestyle that pointed upwards but inwards to themselves. Even when things go well for us in life we need to ask, but am I giving glory to God or beginning to settle into the selfishness of people around?
Everyone knows about the Queen of Sheba but a lot of legend is wound around her from various sources. What we want to know is why this particular account is in Holy Scripture and not the multitude of others. It is the earliest and oldest account and as St Paul said in Romans 15 about scripture, “these things are written for our learning”. So, what have we to learn here?
We are learning that the Queen of Sheba or the Queen of the South, whoever she was, came from another place in the South having heard tales of this amazing Ruler in Israel famed for his wealth and wisdom. She wanted to see for herself. She comes as a kind of equal yet realizes in her meetings with the great Ruler that she is far below him in terms of the wealth and wisdom that he possesses. She received answers to all her questions and she departed with whatever she desired, which he gave her from his bounty.
If we are to spiritualise this for our learning and move from Solomon to Solomon’s greater Son, Jesus, it is easy to see, as we meet him in worship and prayer, through confession and obedience, that we find him far greater than we ever thought.
It will be right for us to bow before him and realise that though we are Men (in the generic sense), He is Man Mk 2, so much greater and above us in being and wisdom. We will also find that he is more generous in his gifts and blessings to us when we ask. We will never leave to live our earthly lives again in the same way we came.
From verse 14 to the end of the chapter we are given a trip through the treasures of King Solomon which according to the writer were greater than any other King around and were probably some of the things that astounded the Queen of Sheba. What are we to say about this? Does this chapter give us something to be emulated, is this the peak of life’s achievements? I think we know the answer to this though, like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, we might want to sing with him “Would it spoil some vast eternal plan ….. if I were a wealthy man?”.
Ther is no doubt that wealth can do great things when used aright yet it’s temptation is so great that not many can handle it that’s why Jesus spoke of the love of money being a source of many evils – note, the ‘love of money’, wealth in itself is not evil but Jesus said it was harder for a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle.
God blessed Solomon with great things but did he control and manage himself as he should have? Did having many things affect his wisdom? Let’s see in the next chapter.
Thursday 1 Kings 11:1- 13
The beginning of wisdom is the fear (or reverence) of the Lord which is a statement from the book of Proverbs (Prov 1:7) which included collections of wisdom literature gathered together under Solomon’s name. One wonders whether the wisdom of youth faded as his years advanced because by Chapter 11 we see him departing from the word of God in marrying many foreign wives which God had warned against in the law (Deut 7:3). The writer of Kings says this, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.” (1 Kings 11:4-5). Enough said. Ever since the book of Genesis the influence of husbands and wives on each other is crucial to preserving the image of God in Man. The image of God is set in Genesis where God says “Let us make Man in our own image, male and female created he them” so that the image of God, relationship being at the heart, consists in man and woman together (not apart). What Solomon did, and many kings after him, was to unite himself to those who were not of a like mind towards God and so there was an admixture of the image of God. St Paul in his long chapter on sex and marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 lays down the guidance that believers should only marry fellow believers when they were in the position to do so though acknowledging that in the early Church there were bound to be many mixed marriages. Any marriage guidance counsellor today would say that if people who differ profoundly about the most important thing in their lives get married the outcome is not good.
Solomon followed his wives in setting up places of worship for the alien gods of his many foreign wives in rank disobedience to God and it resulted in the displeasure and anger of God (v9). Disobedience has consequences and here God, who had appeared to Solomon twice in his early years, granting him the many blessings that he had enjoyed, disciplines him by telling him that his kingdom was going to be torn from him but for the sake of David he was not going to do this during his lifetime (v12,13). His folly was catching up on him.
We begin to see a long slow decline beginning in Solomon’s life which the writer says comes from God’s anger and leads to resultant discipline from enemies outside.
The Edomiites had suffered a near genocide under the hands of Joab, David’s commander. This detail about Joab is not mentioned in 1 Samuel although David’s conquering of Edom is, however we are told about the young Edomite, Hadad, escaping and finding shelter and advancement in Egypt.
Something from the past springs up to cause Solomon and his kingdom trouble. Edom traces its background to Esau, Jacob’s brother, who was disenfranchised of his Father Isaac’s blessing going to Jacob instead. Hostility between the brother’s descendants lasted for generations. Hadad, from the royal line of Edom, escaped the persecutions at the time of Joab and fled to Egypt where he made friends of Pharoah, married Pharoah’s sister Tahpenes, and bore a son, Genubath, who was brought up with Pharoah’s family. Ring a bell? Yes, very like Moses, generations earlier. This latter-day alter ego was going to cause a great deal of trouble for the Kingdom of Israel and it came about by God raising up this adversary because of Solomon’s departure from the covenant that God had made with him. Things from the dark past rise up when we walk out of the light of God. It is as though things are there but don’t come alive except through disobedience and determination to go one’s own way instead of God’s. A big lesson for us all to learn – “walk in the light as He is in the light and we will have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all sin” (1John 1:7-9). However, depart from that light and things from the darkness will trouble us.
An additional trouble came from the North. Rezon fled from the King of Zobah and gathered a band of men around him and took control of Damascus, becoming a perennial adversary as long as Solomon lived. It was underlings and escapers who caused most trouble for Solomon just as it is not always the big problems and issues but the lesser niggles and problems that harass us when we fail to put our trust in God for our everyday lives.
However, the biggest enemy as far as the Kingdom was concerned came from within in the person of Jeroboam though it would only be seen in future years after the death of Solomon. Jeroboam was a man of standing among the Israelites who had helped build the city wall under David and in the time of Solomon was given charge of the labour force of the tribes of Joseph. Ahijah the prophet accosted Jeroboam in the country and told him that God was going to tear the kingdom away from Solomon and give ten parts of the tribes to Jeroboam, leaving Solomon’s family with only two. However, as with all the Kings and those whom God gives authority to, he warned him to be certain to keep the commandments or otherwise his dynasty would fall.
Solomon obviously heard of this and tried to kill Jeroboam but, he fled to Egypt and stayed there until Solomon died. In the New Testament we find that the early Church was attacked from various areas including the Jews and the Romans but the apostles warned the Church that their deepest enemies would come from within through teachers gaining influence and leading the people away from the Apostles’ teachings. The crumbling and destruction of Churches down the ages has been not from the attack of external enemies but from within.
