The Prosperity of Solomon

Solomon is the only king in Israel’s history to have ruled over all Israel from the beginning of his reign to its end. He appointed twelve district governors and charged them with providing for the royal household. The people grew as numerous as the sand by the sea, the land stretched as far as the Euphrates, and the people enjoyed peace under their vines and fig trees.

This abundance was not the reward of Solomon’s own brilliance. It came because God fulfilled, just as he had spoken, the covenant he made with David and the promise he gave at Gibeon. Yet even Solomon, for all his wisdom, stirred up resentment among the other tribes, Ephraim above all, through a policy that spared the tribe of Judah alone from taxation, and by multiplying horses and chariots he broke the command God had given concerning Israel’s kings. Even the wisdom and breadth of heart that God bestows become an opening for corruption when they are not used according to his will.

The cracks of Solomon’s reign became the seed of the kingdom’s later division. Had he gone on trusting God alone with the faith he first had, walking in humble obedience, the outcome would have been different. God looks for those who lean not on the strength of the world but on him alone, and still today he works in those who take one humble step of obedience.