(4) The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the largest shrine; on that altar Solomon presented a thousand burnt offerings. (5) At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask, what shall I grant you?” (6) Solomon said, “You dealt most graciously with Your servant my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness and righteousness and in integrity of heart. You have continued this great kindness to him by giving him a son to occupy his throne, as is now the case. (7) And now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David; but I am a young lad, with no experience in leadership. (8) Your servant finds himself in the midst of the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted. (9) Grant, then, Your servant an understanding mind to judge Your people, to distinguish between good and bad; for who can judge this vast people of Yours?” (10) The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. (11) And God said to him, “Because you asked for this—you did not ask for long life, you did not ask for riches, you did not ask for the life of your enemies, but you asked for discernment in dispensing justice— (12) I now do as you have spoken. I grant you a wise and discerning mind; there has never been anyone like you before, nor will anyone like you arise again. (13) And I also grant you what you did not ask for—both riches and glory all your life—the like of which no king has ever had. (14) And I will further grant you long life, if you will walk in My ways and observe My laws and commandments, as did your father David.” (15) Then Solomon awoke: it was a dream! He went to Jerusalem, stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented offerings of well-being; and he made a banquet for all his courtiers. (16) Later two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. (17) The first woman said, “Please, my lord! This woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. (18) On the third day after I was delivered, this woman also gave birth to a child. We were alone; there was no one else with us in the house, just the two of us in the house. (19) During the night this woman’s child died, because she lay on it. (20) She arose in the night and took my son from my side while your maidservant was asleep, and laid him in her bosom; and she laid her dead son in my bosom. (21) When I arose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, it was not the son I had borne.” (22) The other woman spoke up, “No, the live one is my son, and the dead one is yours!” But the first insisted, “No, the dead boy is yours; mine is the live one!” And they went on arguing before the king. (23) The king said, “One says, ‘This is my son, the live one, and the dead one is yours’; and the other says, ‘No, the dead boy is yours, mine is the live one.’ (24) So the king gave the order, “Fetch me a sword.” A sword was brought before the king, (25) and the king said, “Cut the live child in two, and give half to one and half to the other.” (26) But the woman whose son was the live one pleaded with the king, for she was overcome with compassion for her son. “Please, my lord,” she cried, “give her the live child; only don’t kill it!” The other insisted, “It shall be neither yours nor mine; cut it in two!”
(9) God endowed Solomon with wisdom and discernment in great measure, with understanding as vast as the sands on the seashore. (10) Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the Kedemites and than all the wisdom of the Egyptians. (11) He was the wisest of all men: [wiser] than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Chalkol, and Darda the sons of Mahol. His fame spread among all the surrounding nations. (12) He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered one thousand and five. (13) He discoursed about trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall; and he discoursed about beasts, birds, creeping things, and fishes. (14) Men of all peoples came to hear Solomon’s wisdom, [sent] by all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. (15) King Hiram of Tyre sent his officials to Solomon when he heard that he had been anointed king in place of his father; for Hiram had always been a friend of David. (16) Solomon sent this message to Hiram: (17) “You know that my father David could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the enemies that encompassed him, until the LORD had placed them under the soles of his feet. (18) But now the LORD my God has given me respite all around; there is no adversary and no mischance. (19) And so I propose to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD promised my father David, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for My name.’ (20) Please, then, give orders for cedars to be cut for me in the Lebanon. My servants will work with yours, and I will pay you any wages you may ask for your servants; for as you know, there is none among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.” (21) When Hiram heard Solomon’s message, he was overjoyed. “Praised be the LORD this day,” he said, “for granting David a wise son to govern this great people.”
(18) The king also made a large throne of ivory, and he overlaid it with refined gold. (19) Six steps led up to the throne, and the throne had a back with a rounded top, and arms on either side of the seat. Two lions stood beside the arms, (20) and twelve lions stood on the six steps, six on either side. No such throne was ever made for any other kingdom. (21) All King Solomon’s drinking cups were of gold, and all the utensils of the Lebanon Forest House were of pure gold: silver did not count for anything in Solomon’s days. (22) For the king had a Tarshish fleet on the sea, along with Hiram’s fleet. Once every three years, the Tarshish fleet came in, bearing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. (23) King Solomon excelled all the kings on earth in wealth and in wisdom. (24) All the world came to pay homage to Solomon and to listen to the wisdom with which God had endowed him; (25) and each one would bring his tribute—silver and gold objects, robes, weapons and spices, horses and mules—in the amount due each year. (26) Solomon assembled chariots and horses. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot towns and with the king in Jerusalem. (27) The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars as plentiful as sycamores in the Shephelah. (28) Solomon’s horses were procured from Mizraim and Kue. The king’s dealers would buy them from Kue at a fixed price. (29) A chariot imported from Mizraim cost 600 shekels of silver, and a horse 150; these in turn were exported by them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Arameans. (1) King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Phoenician, and Hittite women, (2) from the nations of which the LORD had said to the Israelites, “None of you shall join them and none of them shall join you, lest they turn your heart away to follow their gods.” Such Solomon clung to and loved. (3) He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned his heart away. (4) In his old age, his wives turned away Solomon’s heart after other gods, and he was not as wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God as his father David had been. (5) Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Phoenicians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (6) Solomon did what was displeasing to the LORD and did not remain loyal to the LORD like his father David. (7) At that time, Solomon built a shrine for Chemosh the abomination of Moab on the hill near Jerusalem, and one for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. (8) And he did the same for all his foreign wives who offered and sacrificed to their gods. (9) The LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice (10) and had commanded him about this matter, not to follow other gods; he did not obey what the LORD had commanded. (11) And the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you are guilty of this—you have not kept My covenant and the laws which I enjoined upon you—I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants.
(38) and in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul—that is, the eighth month—the House was completed according to all its details and all its specifications. It took him seven years to build it. (1) And it took Solomon thirteen years to build his palace, until his whole palace was completed.
(14) If, after you have entered the land that the LORD your God has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” (15) you shall be free to set a king over yourself, one chosen by the LORD your God. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kinsman. (16) Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since the LORD has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” (17) And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. (18) When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. (19) Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. (20) Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel.
And Rabbi Yitzḥak says: For what reason were the rationales of Torah commandments not revealed? It was because the rationales of two verses were revealed, and the greatest in the world, King Solomon, failed in those matters. It is written with regard to a king: “He shall not add many wives for himself, that his heart should not turn away” (Deuteronomy 17:17). Solomon said: I will add many, but I will not turn away, as he thought that it is permitted to have many wives if one is otherwise meticulous not to stray. And later, it is written: “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods” (I Kings 11:4). And it is also written: “Only he shall not accumulate many horses for himself nor return the people to Egypt for the sake of accumulating horses” (Deuteronomy 17:16), and Solomon said: I will accumulate many, but I will not return. And it is written: “And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver” (I Kings 10:29), teaching that not only did Solomon violate the Torah, but he also failed in applying the rationale given for its commandments. This demonstrates the wisdom in the Torah’s usual silence as to the rationale for its mitzvot, as individuals will not mistakenly rely on their own wisdom to reason that the mitzvot are inapplicable in some circumstances.
(5) Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not rely on your own understanding. (6) In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths smooth. (7) Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and shun evil. (8) It will be a cure for your body, A tonic for your bones.