Farrar Frederic William
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
"For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it Thee:
Thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."354
And again: —
"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in;
Mine ears hast thou opened:
Burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required."355
And again: —
"To do justice and judgment
Is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."356
And again: —
"I will praise the name of God with a song,
And magnify it with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord
Rather than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs."357
Surely the most careless and conventional reader cannot fail to see that there is a wide difference between the standpoint of the prophets, which is so purely spiritual, and that of the writers and redactors of the Priestly Code, whose whole interest centred in the sacrificial and ceremonial observances.
Nor is the intrinsic nullity of the sacrificial system less distinctly pointed out in the New Testament. The better-instructed Jews, enlightened by Christ's teaching, could give emphatic testimony to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The candid scribe, hearing from Christ's lips the two great commandments, answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, … and to love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."358
And our Lord quoted Hosea with the emphatic commendation, "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."359 And on another occasion: "But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."360
The presenting of our bodies, says St. Paul, as a living sacrifice is our reasonable service; and St. Peter calls all Christians a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice.361
"It is impossible," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins;" and he speaks of the priests "daily offering the same sacrifice, the which can never take away sins."362
And again: —
"To do good and to distribute forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."363
The wisest fathers of Jewish thought in the post-exilic epoch held the same views. Thus the son of Sirach says: "He that keepeth the law bringeth offerings enough."364 And Philo, echoing an opinion common among the best heathen moralists from Socrates to Marcus Aurelius,365 writes, "The mind, when without blemish, is itself the most holy sacrifice, being entirely and in all respects pleasing to God."366
And what is very remarkable, modern Judaism now emphasises its belief that "neither sacrifices nor a Levitical system belong to the essence of the Old Testament."367 Such was the view of the ancient Essenes, no less than of Maimonides or Abarbanel. Modern Rabbis even go so far as to argue that the whole system of Levitical sacrifice was an alien element, introduced into Judaism from without, tolerated indeed by Moses, but only as a concession to the immaturity of his people and their hardness of heart.368
Such, too, was the opinion of the ancient Fathers, – of the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Cyril, and Theodoret, who are followed by such Roman Catholic theologians as Petavius and Bellarmine.369
This at any rate is certain: – that the Judaic system is not only abrogated, but rendered impossible. Whatever were its functions, God has stamped with absolute disapproval any attempt to continue them. They are utterly annulled and obliterated for ever.
"I am come to repeal the sacrifices." Such is the ἄγραφον δόγμα ascribed to Christ; "and unless ye desist from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not desist from you."370 The argument of St. Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, show us why this was inevitable; and they were but following the initiative of Christ and the teaching of His Spirit. It is a mistake to imagine that our Lord merely repudiated the inane pettinesses of Pharisaic formalism. He went much further. There is not the slightest trace that He personally observed the requirements of the ceremonial law. It is certain that He broke them when He touched the leper and the dead youth's bier. The law insisted on the centralisation of worship, but Jesus said, "The day cometh, and now is, when neither in Jerusalem, nor yet in this mountain, shall men worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." The law insisted, with extreme emphasis, on the burdensome distinctions between clean and unclean meats. Jesus said that it is not that which cometh from without, but that which cometh from within which defileth a man, and this He said "making all meats clean."371 St. Paul, when the types of Mosaism had been for ever fulfilled in Christ, and the antitype had thus become obsolete and pernicious, went further still. Taking circumcision, the most ancient and most distinctive rite of the Old Dispensation, he called it "concision" or mere mutilation, and said thrice over, "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but 'a new creature'"; "but faith working by love," "but the keeping of the commandment of God." The whole system of Judaism was local, was external, was minute, was inferior, was transient, was a concession to infirmity, was a yoke of bondage: the whole system of Christianity is universal, is spiritual, is simple, is unsacrificial, is unsacerdotal, is perfect freedom. Judaism was a religion of a temple, of sacrifices, of a sacrificial priesthood: Christianity is a religion in which the Spirit of God
"Doth prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure."
It is a religion in which there is no more sacrifice for sin, because the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, has been consummated for ever. It is a religion in which there is no altar but the Cross; in which there is no priest but Christ, except so far as every Christian is by metaphor a priest to offer up spiritual sacrifices which alone are acceptable to God.
The Temple of Solomon lasted only four centuries, and they were for the most part years of dishonour, disgrace, and decadence.372 Solomon was scarcely in his grave before it was plundered by Shishak. During its four centuries of existence it was again stripped of its precious possessions at least six times, sometimes by foreign oppressors, sometimes by distressed kings. It was despoiled of its treasure by Asa, by Jehoash of Judah, by Jehoash of Israel, by Ahaz, by Hezekiah, and lastly by Nebuchadnezzar. After such plunderings it must have completely lost its pristine splendour. But the plunder of its treasures was nothing to the pollutions of its sanctity. They began as early as the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah. Ahaz gave it a Syrian altar, Manasseh stained it with impurities, and Ezekiel in its secret chambers surveyed "the dark idolatries of alienated Judah."
And in the days when Judaism most prized itself on ritual faithfulness, the Lord of the Temple was insulted in the Temple of the Lord, and its courts were turned by greedy priests and Sadducees into a cowshed, and a dovecot, and a fair, and a usurer's mart, and a robber's den.
From the first the centralisation of worship in the Temple must have been accompanied by the danger of dissociating religious life from its daily social environments. The multitudes who lived in remote country places would no longer be able to join in forms of worship which had been carried on at local shrines. Judaism, as the prophets so often complain, tended to become too much a matter of officialism and function, of rubric and technique, which always tend to substitute external service for true devotion, and to leave the shell of religion without its soul.373
Even when it had been purified by Josiah's reformation, the Temple proved to be a source of danger and false security. It was regarded as a sort of Palladium. The formalists began to talk and act as though it furnished a mechanical protection, and gave them licence to transgress the moral law. Jeremiah had sternly to warn his countrymen against this trust in an idle formalism. "Amend your ways and your doings," he said. "Behold, ye trust in lying words which cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations?"
The Temple of Solomon was defaced and destroyed and polluted by the Babylonians, but not until it had been polluted by the Jews themselves with the blood of prophets, by idolatries, by chambers of unclean imagery. It was rebuilt by a poor band of disheartened exiles to be again polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes, and ultimately to become the headquarters of a narrow, arrogant, and intriguing Pharisaism. It was rebuilt once more by Herod, the brutal Idumean usurper, and its splendour inspired such passionate enthusiasm that when it was wrapped in flames by Titus, it witnessed the carnage of thousands of maddened and despairing combatants.
"As 'mid the cedar courts and gates of gold
The trampled ranks in miry carnage rolled
To save their Temple every hand essayed,
And with cold fingers grasp'd the feeble blade;
Through their torn veins reviving fury ran
And life's last anger warm'd the dying man."
Yet that last Temple had been defiled by a worse crime than the other two. It had witnessed the priestly idols and the priestly machinations which ended in the murder of the Son of God. From the Temple sprang little or nothing of spiritual importance. Intended to teach the supremacy of righteousness, it became the stronghold of mere ritual. For the development of true holiness, as apart from ceremonial scrupulosity, its official protectors rendered it valueless.
We are not surprised that Christianity knows no temple but the hearts of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; and that the characteristic of the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, is: —
"And I saw no temple therein."374
Abundantly was the menace fulfilled in which Jehovah warned Solomon after the Feast of Dedication that if Israel swerved into immorality and idolatry, that house should be an awful warning – that its blessing should be exchanged into a curse, and that every one who passed by it should be astonished and should hiss.375
CHAPTER XX.
SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY
1 Kings x. 1-29
"O Luxury! thou curs'd by Heaven's decree!
How do thy potions with insidious joy
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown
Boast of a florid vigour not their own."
Goldsmith, Deserted Village.
"The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment against this generation, and shall condemn it. For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon." – Matt. xii. 42.
The history of the Temple is the event which gives supreme religious importance to the reign of one who became in other respects a worldly and irreligious king. It is for this reason that I have dwelt upon its significance, and on the many interesting questions which its worship naturally suggests. Solomon gave an impulse to outward service, not to spiritual life. His religion was mainly that form of externalism which rose but little above the of the surrounding heathens. The other fragments of his story which have been preserved for us are mainly of a political character. They point us to Solomon in his wealth and ostentation, and contain nothing specially edifying. Our Lord thought less of all this splendour than of the flower of the field. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
"Gay religions full of pomp and gold"
Princes who have once begun to build find a certain fascination in the task. After the seven years devoted to the Temple, Solomon occupied thirteen more in building "halls of Lebanoniac cedar" for himself, for his audience-chamber, and for Pharaoh's daughter.
Chief of these were: —
1. The house of the forest of Lebanon, a sort of arsenal so called from its triple rows of cedar pillars, on which hung the golden shields for the king's guards when they attended his great visits to the Temple.
2. The justice hall, the "Sublime Porte" of Jerusalem, built of gold and cedar. It contained the famous Lion Throne of gold and ivory, with two lions on each of its six steps.376 It is not known whether these buildings formed part of the palace and harem of Solomon, nor is it worth while to waste time on the impossible attempt to reconstruct them.
Solomon also built the fortification of Jerusalem known as the "Millo," and the wall of Jerusalem, and repaired the breaches of the city of David,377 as well as the fortresses and treasure cities to which we have already alluded, and the summer palaces in the region of Lebanon known as "the delights of Solomon."378 Amid these records of palatial architecture we hear next to nothing of the religious life.
He further dazzled his people by an extensive system of foreign commerce. His land-traffic with Arabia familiarised them with spicery (necoth), gum tragacanth, frankincense, myrrh, aloes, and cassia and with precious stones of all kinds. From Egypt he obtained horses and chariots. They were brought from Tekoa, by his merchants, and kept by Solomon, or sold at a profit.379
He found a ready market for them among the Hittite and Aramæan kings. Emulating the Phœnicians, and apparently invading the monopoly of Tyre, he had – if we may take the chronicler literally – a fleet of "ships of Tarshish" which sailed along the coasts of Spain.380 Above all, he made the daring attempt to establish a fleet of Tarshish-ships at Ezion-Geber, the port of Elath, at the north of the Gulf of Akaba. This fleet sailed down the Red Sea to Ophir – perhaps Abhîra, at the mouth of the Indus – and amazed the simple Hebrews with the sight of gorgeous iridescent peacocks, wrinkled chattering apes, the red and richly scented sandal wood of India, and the large tusks of elephants from which cunning artificers carved the smooth ivory to inlay furniture, thrones, and ultimately even houses, with lustrous ornamentation. Cinnamon came to him from Ceylon, and "sapphires" (lapis lazuli) from Babylon.381 Other services which he rendered to his capital and kingdom were more real and permanent.
1. Jerusalem may have been in part indebted to Solomon for its supply of water. The magnificent springs of pure gushing water at Etam are still called "Solomon's fountains," and it is believed that he used their rocky basins as reservoirs from which to irrigate his garden in the Wady Urtas (Lat., Hortus). Etam is two hours distant from Jerusalem, and if Solomon built the aqueduct which once conveyed its water supply to the city he proved himself a genuine benefactor.382 There was immense need of the "fons perennis aquæ" of which Tacitus speaks for the purifications of the Temple, soiled by the reek and offal of so many holocausts.
2. Maritime allusions now began to appear in Hebrew literature;383 and maritime enterprise produced the marvellous effect it always produces on the character and progress of the nation. Along the black basalt roads – the king's highways – of which the construction was necessitated by the outburst of commercial activity flocked hundreds of foreign visitors, not only merchantmen and itinerant traffickers, but governors of provinces, and vassal or allied princes. The isolated and stationary tribes of Palestine suddenly found themselves face to face with a new and splendid civilisation. Admiring visitors flocked to see the great king's magnificence and to admire his foreign curiosities, bringing with them presents of gold and silver, armour384 and spicery, horses and mules, the broidered garments of Babylon, and robes rich with the crimson, purple, and scarlet dyes of Tyre.385 Instead of riding like his predecessors on a humble mule, the king made his royal progress to his watered garden at Etam drawn by steeds magnificently caparisoned. He reclined in "Pharaoh's chariot" richly chased and brilliantly coloured. He was followed by a train of archers riding on war-horses and clothed in purple, and was escorted by a body-guard of youths tall and beautiful, whose dark and flowing locks glittered with gold dust. In the heat of summer, if we may accept the poetic picture of the Song of Songs, he would be luxuriously carried to some delicious retreat amid the hills of myrrh and leopard-haunted woods of Lebanon, in a palanquin of cedar wood with silver pillars, purple cushions, and richly embroidered curtains, wearing the jewelled crown which his mother placed on his head on the day of his espousals.386 Or he would sit to do justice on his throne of ivory and gold,387 with its steps guarded by golded lions leaning upon the golden bull of Ephraim which formed its back,388 in all his princely beauty, "anointed with the oil of gladness," his lips full of grace, his garments breathing of perfume. On great occasions of state his Queen, and the virgins that bore her company, would stand among the crowd of inferior princesses, in garments of the wrought gold of Ophir, in which she had been carried from the inner palace upon tapestries of needlework. In the pomp of such ceremonials, amid bursts of rejoicing melody, the people began to believe that not even the Pharaohs of Egypt, or the Tyrian kings with "every precious stone as their covering," could show a more glorious pageant of royal state.389
This career of magnificence culminated in the visit of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba,390 who came to him across the desert with "a very great train of her camels, bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones." She saw his abounding prosperity, his peaceful people, his houses, his vineyards at Beth-Haccerem, his parks and gardens, his pools and fruit trees, his herds of cattle, his horses, chariots, and palanquins, and all the delight of the sons of men. She saw his men singers and women singers with their harps of red sandal wood and gold. She saw him at the banquet at his golden table covered in boundless profusion with delicacies brought from every land. She saw his hosts of beautiful and richly dressed slaves with lavers, dishes, and goblets all made of the gold of Uphaz. She saw him dispensing justice in his pillared hall of cedar, seated on his lion-throne. She saw the golden shields and targets391 carried before him as he went in state to the Temple over the Mount, across the valley, and mounted from the palace to the sacred courts by the gilded staircase with its balustrades of aromatic sandal wood.392 Perhaps she was present as a spectator at some great Temple festival. And when she had tested his wisdom by communing with him of all that was in her heart, "there was no more spirit in her." She confessed that the half of his wisdom and glory had not been reported to her. Happy were his servants, happy the courtiers who stood by him and heard his words! Blessed was the Lord his God who delighted in him, and who, out of love for Israel, had given them such a king to do justice and judgment among them. The visit ended with an interchange of royal presents.393 Solomon, we are vaguely told, "gave unto her all her desire, whatsoever she asked," and sent her away glad-hearted to her native land, leaving behind her a trail of legends. Before her departure she opened her treasures, and gave him vast stores of spicery and gold.394
And to sum up the accounts, which read like a page of the story of Haroun al Raschid, the king made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem, so that it was nothing accounted of in the day of Solomon,395 and the cedars made he to be as the sycomores which are in the "Shefelah" for multitude.
It is around this epoch of Solomon's career that the legends of the East mainly cluster. They have received a larger development from the allusions to Mohammed in the Qur'an.396 They take the place of the personal incidents of which so few are recorded, although Solomon occupies so large a space in sacred history. "That stately and melancholy figure – in some respects the grandest and the saddest in the Sacred Volume – is in detail little more than a mighty 'shadow.' Yet in later Jewish records he is scarcely mentioned. Of all the characters in the sacred history he is the most purely secular; and merely secular magnificence was an excrescence, not a native growth of the chosen people."397
