Bible Biographies
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above all others. Noble in youth, noble in manhood, the beloved of his
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God, Solomon entered on a reign that gave high promise of prosperity
and honor. Nations marveled at the knowledge and insight of the man
to whom God had given wisdom. But the pride of prosperity brought
separation from God. From the joy of divine communion Solomon
turned to find satisfaction in the pleasures of sense. Of this experience
he says:
“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vine-
yards: I made me gardens and orchards: ... I got me servants and
maidens: ... I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar trea-
sure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women
singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments,
and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that
were before me in Jerusalem.... And whatsoever mine eyes desired
I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my
heart rejoiced in all my labor.... Then I looked on all the works that
my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and,
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness,
and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even
that which hath been already done.”
“I hated life.... Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under
the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 2:4-12, 17, 18
.
By his own bitter experience, Solomon learned the emptiness of
a life that seeks in earthly things its highest good. He erected altars
to heathen gods, only to learn how vain is their promise of rest to the
soul.
In his later years, turning wearied and thirsting from earth’s broken
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cisterns, Solomon returned to drink at the fountain of life. The history
of his wasted years, with their lessons of warning, he by the Spirit
of inspiration recorded for after generations. And thus, although the
seed of his sowing was reaped by his people in harvests of evil, the
lifework of Solomon was not wholly lost. For him at last the discipline
of suffering accomplished its work.
But with such a dawning, how glorious might have been his life’s
day had Solomon in his youth learned the lesson that suffering had
taught in other lives!