Solomon’s prayer

God, the Promise Keeper.

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Now therefore, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you have promised him, saying, “You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.” Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father. – 1 Kings 8:25-26 ESV

1 Kings 8:22-53

Solomon was wise, powerful and wealthy. He had just built a magnificent building designed to be the dwelling place of God. He was a success by any stretch of the imagination. As king of Israel, he enjoyed an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. But he knew that his success had little or nothing to do with himself. It was the work of God. He knew that he was completely dependent upon God for everything, including his position, power, and possessions. It had not escaped Solomon’s attention that his kingship was the result of a promise made to his father, David, by God. God had told David, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men” (2 Samuel 7:12-14 ESV). And God was not done. He went on to promise David, “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16 ESV). God had made a promise and Solomon had seen God fulfill it. His kingdom was established. He had built a house for God. And he was going to learn that, as God’s king, when he sinned against God, he was going to be disciplined severely.

But Solomon also knew that he had a role to play in all of this. He was obligated by God to live obediently and submissively to His divine will. He was to pay close attention to the manner in which he lived his life. The longevity and success of his kingship would be based on faithfulness and obedience. God had kept His promise to David, but it was going to be up to Solomon to stay committed to God. The sad reality is that Solomon failed to do just that. His kingship started off well, but ended poorly. He ended up having a “slight” problem with women. We read in 1 Kings that, “King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart” (1 Kings 11:1-3 ESV). Solomon’s love affair with women would be his undoing. They turned his heart away from God. “For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father” (1 Kings 11:4 ESV). Solomon became an idol worshiper and proved to be unfaithful to his covenant-keeping God. As a result, God would split the kingdom of Israel in half. And the future of the divided kingdom would be one marked by continued apostasy and unfaithfulness. The number of wicked, unfaithful kings would far surpass the number of faithful, obedient kings. In punishing Solomon, God had kept His promise. He always does.

And He would also keep His promise to establish David’s kingdom forever. We know historically that there was an end to David’s reign. We know that Solomon’s reign ended with a divided kingdom. We also know that there came a time when no king sat on the throne of David in Jerusalem. In fact, Israel has no king at this moment. But God keeps His promises. His Son, Jesus, is the rightful King or Israel. He is the King of the Jews and the King of kings and Lord of lords. And there is a day coming when Jesus Christ will rule over the entire world as king, sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 23:5-6 ESV). Concerning Jesus, the angel Gabriel told Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:31-33 ESV). God will keep His promise. God will give Jesus the throne of His father David. He will one day reign in righteousness over all the world, just as God has promised. He is the promise-keeping God. We can trust Him. We can rest faithfully in Him.

None Like Him.

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Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven, and said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart; you have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day.” – 1 Kings 8:22-24 ESV

1 Kings 8:22-53

Solomon had just finished the construction of the temple, a long-term building project, and the fulfillment of a dream of his father, David. But while the temple was complete, Solomon knew it would not be truly ready for use until it had been dedicated or set apart for God. The prayer Solomon prayed at this occasion is the longest recorded in the Bible. It was a public prayer of dedication that honored God for who He was and all that He had done in the lives of the people of Israel, including allowing them to finish this massive building project. Solomon stood before the people as their king and addressed God on their behalf. One of the first things he did was to acknowledge God’s incomparable nature. He said, “There is no God like you.” God was one of a kind. He was unequaled and in a class by Himself. It is important to remember that the Israelites lived in a context and time when false gods were a dime a dozen. Every nation that surrounded Israel had its own god or gods. The Israelites themselves had long struggled with a propensity to worship other gods. While they had been exiled in Egypt, they had developed a habit of worshiping idols, and that temptation was always alive and well for them. False gods were an everyday reality for the people of Israel, but Solomon knew and acknowledged that there was no god that could ever compare to the one true God.

And one of the things that set God apart was His character. Solomon described Him as the covenant-keeping God. Unlike the false gods of the other nations, Yahweh was one who kept His word. He wasn’t fickle or untrustworthy. What He promised, He would do. He could be counted on to be consistent in His interactions with those who worshiped Him. While God’s moods could change, He was always consistent in His behavior. He would not tolerate sin. He hated pride. He blessed those who were obedient. He punished the disobedient. With the God of Israel, you always knew what to expect. His ways were always righteous and His character was immutable or unchanging. Solomon knew from personal experience that God had been faithful, because He had seen God fulfill His promise to David that his son would build the temple. Solomon was that son. He had personally experienced the blessings of God and knew that his success as king was God-ordained so that he might build the temple. He knew that his wisdom and wealth were both provided by God – all so he could accomplish God’s will and complete the construction of the temple. Even though Solomon knew that he and others had done the actual planning and construction, he acknowledged God’s non-debatable role: “You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day.” God had said it and He had accomplished it.

There is a certain sense in which we, as Christians, fail to appreciate the uniqueness of God. We tend to take for granted who He is and all that He has done for us. While we would never think to compare God with other gods, because we don’t believe in them, it might help us appreciate Him more if we better understood just how unique and incomparable He really is. Our God is faithful, just, always righteous in all that He does, and never fails to keep His word. What was true in Solomon’s day is just as true today. We worship the same God. We benefit from the same unchanging characteristics that He displayed in those days. Moses wrote in the book of Numbers, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19 ESV). He is faithful, true and constantly consistent in His character. He can always be trusted. There is no god like our God. The character of God is what defines the nature of God. We don’t get to add to or alter His character. We don’t get to create a God of our own making. While we might prefer an all-loving, never-angry version of God, that is not up to us. We don’t get to recreate Him or reimagine Him as what we would like Him to be. But the more we understand just exactly who He is, the greater our appreciation for Him will be. He deserves our praise, appreciation, worship, and faithful obedience, because there is no god like our God.