Troublesome Topic: The Proverbs Did Not Prepare the Next King As Intended

The Proverbs appear to have been written as advice being passed down from Solomon to his son who would reign after him, just as he had been given wise advice (often by his mother) before he became king. We are not told much about the passing of the scepter from Solomon to his son, Rehoboam, so what follows is an educated guess.

I think he had a scribe start compiling a list of proverbs fairly early in his kingship, while he was still married to the Shulammite before she died. Solomon hoped that she would give him a son, and I think he intended on putting that son on the throne after him. After she died, the scribe kept doing his work, but Solomon did not know which son would be king. He couldn’t focus on that while being overcome by intense grief. This also means that he did not do a good job of training his sons; he allowed their tutor to do all the training and none of them were prepared for a leadership role the way a typical father prepared his eldest son to lead.

I think that, in the end, Solomon did not assign any son as king, rather he just let it happen in a natural way. Therefore, when Solomon died, the most ruthless son, who happened to be the oldest one, Rehoboam, took control by instilling fear in all his half-brothers. He was not the one Solomon would have chosen earlier in his life while he was following God, but after he had abandoned the true God in preference for the lascivious, sexually provocative gods his foreign wives still worshipped, he didn’t care anymore, so he did nothing. Rehoboam was the son of Solomon and “the Ammonitess” which means “the Ammonite princess” or “the very famous Ammonitess” (I Kings 14:21).

As I looked at what we do know about the life of Solomon and tried to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know, it seemed most fitting to conclude that Solomon’s relationship with the Ammonitess was not planned and not condoned by his father David. Let me say it more clearly – it was not a marriage that was arranged according to the accepted traditions, now was it blessed by the fathers of each party. Therefore, I believe that Rehoboam was the result of an affair that Solomon had with the Ammonitess and then he was forced to marry her. (For more on this topic see my lessons called “Solomon’s distrust of women, parts 1, 2 &3). For this reason, I assume that Solomon decided early on that Rehoboam would never become king. Solomon was not even close to the oldest son of David, so Rehoboam’s status as first-born meant nothing to Solomon. But after the Shulammite died without giving him a son, I think Solomon did not prepare any other son to be king, and a vacuum developed. After he became an apostate, he did nothing about the growing vacuum, yet he realized that most likely, Rehoboam would be one to take control by brute force. By that point, his mind, which was drunk with sin and anger, found a sadistic pleasure in knowing that a ruthless, godless, half-foreign son would take the thrown after him. It was Solomon’s way of getting back at God for not allowing his life to play out the way he had wanted it to.

 After Solomon’s death, the Proverbs were preserved, organized, and copied in order that others could follow the advice found in them. The same is true of the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. In order for this to happen someone had to rescue them, possibly at risk of his life, from the palace before Rehoboam found them and destroyed them. Years later, King Hezekiah had more proverbs inserted into the volume of Solomon’s proverbs (see Prov 25:1) and we think he further organized them. We believe Hezekiah’s arrangement is the one we still use today.

The take-aways from all this are the following: We may want to train our children well, but it will not happen on its own, we must take action and make it happen even if we don’t feel like it; It is up to us to do for our children what Solomon failed to do for his children; when someone close to you dies, remember the good things about them and learn what you can from their life, do not focus on the negative.