Texts in Conversation
In 1 Kings, Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter and wives recalls the prohibition in Deuteronomy against intermarriage with foreign nations. which warned such marriages would turn Israel away from proper worship.
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Deuteronomy 7:3
Hebrew Bible
1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you—Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you— 2 and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy! 3 You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Kings 3:1
Hebrew Bible
1 Solomon made an alliance by marriage with Pharaoh, king of Egypt; he married Pharaoh’s daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he could finish building his residence and the temple of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. 2 Now the people were offering sacrifices at the high places, because in those days a temple had not yet been built to honor the Lord. 3 Solomon demonstrated his loyalty to the Lord by following the practices of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... to document Solomon’s regression, the Deuteronomist draws a series of contrasts with the first period he posits in Solomon’s reign. In the first part of his tenure Solomon followed the practices of David his father (1 Kings 3:3), but in the second part of his tenure Solomon “did not follow YHWH completely as did David his father” (1 Kings 11:6). Prior to building the temple, Solomon sacrificed and burned incense at the high places (1 Kings 3:3). When the temple was completed, Solomon regularly sacrificed to YHWH there (1 Kings 8:5,62-64; 9:25; 10:5). Yet in the second portion of his reign Solomon burns incense and sacrifices to foreign gods at the high places he built for his foreign wives ... Commentators have long noted that the writer’s mention of Solomon’s love for foreign women “from the nations” (Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites, and the daughter of Pharaoh; 1 Kgs 11:1-2) recalls the Deuteronomic prohibition of intermarriage with the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan ..."
Knoppers, Gary N.
"Solomon's Fall and Deuteronomy" in Handy, Lowell K. (ed.) The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium
(pp. 392-410) Brill, 1997
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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