Today’s reading: 1 Kings 4; Colossians 1
1 Kings 4 gives us the most pure glimpse into God’s desire for Israel than we find anywhere other than His initial descriptions of His desire when He makes His promises to Israel about the land, and the amazing thing is, this still isn’t all that God intended it to be!
When God told Israel how things would go in the land, as long as they stayed faithful to Him, it was an unbelievably amazing picture. He told them that the land would produce abundantly, that there would be no famines in the land, that they would always get their rains in their seasons, that there would be no poor in the land, that they would have peace on all sides, that other nations would bring them tribute, etc. There is a reason 1 Kings 4 gives us the description that it does, that, “he had peace on all sides around him. And Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon.” Much of this chapter is describing the incredible vision that God gave Israel from the beginning as they are safe and secure in the land, foreign kings are bringing tribute to Israel, and the land is producing plentifully with every man sustained by the produce of his own land.
What’s even more incredible though is that even this still isn’t the full picture of the goodness that God desired for Israel. While Solomon was leading the people to faithful worship of Yahweh, there are other things he is doing that are expressly against God’s commands for a king. God forbade the king from multiplying horses and chariots, for example, and so I don’t think it is a coincidence that in the midst of the good things happening we are also told that Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots and 12,000 horsemen. Yes, it shows Israel's military strength, but the reality is that if they are trusting in God, they don't need that military strength, and that was God's point from the beginning.
So even while they are not being entirely faithful with all that He commanded them, God still blesses Israel immensely exactly as He said He would if they stayed faithful to Him. However, this little bit of infidelity is just the beginning for Solomon, and as he grows in wealth and influence, he will ultimately move further and further from faithfulness to God, until he eventually even sponsors the worship of other gods in Israel. So this is a trend to watch through his reign. We will go from this near-idilic picture of a deeply blessed Israel and see what happens as Solomon sets off on the course of making Israel a greater and greater nation from a worldly perspective, rather than focusing on greatness in faith and faithfulness to Yahweh.
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