The End of the Matter: Solomon's Checkered Legacy Text: 1 Kings 11:41-43
Introduction: The Unvarnished Word
The Bible is not a book of heroes in the way our modern, sentimental age understands that word. It is not a collection of airbrushed portraits suitable for framing. The Word of God is relentlessly honest. It shows us the great faith of Abraham, and it shows us his lies. It shows us the courage of David, and it shows us his adultery and murder. And here, at the end of 1 Kings 11, it shows us the end of Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, apart from the Lord Jesus. And the end is a complicated, tragic, and cautionary affair.
We live in a time that wants to edit the story. We want our leaders, our historical figures, and even our biblical characters to be either entirely good or entirely evil. We want to sort them into clean piles. But God's appraisal of men is not so simple, because men are not simple. The Scriptures present us with men in their totality, with all their contradictions, their glories, and their ghastly failures. And in this, the Word of God proves its divine origin. A man writing a national epic would have glossed over the end of Solomon's life. He would have ended the story at the dedication of the Temple, with the glory of God filling the house. But the Holy Spirit does not do public relations. He tells the truth, because the truth is what we need.
The end of Solomon's reign is not a triumphant crescendo; it is a somber, muted conclusion. The gold was tarnished, the wisdom was compromised, and the united kingdom was cracking at the seams, all because the king had turned his heart away from the Lord who had appeared to him twice. This passage is a divine summary, a final accounting of a life that was glorious and yet deeply tragic. It teaches us that wisdom without obedience is just cleverness, and that a spectacular beginning does not guarantee a faithful end. It is a warning to every generation that covenantal blessings are met with covenantal responsibilities, and the consequences of forgetting this are severe and generational.
The Text
Now the rest of the acts of Solomon and whatever he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?
Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.
And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David, and his son Rehoboam became king in his place.
(1 Kings 11:41-43 LSB)
The Divine Reference (v. 41)
We begin with the historian's note, which is far more than a simple citation.
"Now the rest of the acts of Solomon and whatever he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?" (1 Kings 11:41)
The Holy Spirit, through the author of Kings, points us to an external source, "the book of the acts of Solomon." This was likely the official court history, the royal annals that documented the reign. This book is now lost to us, but its mention here is profoundly important. First, it tells us that the biblical account is rooted in actual history. The author is not inventing fables; he is working with historical sources, under the inspiration of the Spirit, to give us God's theological interpretation of that history. The Bible does not fear historical scrutiny. It invites it.
Second, notice what is being referenced: "the rest of the acts... whatever he did, and his wisdom." The secular record would have detailed the building projects, the trade agreements, the architectural splendors, the sheer political and intellectual genius of the man. But the biblical author has just spent a chapter detailing Solomon's catastrophic spiritual failure. The Spirit's purpose is not to give us an exhaustive political history, but a covenantal one. He selects and arranges the material to show us what truly matters in God's economy. All the wisdom that built the Temple and dazzled the Queen of Sheba is mentioned, but the emphasis of the preceding narrative is on the folly that built high places for Chemosh and Molech.
This is a divine lesson in priorities. The world is impressed by administrative genius, by wealth, by power. God is concerned with faithfulness. The world keeps records of political acts; God keeps records of heart-devotion. The "book of the acts of Solomon" is gone, but the book of 1 Kings remains. What God chooses to preserve is what is eternally significant. And what He preserved about Solomon is a story of breathtaking wisdom tragically squandered through disobedience.
The Divine Measure (v. 42)
Next, we get the simple, stark measure of his reign.
"Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years." (1 Kings 11:42 LSB)
Forty years. This is a significant number in Scripture, often representing a period of testing or a complete generation. Moses was on the mountain for forty days. Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. David reigned for forty years, and Saul reigned for forty years. Solomon is given a full generational reign. He had ample time, ample opportunity, and ample blessing. God was not stingy with him.
This simple chronological fact underscores the tragedy. His apostasy was not a youthful indiscretion. It was the settled practice of his later years. For a significant portion of this forty-year reign, the king whose name meant "peace" was sowing the seeds of civil war. He was given a complete tenure, and at the end of it, the kingdom was on the brink of collapse. This is a reminder that the length of a man's life or ministry is no guarantee of his faithfulness. Longevity can simply provide more time to wander. It is not how long we run, but how we finish the race, that matters.
He reigned "over all Israel." This is the last time this phrase will be used in this way. After this verse, the nation will be ripped in two. This verse marks the end of an era, the closing of the book on the united monarchy in its glory. The forty-year reign was a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity on the surface, but underneath, the spiritual foundations were being systematically destroyed by the king himself. The cracks were already showing; God had already raised up adversaries in Hadad, Rezon, and Jeroboam. The forty years were up, and judgment was about to fall.
The Divine Succession (v. 43)
Finally, we have the account of his death and the subsequent succession, a formula that carries immense theological weight.
"And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David, and his son Rehoboam became king in his place." (1 Kings 11:43 LSB)
First, "Solomon slept with his fathers." This is a standard biblical euphemism for death. It speaks of death not as an annihilation, but as a rest, awaiting the resurrection. It is used for both faithful and unfaithful kings, indicating that they have gone to the place of the dead. But it also speaks of continuity. He went the way of all his ancestors. For all his wisdom, all his wealth, Solomon could not outsmart death. He was a son of Adam, and the wages of sin is death. This phrase levels all men. The great king dies just like the peasant.
He "was buried in the city of his father David." This signifies that he died in the covenant line, at least externally. He was not cast out like some later, wicked kings. There is a measure of grace here. Despite his grievous sin, God's covenant with David was not entirely revoked. God had promised David that He would not take His steadfast love from Solomon as He had from Saul (2 Samuel 7:14-15). God would discipline him severely, and He did, but He would not utterly cast him off. Many have debated Solomon's eternal state, but his authorship of Ecclesiastes, a book of profound repentance, gives us good reason for hope. He learned the hard way that everything under the sun is vanity, and that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments.
But the verse ends on a deeply ominous note: "and his son Rehoboam became king in his place." We know from the very next chapter what kind of king Rehoboam was. He was an arrogant fool. He rejected the wise counsel of the elders who had served his father and listened to the testosterone-fueled boasting of his young friends. His foolishness was the immediate catalyst for the division of the kingdom, the very judgment God had promised.
Here is the principle of generational consequences. Solomon's sin had a direct and catastrophic impact on his son and his kingdom. Solomon had modeled indulgence, pride, and a fatal compromise with paganism through his foreign wives. Is it any wonder that his son, raised in that opulent and spiritually compromised court, turned out to be a fool? Fathers, what you are in moderation, your sons will be in excess. Solomon's "little" compromises became Rehoboam's worldview. The seeds of apostasy planted by the father came to full, bitter fruit in the son. The wisest man in the world produced a fool to sit on his throne. This is a terrifying testimony to the fact that wisdom is not genetically transferable. Godly character must be passed down through faithful discipleship, not just DNA. Solomon built a glorious kingdom for his son, but he failed to build a godly character in him.
Conclusion: A Greater Than Solomon
The story of Solomon is a glorious tragedy. It is the story of what the best of men can become, both in wisdom and in folly. His life stands as a permanent warning against the seductive power of pride, wealth, and sexual compromise. He had it all, and he learned that "it all" was nothing without God.
But his story is meant to make us long for a better king. It is meant to point us to the one who is "greater than Solomon" (Matthew 12:42). Jesus Christ is the true Son of David. Like Solomon, He is the builder of God's house, not a temple of stone, but a living temple of His people. Like Solomon, He is the source of all true wisdom. But unlike Solomon, His heart never turned away. He was not seduced by the temptations of the world. He faced the pinnacle of temptation in the wilderness and met it with the Word of God. He reigned not for forty years, but for eternity.
Unlike Solomon, who passed his kingdom to a foolish son who divided it, Jesus Christ secures a kingdom for His people that can never be shaken. He does not leave us with a legacy of compromise, but with a legacy of perfect obedience. Solomon's reign ended with division and judgment. Christ's reign culminates in unity and eternal life. Solomon slept with his fathers and his body saw decay. Christ slept for three days and rose from the grave, conquering death forever.
The checkered legacy of Solomon shows us the bankruptcy of human wisdom when it is detached from the fear of the Lord. It shows us our desperate need for a king who will not fail. We look at the end of Solomon, and we see the glory and the shame, and we thank God that our hope is not in a son of David who failed, but in the Son of David who reigns forever, Jesus Christ the Lord.