Solomon and Pharaoh's Daughter: A Pauline Interpretation

It seems that Solomon begins his reign with a breach of the law. Deuteronomy 7:3-4 forbids Israel from intermarrying with Gentiles, Canaanites in particular, and the usage in Deuteronomy 7 is very similar to that of 1 Kings 3:1. Solomon �became son-in-law to Pharaoh,�Eand Deuteronomy 7 forbids the Israelites to �become sons-in-law�Eto Canaanites (v. 3).

Further, Solomon�s early connection with Egypt is ominous. By becoming Pharaoh�s �son-in-law,�ESolomon effectively put himself in a subordinate position to the Egyptian king. And Egypt is, of course, the civilization from which Israel was born. Solomon�s alliance with Pharaoh thus appears to foreshadow later adoption of Egyptian customs and Egyptian-style oppression. Solomon breaks all the laws of kingship in Deuteronomy 17 (forbidding multiplying wives, gold, and horses and chariots), and two of them are linked specifically with Egypt: Solomon�s first wife is Pharaoh�s daughter, and she is explicitly linked with the other foreign wives in 11:1, and Solomon brought horses and chariots to Israel from Egypt (10:28-29), in direct violation of Deuteronomy 17:16: the king �shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiple horses, since Yahweh has said to you, �You shall never again return that way.��

Finally, the policies of Solomon leave Israel in an Egyptian-like state, so that Jeroboam comes appealing to Rehoboam like Moses approaching Pharaoh in Exodus. It appears that Solomon is taking Israel back into Egypt.

There is very likely something to this, and the marriage to Pharaoh�s daughter, set as it is at the beginning of the Solomon narrative, foreshadows the darkness to come. But it would be a mistake, I think, to suggest that Solomon falls as soon as he takes the throne, or to use 3:1-3 as the basis for interpreting the portrait of Solomon as generally negative. Several things in the text tell against a completely negative portrait. Solomon does become a son-in-law to Pharaoh, but we are immediately told that he �love Yahweh�E(v. 3). This stands in contrast, as noted above, to the judgment of 11:1-8, which states that Solomon loved the foreign women and that his heart was turned toward them and away from Yahweh. At the beginning of his reign, this is not the case. He has an Egyptian bride, but yet his heart is turned to Yahweh, and he walks in the statutes of David his father.

Further, the last clause of verse 3 states a slight exception to Solomon�s faithfulness, but it names his worship at the high places as the exception and not his marriage to Pharaoh�s daughter. If the narrator intended us to see the marriage negatively, why does he mention only the high places as a qualification of Solomon�s faithfulness? Finally, there are several earlier examples of faithful men marrying Gentile women �Eincluding Joseph (Gen 41:45) and Moses (Ex 2:21-22). I take the marriage to Pharaoh, in its initial notice, not as a fact that condemns Solomon but as a fulfillment of promise. Solomon enters into an alliance with Pharaoh in fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise that the seed of Abraham will bring blessing to the Gentiles.

Perhaps, though, we can offer a more Pauline treatment of this, one that brings together the positive and negative poles of the assessment of Solomon. Solomon�s marriage to Pharaoh�s daughter is not technically a violation of the law, and is consistent with Solomon�s love for Yahweh. It is indeed a sign of the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise. Yet, at the same time it puts Solomon in a dangerous position, threatening to pull him away from Yahweh and toward his foreign wife and her gods. The problem here is not a marriage with Gentiles. The problem is that Solomon�s heart is not fixed, or, to use the terms of later prophecy, the law is not written on his heart. From this perspective, the narrative shows both that Yahweh fulfilled the promise to Abraham in partial ways under the monarchy of Israel, but also shows that the complete fulfillment awaited a new covenant, a covenant of the Spirit and not of the letter. Thus, in both a positive and negative way, Solomon�s marriage to Pharaoh�s daughter points ahead to the final fulfillment of the promise to Abraham in Jesus, the Greater Son of David: Jesus, like Solomon, marries a foreign bride; but Jesus, unlike Solomon, remains faithful to His Father, and His heart is not drawn away by His bride�s gods. So also, the church allies with foreigners, entering into the ecclesial marriage covenant with people from every tribe and tongue and nation; but because the church has entered a new covenant, when the law is written on the heart, the church has the capacity to remain faithful to her lord while in the midst of the nations that serve other lords. Kings thus points both to the glory and the limitations of the Law, and shows that the Abrahamic promise cannot be fulfilled while men are still under Law, in flesh, in Adam.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, August 28, 2004 at 10:01 AM

Permission is given to use material on this site, provided the source is cited, blog entries are republished in full, and the author is notified in advance.