1 Kings 3:12

Solomon, who reigned from about 970 to 931 BC, has only just become king. He has made his throne secure, married Pharaoh’s daughter, and shown his love for the LORD by offering a thousand burnt offerings at Gibeon (1 Kings 3:3–4). That night God comes to him. The verb for “appeared”, râʼâh, is the common word for seeing, used here in the form that means God let himself be seen. The meeting is God’s doing from first to last: he comes, and he speaks first.

He comes in a dream. The word chălôwm covers both the ordinary dream of sleep and the dream in which God speaks, and Scripture knows many of the second kind. God came to Abimelech in a dream (Genesis 20:3) and spoke to Jacob in a dream about the flock (Genesis 31:10–11). Joseph, Pharaoh and Daniel were all addressed this way, and the book of Job says that God speaks to people in dreams (Job 33:15–16). A dream from God was a real message, and Solomon treats it as one.

Then God says, “Ask what I shall give thee.” The verb shâʼal is the everyday word for asking or requesting, and God uses it here as a command. He sets no limit on what may be asked. The offer shows how generous he is, and it also tests the new king, because what a man asks for when he may ask for anything shows what he values most.

Solomon’s answer opens with praise, and the request waits until verse 9. He looks back at his father and says that God showed David “great mercy”. The word is cheçed, which means steadfast love, loyal love, covenant faithfulness. It is an active and lasting loyalty that belongs to a relationship, far richer than pity. The KJV translates the same word as “kindness” later in the verse, so “great mercy” and “great kindness” are one thing named twice.

Solomon then says what that kindness was: “thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.” God had promised David that a son of his own would reign after him and that his house would stand (2 Samuel 7:12–16), a covenant that Psalm 89 celebrates (Psalm 89:28–37). Solomon says God “kept” this kindness for David, holding it safe across the years until the day it came true. He is sitting on the proof of it as he prays. His kingship is a promise fulfilled, and he knows it.

Solomon turns from David to himself with the words “And now, O LORD my God”. He uses the covenant name, the LORD, and adds “my God”, ʼĕlôhîym, the God he personally belongs to. He says that God made him king. His throne came by God’s hand, and he calls himself God’s servant, ʻebed, the word for a bondservant, one who belongs to his master and serves him. The kings of the nations around Israel boasted of their strength and their wealth. Solomon stands before God as a steward who will answer for the people put in his care.

Everything so far leads to one word, “therefore”. Because God has been faithful, because Solomon is unequal to the task, and because the people are God’s and so many, he asks: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart.”

The Hebrew is literally a hearing heart. The heart, lêb, is the centre of the whole inner person in Hebrew thought: the mind, the will, the conscience and the feelings together. Shâmaʻ means to hear with attention and understanding, and it carries the sense of heeding what is heard. Israel’s great confession, the Shema, begins with this call to hear and goes on to loving the LORD with all the heart (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). So Solomon asks for a heart that listens: to God first, and then to the people who will stand before him with their cases and their needs. He wants the kind of wisdom that weighs both sides and decides by what is right.

He asks for it “to judge thy people”. The verb shâphaṭ means to judge, to decide and to govern, and in Israel the king was the highest judge in the land. Solomon wants this heart so “that I may discern between good and bad”. Bîyn is to understand or to discern, to tell one thing from another, and the two things here are ṭôwb, good, and raʻ, bad or evil. A judge who gets these confused harms everyone under him. The prayer for the king in Psalm 72 asks for exactly this kind of ruler, one who judges the poor with righteousness and delivers the needy.

Solomon closes with a question that answers itself: “for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” The word for “great”, kâbêd, used of a people means large and numerous. He is honest that the work is too big for him, and that is why he brings it to God. Proverbs later says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7). The need to tell good from evil belongs to every believer as well: “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14). The story that follows, the two women who each claimed one living child, shows the gift at work (1 Kings 3:16–28).

“And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.” One Hebrew word, dâbâr, stands behind both “speech” and “thing”. It means a word or a speech, and it also means a matter or a thing, so God is pleased both with what Solomon said and with what he asked for. “Pleased” is yâṭab, to be good, and the full Hebrew expression is that the matter was good in the eyes of the Lord, with ʻayin, “eye”. Scripture speaks of God in human terms here so that we can understand his approval and his delight.

Verse 11 gives the reason in God’s own words. ʼÂmar, the ordinary verb for saying, introduces what God declares: “Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment.” Long life is literally many days, yôwm. Riches are ʻôsher, wealth. The life of his enemies joins nephesh, “life”, to ʼôyêb, “enemy”. These were the things kings of that day wanted for themselves and their houses, and Solomon passed over all three.

What he did ask for is named again in new words. “Understanding” is bîyn, the same word as “discern” in his prayer. “To discern judgment” is literally to hear judgment, with shâmaʻ, the hearing of the hearing heart. Mishpâṭ is a judge’s verdict and, more widely, justice. God sums up the request as the ability to hear a case and give a right decision.

So the request pleased God for three reasons. It was humble, coming from a king who admitted his need. It was made for the good of God’s people. And it matched what God himself wants for them, which is just rule. Jesus teaches the same order of things when he tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Proverbs says that wisdom is better than rubies (Proverbs 8:11) and that the LORD is the one who gives it (Proverbs 2:6).

God answers at once: “Behold, I have done according to thy words.” The word is dâbâr again, so Solomon’s speech has become God’s deed. “I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart.” The verb nâthan is the broad Hebrew word for giving, and here it marks wisdom as a gift that comes from God’s hand. “Wise” is châkâm, which describes someone skilful, able to put knowledge to work in right living and just rule. The heart is lêb, the same word Solomon used in his prayer, so God gives precisely what was asked.

Then God adds what Solomon left unasked: “both riches, and honour”. Nâthan comes again, because these too are gifts. Riches are ʻôsher, the very thing Solomon had passed over. Honour is kâbôwd, which means glory, honour and splendour, the esteem Solomon would have among his own people and among the nations. God promises that there will be no king like him “all thy days”. The gift of wisdom came first, and wealth and honour were added to it. This is God’s generosity to one king at one time, and it is no pledge of wealth to every believer. What it does show is that God gives freely beyond what we ask when our asking is in line with his will.

The last gift comes with an “if”: “And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.” Wisdom, riches and honour have been given. Length of days, the first thing Solomon declined to ask for, is promised on the condition of obedience.

Each word of the condition is worth noticing. Yâlak means to walk, and it pictures a steady way of living. God’s ways, derek, are his road, the course of life he has marked out. Statutes, chôq, are things God has prescribed, his laws and decrees. Commandments, mitsvâh, are his commands, and together the two words stand for the whole law given through Moses. To lengthen, ʼârak, is to prolong, and the days are yôwm once more. Solomon had spoken of David’s walk in verse 6, and God now returns that English word to him as the measure of his own life.

This is how God had always dealt with Israel. Moses tied walking in God’s ways to life and long days in the land (Deuteronomy 5:33). The first psalm blesses the man who keeps to the right way (Psalm 1:1–3), and Proverbs joins keeping the commandments to length of days (Proverbs 3:1–2). God had promised David a lasting house as a gift, and each king in that house still answered to God for his own obedience. The condition also says something about wisdom itself. A wise heart is given so that it may be lived out, and the gift is to be guarded by faithfulness.

“And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream.” Yâqats means to awake. Solomon comes back to the ordinary world knowing that God has truly spoken to him, and what he does next shows how seriously he takes it. He goes straight to Jerusalem and stands before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. The ark was the holiest thing in Israel, the place where God had promised to meet with his people (Exodus 25:10–22). Gibeon had the old tabernacle and its altar, while Jerusalem had the ark and was the capital. By worshipping there Solomon brings his thanks to the centre of the nation’s life with God.

He offers two kinds of sacrifice. The burnt offering, ʻôlâh, takes its name from a root meaning to go up, because the whole animal was burned on the altar. It spoke of atonement and of giving oneself wholly to God. In the peace offering a part came back to the worshipper and the priests for a shared meal, so it spoke of thanksgiving and fellowship with God. David had offered the same two sacrifices when he brought the ark to Jerusalem. Together they are a full answer to God’s kindness: Solomon gives himself, and he rejoices.

Then he “made a feast to all his servants”. The private dream ends in a public table. Solomon shares his joy with his household and court, and so shows that God’s favour to the king is meant for the good of the people around him. A psalm asks what we can give back to the LORD for all his benefits (Psalm 116:12), and Proverbs answers in part: honour the LORD with what you have (Proverbs 3:9–10).

Solomon received wisdom as a gift. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), made wisdom for us (1 Corinthians 1:30), and in him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). The Queen of the South travelled far to hear Solomon, and Jesus said of himself that one greater than Solomon was there (Matthew 12:42). Isaiah had foretold a king on whom the Spirit of wisdom and understanding would rest, who would judge with righteousness (Isaiah 11:2–4), the Prince of Peace whose government on David’s throne has no end (Isaiah 9:6–7). Solomon’s wisdom faltered when his heart turned. Christ’s is perfect and lasts for ever.

The son God gave David “to sit on his throne” points beyond Solomon to the Son of David (Matthew 1:1), to whom God gives the throne of his father David and who reigns for ever (Luke 1:32–33). In him the kindness God kept for David reaches its height, the exceeding riches of his grace toward us (Ephesians 2:7). Solomon called himself God’s servant. Jesus is the Servant of whom Isaiah spoke (Isaiah 42:1, Isaiah 53:11). Though he was equal with God, he took the form of a servant and was obedient to death on a cross, and God has highly exalted him (Philippians 2:6–9). Where Solomon asked for a gift, Jesus in Gethsemane asked that the Father’s will be done (Luke 22:42). He learned obedience through what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8) and walked in God’s ways without fail, the thing Solomon was told to do and did only for a while.

The chosen people too many to count have become, in Christ, a people chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), a great multitude from every nation (Revelation 7:9), gathered by one Shepherd into one fold (John 10:16). He is the door by which his sheep go in and out and find pasture (John 10:9), so the going out and coming in that Solomon could not manage is safe in his hands. All authority in heaven and on earth is his (Matthew 28:18), and what he gives are “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8) and everlasting life to all who believe (John 3:16).

Solomon’s worship points the same way. The ark stood for God’s presence among his people, and in Jesus God is with us (Matthew 1:23): “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The burnt offerings and peace offerings looked ahead to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), who entered the holy place once with his own blood (Hebrews 9:12). Solomon’s feast for his servants is a small picture of the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9).

This passage shows us who God is toward those who come to him. He comes first, he invites, and he gives freely. God appeared to Solomon in order to give, and through Christ the invitation now stands open to all his people, who may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16).

It also shows what a good prayer looks like from the inside. Solomon began with thanks for what God had already done, told the truth about his own weakness, kept in view the people he was meant to serve, and then asked for what the work required. Whatever God has put in our care, whether a family, a class, a church or a job, those people are his before they are ours, and feeling small beside the task is a sound place to start praying. God was pleased with a king who knew he needed help.

The wisdom Solomon asked for is promised to us as well. God gives it to all who ask (James 1:5). The Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us into all truth (John 14:26, John 16:13), and Paul prays that God would give believers the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (Ephesians 1:17). A hearing heart is still the heart God delights to give, and he gives it to be lived out in walking with him. When he has been kind, the fitting answer is the one Solomon made that morning: worship, and a table shared with others.