1 Kings 3:2

The marriage went against the law God gave through Moses, which warned Israel against marrying among the nations because such marriages would draw their hearts to other gods: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:3–4). Exodus gives the same warning about taking the daughters of the land as wives for Israel’s sons, lest they lead them after their gods (Exodus 34:16). In worldly terms the match was shrewd. It also leaned on a great power for the security that the LORD had promised to give his people, and it brought a foreign princess, with her customs and her gods, into the heart of Israel’s royal family.

Solomon would soon receive from God a wise and understanding heart like no king before him (1 Kings 3:12), and he begins his reign with a step the law had warned against. The story later ends where the law said it would. In his old age Solomon’s many foreign wives turned his heart away from the LORD to their gods (1 Kings 11:1–8), and the kingdom was divided after him. This first marriage is the quiet beginning of that fall. A compromise made for sound reasons at the start of a reign became a pattern that grew until it ruled him.

Pharaoh’s daughter lived in the city of David, the old Jebusite stronghold that David had taken and made his capital, where the ark of the covenant now rested. She stayed there “until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.” Those are the three great works of Solomon’s early reign: his palace, the temple and the defences of his capital.

The English “house” stands twice in this verse, and both times the Hebrew is bayith, a word for a house of every kind, a family, a court, a palace or a temple. The king’s house and the LORD’s house are named side by side in a verse that opens with a foreign marriage, which sets Solomon’s own ambitions next to his calling to build for God. The temple fulfils God’s promise to David that his son would build a house for his name (2 Samuel 7:13), and its building and dedication fill 1 Kings 5–8.

The verse gives the reason itself: the house for the name of the LORD was yet to be built. Its opening word “Only”, raq, introduces this as an explanation, and the high places were then the main places where the people could offer sacrifice. “Until those days” marks the situation as one about to change, for Solomon would build the house. David had longed to build a house for God while the ark dwelt within curtains (2 Samuel 7:2). God reserved that work for David’s son (2 Samuel 7:1–17), and in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign it began (1 Kings 6:1).

The name in that phrase is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, God’s own name, from a root meaning “to be”. It names him as the self-existent, eternal God of Israel. A house built “unto the name of the LORD” is a house where his revealed presence, his authority and his character would be honoured in worship distinct from the practices of the nations.

The high places remained a danger even when the LORD was worshipped there. Many had been Canaanite sites, and worship at them easily mixed the worship of the LORD with the customs of other gods. The prophets condemned them, and in a later reign King Josiah defiled the high places from one end of Judah to the other (2 Kings 23:8).

The verse says so in its first words: “And Solomon loved the LORD.” The “only” marks a place where his practice fell short of God’s command, within a love that was true. A sincere believer can love God and still hold on to a practice God has spoken against, and the account of Solomon shows where that can lead. Partial obedience still falls short, and God asks for undivided worship. Joshua had charged Israel to keep all that was written in the law of Moses and to keep apart from the gods of the nations (Joshua 23:6–8), and Jesus said that no man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). The high places in Solomon’s early worship are a small thing beside the idolatry of his old age, and they are where that later story begins.

Gibeon held the tabernacle and its altar, and that made it the great high place and the recognised site for the nation’s sacrifices. David had brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, and the other sacred things of the tabernacle remained at Gibeon. When Solomon went there he was keeping to the established worship of his time. Gibeon served in this way until the temple was finished and dedicated, when Solomon prayed that God’s eyes would be open toward that house, the place of which he had said, “My name shall be there” (1 Kings 8:29).

The high place where Solomon worshipped in verse 4 is the lawful one, while verse 3 counts the high places as the one shortfall in his walk. The two verses belong together. Gibeon had the true altar, and the people’s many other high places belonged to a time of waiting that God meant to end with his house in Jerusalem.

A burnt offering, ʻôlâh, takes its name from the verb ʻâlâh, to go up. The whole animal was burned on the altar, apart from the hide, which went to the priest, and the smoke went up to God (Leviticus 1:3–9). It spoke of complete dedication and of atonement, the worshipper giving himself wholly to God.

“A thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer upon that altar.” The number shows the extraordinary scale of the worship, the wealth of the king and the earnestness of his heart. Solomon was seeking God’s blessing on his reign in the open, before the nation. That night God appeared to him in a dream and told him to ask what he would have (1 Kings 3:5), and Solomon asked for an understanding heart to judge God’s people (1 Kings 3:9). The whole account runs through 1 Kings 3:4–15. God honours those who honour him, and a king who began with wholehearted worship received the wisdom to rule. Solomon’s worship here is the trust in the LORD that Proverbs commends, which leans on God’s understanding and acknowledges him in every way (Proverbs 3:5–6).