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SEVEN – Solomon

When Solomon is king of Israel, his daily provisions are 20 tons of flour, ten fat oxen, twenty pastured cattle, and a hundred sheep – besides harts, gazelles, roebucks, and fowl (1 Kings 4:22-23).

To build the temple he uses 30,000 forced laborers to collect wood from Lebanon, plus 80,000 quarrymen, 70,000 general laborers, and 3,300 supervisors. It takes seven years (1 Kings 5:13‑16).

Everything is made of gold or covered in gold: Solomon imports twenty tons of gold per year. Even his household cups are made of gold. ‘Nothing was made of silver, because it was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon’ (1 Kings 6:21; 10:14,21).

While building the temple, Solomon builds six other palaces and public buildings ‘of like workmanship’ (1 Kings 7:1‑8).

Solomon has seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3).

Perhaps all of this is gluttony and excess. Perhaps it is a righteously exuberant celebration of the goodness of God. Either way, it is most certainly SEVEN.

Even before the end of the reign of King David, Solomon and his brother Adonijah are rivals for the throne. When David makes clear his preference for Solomon, the issue is effectively settled: Adonijah’s court disbands and Solomon makes peace with him (1 Kings 1:1‑53). It all goes wrong when Adonijah approaches Solomon with a request – for the hand of a member of Solomon’s household in marriage. Adonijah comes humbly and in peace, and even approaches Solomon through an intermediary, but still Solomon’s anger flares up, and he has Adonijah executed at once – without further discussion, and without even meeting him. Two of Adonijah’s former supporters are also executed and another is exiled (1 Kings 2:1‑46). It may even have been a misunderstanding – but Solomon probably feared at that moment for the security of his kingdom. Under pressure, he went to his stress type, the angry ONE, who is also the ONE who likes to see a job completed and perfected with all the loose ends tied up – hence the executions and the exile. In a blaze of anger, Solomon destroys the former rivals with whom he has so recently made peace.

Now God intervenes to determine what this new king Solomon will become. In a dream, God appears to Solomon and invites Solomon to ask one thing of God. Solomon’s reply is humble, very much aware of the awesome responsibility he holds, and of the model set by his father David – to which he refers. He is at his SIX wing, clinging to what he knows, and seeking to be loyal to his father’s memory and to God. And now in this key moment, before the awesome presence of God, Solomon goes to his security type FIVE, and asks for this: that he might have an understanding mind to govern God’s people; that he might be able to discern between good and evil. He asks for wisdom. This pleases God, and God grants his request, and so the legendary wisdom of Solomon is found (1 Kings 3:3‑14). It could well be that Solomon now spends the rest of his reign feeling confident and secure – and living life on the SEVEN-FIVE axis.

The first test of Solomon’s wisdom is when two harlots come to him in a dispute about a child: both had given birth; one child had died; each claimed that the living child was their own. Solomon tests them out – his EIGHT wing – in a most uncompromising manner, suggesting the child be divided in two, using a sword, that they might have half each. This is the EIGHT wing pushing at the very limits, as EIGHTs will. The real mother pleads for the life of the child, giving up any claim on her half in order that it might live: the pretender would have been happy to see it die – and Solomon awards the child to its mother (1 Kings 3:15‑28).

The wisdom of Solomon is assumed to form the basis of the book of Proverbs. In its opening chapters, the book of Proverbs stresses the importance of teaching wisdom from one generation to the next. It then provides countless one-line pieces of written advice. As detailed, written advice, to be taught down the generations, the advice of the book of Proverbs is not to ‘go with your gut instincts’ or ‘go with your heart’: rather it is head zone advice, and therefore very SIX – ‘stick with what you know.’ This is Solomon on the SIX wing of both home base SEVEN and security and wisdom link FIVE.

Toward the end of his life, Solomon’s heart was led astray by his SEVENish excess: his many wives turned his heart to many gods (1 Kings 11:1‑13). This is blamed for the division of the kingdom into two immediately following Solomon’s death – but it is also interesting to note which single sector of the board is inaccessible to SEVEN. SEVEN has no easy access to the leadership and team-building of THREE. Solomon may have built a fine temple and led the nation into times of great prosperity, but he did not have the gifts of THREE to hold the nation together.

If the attribution of the book of Ecclesiastes to Solomon is correct, then in his old age Solomon reflected on all that had gone before. Deep into FIVEish observation of all that had been, he notes the material excesses of his life, and reflects that the simple pleasures are the most important. He reflects in often poetic, FOURish verse – and his final advice is not to think about it all too deeply after all, but to stick with what you know, and stay happy come what may. In his reflection, Solomon’s journey is the journey of SEVEN: finally facing the pain of the world – its potential ‘vanity’ or ‘emptiness’ – he has slowed down, resolved to see the beauty and the joy in simple things, and learned that God has a place and a time for everything, not just the radiant.

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