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This is by far the saddest chapter of this story: Solomon has sought to learn madness and folly, and has hit rock bottom. But that is, in truth, the light at the end of the tunnel. In chapters 30 and 31 of Proverbs (which Solomon wrote), he uses five names that I never realized until studying the subject, were considered names he gave HIMSELF; let's look at those five names...
Pro 30:1 The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal...
Pro 31:1 The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.
Now, in a moment, we'll dig into those names; but first, let these two passages finish their story....
Pro 30:2 Surely I am more like an animal than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man.
Pro 30:3 I have not learned wisdom, nor the knowledge of the holy.
Pro 30:4 Who has gone up to Heaven and has come down? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in His garments? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name? Surely you know.
Pro 31:2 What, my son? And what, the son of my womb? And what, the son of my vows?
Pro 31:3 Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings.
Pro 31:4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes to lust for strong drink;
Pro 31:5 lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
These two passages bring up four things that were the result of his dive into madness and folly: He was stupid; he had lost connection with God; he had lost his strength to the pursuit of sex; and had given in to alcoholism. In short, he was no better than a skid row bum.
Ah, but the light.
Agur, the first name, means, "harvested". He had gone as far as he could go on the road to ruin; God was to begin to draw good from him again. Jakeh means, "obedient", which would be a major change in him. Ithiel means, "God has arrived"; God was about to return to his life. Ucal means, "devoured"; God was going to consume his sin and redeem him. And Lemuel, best of all, means "(belonging) to God." So how does he go from bum back to king?
Because when he hit bottom, he remembered who he was, and who God was. You see, I told you at the beginning I learned the story in reverse, and what I learned came from two eerily similar verses in Ecclesiastes:
Ecc 1:15 What is crooked cannot be made straight; and that lacking cannot be numbered.
Ecc 7:13 Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked?
A friend of mine on X, on Healthy Faith Chat, told me that the key to Ecclesiastes was the oft-repeated phrase, "under the sun"; that Solomon was failing because he was limiting his search of wisdom to EARTHLY things. I really didn't get that until now. Solomon starts his search depending only on himself, and what he can see; only later does he realize he'll learn nothing of use that way, since true wisdom is from God. More than that, Wisdom IS God- the Holy Spirit, as Solomon himself describes in Proverbs 8. And the Spirit as wisdom has two attributes:
Pro 8:14 Counsel and sound wisdom are mine; I am understanding; I have strength.
Solomon was working with the understanding, but ignoring the strength. Much like Elijah, when he fled from Jezebel and became depressed was in the opposite direction...
1Ki 19:9 And he came there to a cave and stayed there. And behold, the Word of Jehovah came to him, and He said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
1Ki 19:10 And he said, I have been very zealous for Jehovah the God of Hosts. For the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and have slain Your prophets with the sword. And I, I alone, am left. And they seek to take my life away.
You see, Elijah had the power, but lacked knowledge...
1Ki 19:18 (God speaking) Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.
But now, Solomon began to realize that one without the other does you no good; it leads to you either thinking you're all alone, or you can do it all alone. So he finally returned to the source of power and knowledge, and God had arrived, and he belonged to God again.
But sadly, it was too late...
Ecc 12:1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”...
Ecc 12:6 ...before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern,
Ecc 12:7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
He found himself having to plead to his son Rehoboam, to learn the lessons Solomon himself should have learned, and tried vainly to turn him from the errors he could already forsee his son would make...
Pro 1:8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching,
Pro 1:9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
Pro 1:10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
Pro 1:11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason;
Pro 1:12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
Pro 1:13 we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;
Pro 1:14 throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”—
Pro 1:15 my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths,
Pro 1:16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
And thus, when Solomon passed on, and Rehoboam became king-
1Ki 12:8 But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him.
1Ki 12:9 And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?”
1Ki 12:10 And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us,’ thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs.
1Ki 12:11 And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”
And in listening to them, instead of his father- who had waited till Rehoboam was in his 30s to figure it out for himself- he destroyed his kingdom.
And thus we learn from Solomon a lesson that echoed my own life- "Learn it young, or there will be consequences, and you yourself won't be paying them."
With apologies to my children.
