Scripture Sunday: Tabernacle Wisdom

by Ashtyn Adams

1 Kings 3:10-12 (NRSV)
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

King Solomon is the pinnacle figure associated with wisdom in the Christian imagination. Of all the possibilities, Soloman asks God for wisdom in a dream, so he may rule God’s people justly. It is a moment of hope for humanity, Solomon becoming the new Adam who does not choose to take knowledge for himself, but wants God to give it to him. Just as Moses is associated with the Pentateuch, and David with the Psalms, Solomon is likewise associated with the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Scriptures: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Song of Songs. The Bible, of course, reveals a much more complicated history of authorship and reception, but various faith communities have chosen to hold onto these broad categories which honor their heroes. If we only read the verses given to us in the lectionary this week, it would also lead us to believe the picture of Solomon is quite straightforward. Solomon asks for wisdom, God gives it to him, all is well! Yet, in these few verses alone, the lectionary cuts out Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh's daughter before his dream as well as the tangent of God’s promise, "if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments,” (emphasis mine) after verse 12. The reality of Solomon’s desire for wisdom is not so simple and his portrait requires some evaluation. Luckily the biblical text lends itself to our discernment of the fuller picture that might allow us to gain some wisdom for ourselves in the process. As people seeking justice in a world succumbed to contemporary self-help traditions, which put the self at the center at the cost of the rest of the created order, desiring wisdom is vital to the survival of our planet. So what can we learn from Solomon’s wisdom, as well as his foolishness? What might Godly wisdom look like for us in the climate crisis?

As people seeking justice in a world succumbed to contemporary self-help traditions, which put the self at the center at the cost of the rest of the created order, desiring wisdom is vital to the survival of our planet.

Solomon is the human who finally asks for wisdom, and yet, he is Samuel’s warning to Israel fulfilled: a king like the other nations. Some interpreters understand Solomon’s rule as starting out well and slowly deteriorating. After all, his account of determining who was the real mother of a child after two women both claimed to be is notoriously known. At one point the Queen of Sheba pays Solomon a visit to test him with questions after hearing his reputation, and recognizes that his wisdom far exceeds what she has heard, that, “Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness” (1 Kings 10:9). However, scholars like Dr. Ellen Davis would call into question Solomon’s wisdom from the very beginning, from the dream. She calls it comfortable, but not persuasive, since “assurance of divine compliance with human desire is not characteristic of YHWH’s interaction with the chosen leaders of Israel, from Abraham to Moses to Jeremiah. None of them, nor even Jesus, receives such an assurance. Instead, they struggle with what God demands of them and ultimately yield to it, whatever the cost.” No matter when one begins to question the integrity of Solomon's reign, the lure of empire becomes so powerful that an internal pharaoh-hood is established in Israel, and by the end of his life “his heart was not whole with YHWH his God,” and he becomes a source of oppression, making his people’s “yoke heavy” (1 Kings 12:4). ​

According to Dueteronomy 17, the King of Israel is supposed to essentially be a scribe of Torah. The King cannot acquire horses, wives, or gold and silver in abundance. The King must not make the people return to Egypt, meaning no forms of forced labor. Solomon does all of these things, being fabulously wealthy, having 700 wives and 300 concubines, expanding the boundaries of the kingdom through strategy and military prowess, and building the temple his father David was denied through work gangs and taxation. Description is not the same thing as prescription though, and rather than viewing Solomon as wise, the biblical authors are showing us just how far Solomon has fallen from the ideal King. Part of Israel’s historical books can be viewed as a confession after exile, and here, we see the faithlessness which brings destruction and burden to the people and land rather than shalom. ​

​The detailed account of Solomon’s building projects, accomplished through forced labor, is a demonstration of merciless political craft at the expense of the vulnerable. The agricultural extraction he implements, as Dr. Ellen Davis explains, “was a hardship on a nation of mostly subsistence farmers, managing smallholdings in a highland landscape that is marginal for an agrarian economy.” She points out the stark contrast between Solomon’s building of the temple with the equally detailed description of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus. The wilderness tabernacle was built voluntarily among men and women who brought materials with willing hearts. True wisdom is not demonstrated by Solomon, but rather Bezalel, the architect of the tabernacle, who was filled with the “spirit of God, with wisdom, with skill and knowledge in all manner of work.”

Wisdom was an essential virtue of ancient Near Eastern rulers, but empire wisdom is not tabernacle wisdom. The people of God might admire Solomon’s request for wisdom, and be intrigued by his fascinating stories, but readers must also be wary of the seductive pull of power and empire. Solomon is not the figure we should emulate, but rather Bezalel, who builds with rest and justice of the people and land in mind. Or, we may look to Jesus, who says he is “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42). What does that “greatness” look like? It is not exploitative or self-aggrandizing, but sacrificial, with care for the “least of these,” the marginalized at the center. Jesus chooses to die to Empire rather than partake in it, and I wonder if we would ever dare to be so radical in the Anthropocene. Wisdom is costly, it will require the death of our egos, our comforts, and the known. Yet, it is what will bring the Kingdom of God, the restored Eden, the blessing of abundance to all the nations. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” says Proverbs 9:10. Wisdom is a lifelong choice, and the canonical dance of the wisdom literature can help us move through the cycles of orientation and disorientation. But the story of Solomon, his dream and his rule, invite us to think deeply about how his “wisdom” is manifested, what standards we are conforming to, who we are perceiving as “wise,” and what sort of truths we choose to overlook for the sake of keeping our leaders images in tact. We must strive for tabernacle wisdom, a posture fully aligned with God’s intents for covenant and creation, where we see ourselves as part of a human and nonhuman community. Such wisdom respects material and human resources and affirms that there is such a thing as “enough.” It is completely other from our own industrialized world, which has no limits for extraction, no sense of our creatureliness. Our greed, for example, has removed large areas of natural forests, not only disregarding the value of biodiversity, but blinding us to how they help regulate our carbon and water cycles and influence agricultural yields. An honest evaluation of Solomon can help us face the reality we find ourselves caught up in, where we too “do what is right in their own eyes” while our environment suffers and yearns for liberation. ​

We must strive for tabernacle wisdom, a posture fully aligned with God’s intents for covenant and creation, where we see ourselves as part of a human and nonhuman community. Such wisdom respects material and human resources and affirms that there is such a thing as “enough.”

Resources 
​Books:
Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

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Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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