1 Kings 3:5

1 Kings A YOUNG MAN’S WISE CHOICE OF WISDOM1 Kings 3:5 - 1 Kings 3:15 . The new king was apparently some nineteen or twenty years old on his accession. He stepped at once out of seclusion and idleness to bear the whole weight of the kingdom. The glories of David’s reign, his brother Adonijah’s pretensions to the crown, the smouldering hostility of Saul’s old partisans, made his position difficult and his throne unsteady. No doubt, ‘the weight of too much dignity’ pressed on the youth, and this dream found a point of origin in his waking thoughts. God does not thus reveal Himself to men who seek Him not; and the offer in the vision is but the repetition of what Solomon felt in many a waking moment of meditation that God was saying to him, and the choice he makes in it is the choice that he had already made. He who seeks wisdom first is already wise. I. Note the wide possibilities opened by the divine offer. Our narrative brings that gracious offer into connection with Solomon’s lavish sacrifice before the Tabernacle at Gibeon. ‘God loveth a cheerful giver’ and because these thousand burnt offerings meant devotion and thankfulness, therefore He who lets no man be the poorer for what he gives to Him, and is honoured most, not by our givings to, but by our takings from Him, comes in the quiet night, and puts the key of all His treasures into the young king’s hands. In a very real sense this divine voice is but the putting into words of the fact as to every young life.

The all but boundless possibilities before every young man and woman give solemnity to their position, which they too often do not recognise till youth is past. The future lies blank before them, ready to receive what they choose to write on its page. Once written, it is indelible. They are still free from the limitations of habit and associations. They have still the capacity and the opportunity of choice. There are limits, of course, but still it is scarcely exaggeration to say that a man may become almost anything he likes, if he strongly wills it when young, and sticks to his resolve. When the liquid iron flows from the blast furnace, it may be run into any mould; but it soon cools and hardens, and obstinately keeps its shape, in spite of hammers. If young men and women could but see the possibilities of their youth, and the issues that hang on early choice, as clearly as they will see them some day, there would be fewer wasted mornings of life and fewer gloomy sunsets. But the misery is that so many do not choose at all, but just let things slide, and allow themselves to be moulded by whatever influence happens to be strongest. For one man who goes wrong by deliberate choice, with open eyes, there are twenty who simply drift. Unfortunately, there is more evil than good in the world; and if a lad takes his colour from his surroundings, the chances are terribly against his coming to anything high, noble, or pure.

1 Kings 3:5 . The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream — As he had done to Jacob at Bethel, Genesis 28:13 ; and to others on different occasions, Genesis 20:3 ; Genesis 26:24 . Sleep is like a state of death to the soul; wherein the senses are locked up, and the understanding and will deprived of the free exercise of their functions. And yet this is no impediment to God in communicating his will to mankind; for no doubt he has power, not only to awaken our intellectual faculties, but to advance them above their ordinary measure of perception, even while the body is asleep. Solomon had prayed the day before with great fervency, and desired of God the gift of wisdom: see Wis 7:7 . In the night-time God appeared unto him in a dream, and bade him ask whatever he would. Solomon, having his mind still full of the desire of wisdom, asked and obtained it: so that the prayer or desire he uttered in his dream was but the consequence of the option he had made the day before, when he was awake. In a word, though we should allow that the soul of man, when the body is asleep, is in a state of rest and inactivity; yet we cannot but think that God can approach it many different ways; can move and actuate it just as he pleases; and, when he is inclined to make a discovery of any thing, can set such a lively representation of it before the understanding, as shall make a man not doubt of the reality of the vision. See Calmet and Dodd.

(5) The Lord appeared .—This direct communication to Solomon by a dream—standing in contrast with the indirect knowledge of the Lord’s will by David through the prophets Nathan and Gad ( 2Samuel 7:2-17 ; 2Samuel 12:1-14 ; 2Samuel 24:11-14 ), and by “enquiring of the Lord” through the priest ( 1Samuel 23:9-12 ; 1Samuel 30:7 ; 2Samuel 2:1 )—is perhaps the first indication of some temporary abeyance of the prophetic office, and (as appears still more clearly from the history of the consecration of the Temple), of a loss of leadership in the priesthood. At the same time it is to be noted that the vision of the Lord through dreams, being of a lower type than the waking vision, is mostly recorded as given to those outside the Covenant, as Abimelech ( Genesis 20:3-7 ), Laban ( Genesis 31:24 ), Pharaoh and his servants ( Genesis 40:5 ; Genesis 41:1-8 ), the Midianite ( Judges 7:13 ), and Nebuchadnezzar ( Daniel 2:1 ; Daniel 4:10-18 ); as belonging to the early stages of revelation, to Abraham ( Genesis 15:12 ), Jacob ( Genesis 28:12-15 ), and Joseph ( Genesis 37:5-10 ); and as marking the time of cessation of the regular succession of the prophets during the Captivity ( Daniel 2:19 ; Daniel 7:1 ).