I Kings 11:3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart
Who is the wisest person who has ever lived? The answer most quickly given by people familiar with the Bible is King Solomon. He was indeed a very wise man. Well, how many wives did he have? I Kings 11:3 says, “And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.” Talk about an understatement. A thousand wives turned away his heart from Jehovah. I guess so. Now, this was not marriage the way we understand it. These were political alliances. He would not have known all these wives, but that the kings who gave their daughters in marriage would not attack their son-in-law was the basic idea.
So, who is the wisest man? Solomon. How many wives did he had? A thousand. The obvious question is, “How wise is that?” I am literally not wise enough to be that dumb. I don’t have the capacity to make that big of a mistake. Now, was Solomon wise? Yes. Did he ask God for wisdom? Yes. Did God give him wisdom? Yes. How many wives did he have? I will say, if you only have the wisdom of Solomon, your family will crash and burn.
How do you account for all of this? If you go back to I Kings 3 the Bible tells us precisely what Solomon asked God for. He asked, “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” He says, “God, I am a child. I know nothing. Help me to have the discernment to judge and lead your people.”
By the way, the next ten chapters are all about examples of how God answered that prayer. In fact, the very next story is about two women who claimed the same child. One of their children had died and both of them claimed the child that was left. Solomon simply said, “Get me a sword and I will cut the child in half.” At which point the real mother said, “No, give the child to the other woman.” Solomon then said, “That is the real mother, the one who had compassion on the baby.” That seems so simple. We think, “I would have thought of that.” It looked simple because Solomon was a genius. He was threatening to divide the baby just as his wisdom divided between right and wrong, good and bad, better and best with the subjects of his kingdom.
He was a great king, the wisest ruler who ever lived. Was he the wisest dad? Transparently not. Was he the wisest husband? Obviously not. The point is Solomon had precisely that wisdom for which he had asked God. If he had said, “God, I don’t know how to be a good father. Help me to do that,” don’t you think God would have answered that prayer? I Kings 2 makes it clear that Solomon already had political savvy, but he needed more. He was wise enough to know he wasn’t wise enough. He asked; God gave. What he did not do, because apparently he thought it was so simple, was ask God to help him be the kind of father and husband he should be.
The point is the wisdom you need begins at home. You can be a success in business or history, have a lot of money, or be very gifted, but if you are a failure at home, that is not the kind of wisdom you want anything to do with. God knows that often you feel the failures of life, but the wisdom you need begins at home.
Solomon’s lack of wisdom was the weakness of the kingdom. I Kings 11:3 says, “And he had seven hundred wives, princesses.” They weren’t princesses because they were married to Solomon or in his harem. They were princesses because their fathers were rulers of other countries. So, because he was so focused on the kingdom and ignored his family, the lack of family wisdom made him a failure ultimately in the kingdom. These princesses turned his heart away from God.
The next chapter talks about the dissolution of the kingdom. The failure of the kingdom was the failure of a family. I Kings is a book of kings, kingdoms, fathers, and families and that is all tied together. So, the wisdom you need begins at home and the lack of that wisdom was the weakness of the kingdom.
I would also say that the wisdom you need for home is the premise of Proverbs. In Proverbs 1 the father says, “My son, what you need is wisdom.” Verse 7 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” In Proverbs 31 you find a mother telling her son, who would be king, wisdom for his life. In Proverbs 31 we see a king can be destroyed by his own vices and learn wisdom from his own mother. Even a king can do that. In Proverbs 31 the advice of a mother was the policy of a kingdom or at least should have been.
The point is the wisdom I need begins at home. It may expand to the domains I have and gifts God has given me, but it begins at home. Ask God and start with your people. I hope you will be a success. I hope you will do grand things in this life, but the wisdom you need begins very simply in the home God has given you.