Solomon and His Sons

A father’s personal obedience is the only soil in which his verbal instruction can take root; when a father’s life contradicts his lips, his children will follow his footsteps rather than his rules.

“My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways” (Proverbs 23:26).

The Technical Parent and the Moral Heart

Few documents are more revealing of human vanity than the letters of advice written by parents who have themselves made a shipwreck of their lives. It would be better if such letters did not have to be written; yet many, having traveled down the wrong road, attempt to steer their children by the light of verbal wisdom while casting the long shadow of a compromised life. We possess an almost infinite capacity to separate the rules we prescribe from the paths we walk. We believe that our children will be guided by our verbal wisdom rather than the shadow of our personal conduct. This is a tragic mistake, and the bill is always paid in the currency of the next generation’s rebellion.

We treat instruction as if it were an administrative procedure; a set of rules that, spoken clearly, will insulate the next generation from the consequences of our hypocrisy. But the human heart does not submit to administrative procedures. The heart is a moral organ. It learns not from the techniques we preach, but from the lives we practice. A double standard is the most effective teacher of rebellion. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and when a parent lives in instability, he teaches his children to be unstable. 

When we turn to the pages of the scripture, we find the premier parenting expert of the ancient world: Solomon, the king of Israel. Solomon was a man of unparalleled wisdom. The scripture records that he spake three thousand proverbs (1 Kings 4:32). God promised that if he walked in integrity and uprightness, his throne would be established over Israel forever (1 Kings 9:4-5). Solomon understood this legacy and compiled his wisdom into the book of proverbs to instruct his sons. Yet this vault of wisdom produced a legacy of division and ruin. The wisest man raised a son who behaved with absolute folly, and the kingdom was split in two. 

In this article, we look into the quiet tragedy of Solomon’s house. A father’s personal obedience is the only soil in which his verbal instruction can take root. When a father’s life contradicts his lips, his son will follow his footsteps rather than his rules.

I. The Precepts of the Palace

Solomon began his parental task with perfect words. In the book of proverbs, he repeatedly addresses his heir with the intimate plea: “My son” (Proverbs 1:8). He lays out a manual for life, warning his son against ungodly companions: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Proverbs 1:10). He warns him against their path: “My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path” (Proverbs 1:15). 

Nowhere is his warning more intense than when he speaks of the strange woman: “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword” (Proverbs 5:3-4). He warns against financial folly and laziness (Proverbs 6:1-11), and he pleads with him to accept the correction of the Lord: “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction”(Proverbs 3:11). At the heart of all this instruction was a demand for the boy’s devotion: “My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways” (Proverbs 23:26).

Solomon was fulfilling the legal command to teach his children diligently (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). His words were flawless. If a young man walked in the proverbs of Solomon, he would walk in safety. Yet, Solomon was preparing his son for a battle that he himself was about to lose.

There is a profound difference between wisdom given as a sudden gift and wisdom earned through the slow, painful process of experience. God granted Solomon wisdom overnight; but because he did not walk through the crucible of experience to acquire it, he lacked the character to value it. He could tell you all the right things, but he did not feel the weight of the path. He wrote the manual, but he failed to run the race. This is the gap that exists when wisdom is treated as an intellectual acquisition rather than a lived reality.

II. The Poison of the Palace

The narrative turns from the precepts of proverbs to the tragic pivot of the eleventh chapter of First Kings. The scripture records: “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites” (1 Kings 11:1). 

Solomon forgot his own proverbs. The man who wrote “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23) failed to guard his own. Unlike Nehemiah, who stood with holy fury against the compromise of strange marriages, Solomon clave to these in love, despite what the word of God said. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. His wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father (1 Kings 11:4).

The tragedy is summarized in the brief, damning phrase: “went not fully after the Lord” (1 Kings 11:6). Solomon did not deny the God of Israel; if questioned, he would have affirmed his devotion. But his heart was divided. He was half-hearted. He built high places for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of Ammon, in the hill before Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7-8). It was for Molech that Israel would later sacrifice their infants in the fire; yet Solomon built an altar to that very god. Compromise is a consuming fire, and no man can dip his toe in paganism without burning his entire house.

Consider the environment of the young prince, Rehoboam. In the morning, he heard his father read proverbs warning that the strange woman leads to death (Proverbs 7:27). In the afternoon, he looked out the palace window and saw his father building altars for his strange wives (1 Kings 11:8).

The sermon of the father’s lips was drowned out by the sight of the father’s altars. Rehoboam observed that when Solomon’s fleshly desires conflicted with the scripture, Solomon chose his desires. The double standard in the home is a slow-acting poison. It did not destroy the father’s generation; Solomon died in his palace, surrounded by luxury. But the poison did its work in the son’s generation. Solomon’s instability became the ruin of his house.

Your sin will never impact you alone. You may tell yourself it is none of anyone else’s business, but your compromise has a reach. When David sinned, the sword did not depart from his house. When Solomon compromised, the captain Joab was left to fight battles in Edom because of the king’s spiritual infidelities (1 Kings 11:14-16). Your choices plant seeds that your children and grandchildren must harvest.

III. The Practice of the Prodigal

In the twelfth chapter of First Kings, Solomon is dead, and Rehoboam ascends the throne. The people of Israel come to the new king, pleading for their yoke to be lightened (1 Kings 12:4). Rehoboam consults the old men who had stood before his father, who advise him to be a servant to the people, that they may be his servants forever (1 Kings 12:6-7).

But the Bible records: “But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him” (1 Kings 12:8). He gathered his peers, the youth who had grown up in the compromised, self-indulgent atmosphere of Solomon’s court, and they advised him to speak roughly.

Rehoboam answered the people roughly, saying: “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14).

This was a speech of pure pride. It was the direct violation of everything written in the book of proverbs: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Rehoboam had heard that verse, yet he walked in pride. 

Why should the son submit to the counsel of the old men when the father had spent his later years rejecting the counsel of God? Rehoboam rejected the rules because his father had rejected the Ruler. He did not inherit his father’s proverbs; he inherited his father’s practices. The division of the kingdom was the direct harvest of Solomon’s personal compromise (1 Kings 12:15-19). If the father compromises a little, the son will compromise a lot. The next generation will always take your negatives further than you took them.

IV. The Household of Grace

Under the Law, Solomon’s kingdom and the unity of the nation were contingent upon physical, legal obedience. In this present dispensation of the grace of God, the Body of Christ is not under the Mosaic law, nor are we promised physical kingdoms. Our blessings are primarily spiritual, located in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). Furthermore, our salvation is not based on our works, but on the free gift of God’s grace received through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). A believer’s personal failure will not cause him to lose his eternal security in Christ.

Yet, the moral and spiritual principle of fatherhood remains. The apostle Paul commands fathers: “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

Our life is the medium through which our children observe the reality of the gospel. When a father preaches the grace of God but lives in the service of the flesh, he teaches his children that the gospel is simply a verbal game. He will lose his testimony, and he may well lose his children to the world. A father who tells his children to love the local church but routinely sacrifices the assembly for recreation, business, or sports is teaching his children that God is a secondary concern. A father who warns his son against the world but allows the world to dominate his own life is building high places in his home. The child will not follow the father’s rules; he will follow the father’s compromise.

Today, we have substituted the biblical command to train up a child with the modern concept of “parenting.” This therapeutic approach is an exercise in psychology, where the parent adjusts to the child rather than teaching the child to adjust to the world. It produces absurd extremes: self-led learning, where five-year-olds direct their own education, or the ridiculous notion that a parent must ask an infant for permission before changing a diaper. Such foolishness is the fruit of a culture that has abandoned the scripture.

We must return to the scriptural pattern. We must establish real, practical boundaries in our homes, holding them lovingly but firmly. We must avoid both the harshness of a military camp and the lawlessness of a permissive household. If we go too far in the militant direction, we provoke our children to wrath; if we go too far in the loose direction, the world swallows them. The scriptural path is the straight and narrow way.

We must include our children in the work of the ministry. It is a blessing to have them laboring and serving together with us, rather than simply sitting as passive observers. It is easy to say, “Be quiet and do what I say,” and while obedience is necessary, it is far better to sit down and explain the “why” behind the boundary. Show them how the work pleases God. Let them see that your life is a consistent walk.

Paul understood the necessity of this visible demonstration of the truth: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do” (Philippians 4:9). A father’s life must be a visible demonstration of the truth he preaches.

Where is Your Heart?

The tragedy of Solomon is that he wanted his son to be wise, but he did not want to remain obedient himself. He wanted Rehoboam to keep his commandments, but he refused to keep the commandments of his own God.

Where is your heart? We ask our children for their hearts: “My son, give me thine heart” (Proverbs 23:26). But have we given our own hearts to the Lord? Are we writing proverbs in our speech but building high places in our schedules, in our homes, and in our lives? Are we warning our sons against ungodly companions while we spend our weeks in fellowship with the world?

Our children do not need expert parenting techniques; they need fathers who walk in integrity. We must walk in uprightness before our families, so that when we say to our sons, “let thine eyes observe my ways,” we are leading them not to the high places of compromise, but to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thomas Irvin
Pastor, Victory Baptist Church, Coden, Alabama
www.VBCoden.com