Following on the heels of yesterday’s post about horses, one thing I should point out is that Egypt was Israel’s prime supplier of horses in those days.
Or another way to put it.
There’s no way in hell Israel could’ve gotten a hold of so many horses without getting them from Egypt.
Horses were mega-valuable animals in the Biblical era.
And they were key to achieving victory on the battlefield.
That’s why a nation that possessed an abundance of horses didn’t just sell them to anyone.
The same principle applies to military armaments in modern-day politics.
A nation that manufactures devastating military weapons is only gonna sell them to countries they’re cool with.
Ya feel me?
Military weapons are also often used as political bargaining chips.
To that point, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that there is a connection between Solomon marrying Pharaoh’s daughter and the vast number of horses he now had at his disposal.
There’s an important takeaway here.
Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter was the beginning of the end in terms of his relationship with the Lord.
Why?
Because that marriage was nothing more than a union between Egypt and Israel.
And that type of union was forbidden!
Here’s the Torah reference:
“When you have entered the land ADONAI your God is giving you, have taken possession of it and are living there, you may say, ‘I want to have a king over me, like all the other nations around me.’ In that event, you must appoint as king the one whom ADONAI your God will choose. He must be one of your kinsmen, this king you appoint over you- you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who is not your kinsman. However, he is not to acquire many horses for himself or have the people return to Egypt to obtain more horses, inasmuch as ADONAI told you never to go back that way again. Likewise, he is not to acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart will not turn away; and he is not to acquire excessive quantities of silver and gold.” Deuteronomy 17:14-17
See, Solomon intended to lead Israel into a new and advanced era of peace and enlightenment.
The only problem was that he was trying to do it while breaking God’s commandments.
And that homie ain’t gonna hunt.
Just look at the number of commandments from that passage Solomon was breaking.
The Torah says that if Israel should ever appoint a king over themselves, that king should NOT lead Israel back to Egypt.
By marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, Solomon had allied with Egypt, which was essentially leading Israel right back to dependence on their former slave masters.
Don’t get me wrong.
I’m not saying Israel should have gone to war against Egypt.
But mingling or allying with them, whether politically, religiously, or socially in any way, shape, or form, was strictly forbidden.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Solomon then went on to acquire a humongous number of horses and married a huge number of women from different nations.
Both were forbidden by Torah.
Solomon appeared to have not only ignored these commandments.
The man gleefully went in the opposite direction to the extreme.
The eventual consequences were guaranteed.
Nothing good was gonna come from ignoring God’s commandments.
It was so back then.
And just as much so today.
Ya feel me?
Done.
Leave a Reply