Here then are one thousandwives to form this great bad man's harem! Was it possible that such a person could have any piety to God, who was absorbed by such a number of women? We scarcely allow a man to have the fear of God who has a second wife or mistress; in what state then must the man be who has one thousand of them? We may endeavour to excuse all this by saying, "It was a custom in the East to have a multitude of women, and that there were many of those whom Solomon probably never saw," &c., &c. But was there any of them whom he might not have seen? Was it for reasons of state, or merely court splendour, that he had so many? How then is it said that he loved many strangewomen?-that he clave to them in love? And did he not give them the utmost proofs of his attachment when he not only tolerated their iniquitous worship in the land, but built temples to their idols, and more, burntincense to them himself? As we should not condemn what God justifies, so we should not justify what God condemns. He went after Ashtaroth, the impure Venus of the Sidonians; after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites; after Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites; and after the murderous Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. He seems to have gone as far in iniquity as it was possible.
Ver. 3. And he had seven hundredwives, princesses, and three hundredconcubines , etc.] In all 1000, a prodigious number; though these might not be all for use, but for state after the manner of the eastern monarchs; these were a far greater number than are alluded to in ( Song of Solomon 6:8), unless the virgins without number there, were such of these as were not defiled by him; but the number here seems plainly referred to in ( Ecclesiastes 7:28), and his wives turned away his heart ; both from his duty to his God, and from attendance to his business as a king, especially the former, as follows.
