1 Kings 10:14-22 – Be rightly focused in life

These verses in 1 Kings 10:14-22 demonstrate the glory of Solomon. Verses 14-17 say that the amount of gold received from taxes was 666 talents each year. On top of these 666 talents, he also received revenue from his other trading partners. He had so much gold that he had 200 golden shields made, each using 600 shekels of beaten gold. He also made another 300 smaller golden shields, each made with 300 minas of gold. These golden shields were then stored in the house of the forest of Lebanon. First  Kings 7:2 revealed that Solomon had this part of his house built. He probably had all the pillars made with the timbers from Lebanon. So it is here that he stored the golden shields that were made.

Verses 18-20 describe his elaborate throne. This is how Eugene Peterson in “The Message” paraphrases these verses. “The king built a massive throne of ivory accented with a veneer of gold. The throne had six steps leading up to it, its back shaped like an arch. The armrests on each side were flanked by lions. Lions, twelve of them, were placed at either end of the six steps. There was no throne like it in any of the surrounding kingdoms.”

Solomon had so much gold that verse 21 said that all the vessels, such as drinking chalice and pots in the forest of Lebanon, were made of gold. No vessel was made of silver because it was of little value in his day. Verse 22 was probably intended to emphasize the abundance of Solomon. Once every three years his own fleet of ships from Tarshish collaborating with Hiram’s fleets would bring in “gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks.”

Though not spoken, we suspect that Solomon’s true value of life was slowly but surely eroding. He seems to be infected with a dose of megalomania. Without a doubt, it is a privilege to be blessed with what we have. But what we do with what God has blessed us with is indisputably more important. We must not allow His blessings on our lives to make us lose sight of Him and His plan and purpose in our lives. Like Solomon, it is possible for us to shift our focus from God to self, from building character to building a reputation with the blessings of God.

Instead of being consumed with the need to aggrandize ourselves, we must follow Paul’s example in Philippians 3:13-14. He said, “…one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” We must make seeking His Kingdom and righteousness our top priority. Make God and building a godly character our primary focus in life. We will never regret it when we do so!