As part of the first-ever “America Reads the Bible,” a weeklong scripture-reading event in Washington, D.C. featuring more than 500 participants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Sen. Ted Cruz, President Donald Trump recited II Chronicles 7:11-22.
“And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him,
I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place to myself for a house of
sacrifice,” read Trump, seated behind the Resolute Desk and in front of the
camera. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and
pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from
heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Anyone familiar with Freemasonry knows Solomon is highly revered
and seen as a model for their own pursuits.
“Masons consider King Solomon as a role model for their own
endeavors, which is why numerous lodges and chapters are named after him,”
informs freemasonry.wiki. “ In Masonic ritual, he is often referred to as the ‘Grand
Master’ and is regarded as a representation of the principles that Masons
strive to exemplify.”
Here is a post on everything Solomon:
Imagine God grants you more wisdom than anybody else on the
face of the earth and, by the end of your incredibly successful career as third
king of Israel, you wind up a marrying a bunch of heathen women and adopting
their pagan-occultist ways and, in the process, become a type of the Antichrist
in the Bible.
This is the sorted story of Solomon, son of David and
Bathsheba, who began his 40-year reign in 967 BC (while David was still alive)
and enjoyed an unparalleled era of security, prosperity, and international
political and economic importance in a domain that stretched from Tipshah on
the Euphrates to Gaza on the border of Egypt.
It’s absolutely fascinating how Solomon’s life—the good and
the bad—is laid out in such explicit, unusual detail in the Old Testament.
Through his own writings in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is more of a
personal diary or journal, we are made privy to Solomon’s deepest insights at
the time of his downward spiral.
*****
From I Kings 3, we know God first came to Solomon in a nighttime dream and
asked him what he wanted as king. When Solomon humbly answered, “I’d like
wisdom to rule over this people,” God was so pleased by the reply He made
Solomon the smartest man alive, granting him untold riches and honor in the
process.
I Kings 4:29 reports, “And God gave Solomon
wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the
sand that is on the sea shore.
[30] And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the
east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.
[31] For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman,
and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations
round about.
[32] And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand
and five.”
[33] And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto
the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of
fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
[34] And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings
of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom.”
“He was wiser than all men; I mean, he was the wisest man on the planet. He spake three thousand proverbs. He codified his wisdom. He took that wisdom and put it into codes and instructions that people could learn by," explains Richard Jordan.
*****
King Solomon lived in such over-the-top opulence even the
cup he used to rinse his teeth out at night after brushing was made of gold.
Just look at this passage from I Kings:
“And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and
all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none
were of silver: it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.
[22] For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram:
once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver,
ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
[23] So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for
wisdom.
[24] And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put
in his heart.
[25] And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and
vessels of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, horses, and mules, a
rate year by year.
[26] And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen: and he had a
thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he
bestowed in the cities for chariots, and with the king at Jerusalem.
[27] And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars
made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.
[28] And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the
king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price.
[29] And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels
of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of
the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their
means.
“Can you imagine cedars as
plentiful as just old scrub brush? Ever been in a cedar forest? You ever
smelled a cedar chest? You know how fresh it makes everything smell? The
environment around this guy was perfumed with the fragrance of a
prosperous creation. . .
“Year by year, he was given horses and chariots. Everybody
knew how wise this guy was so they’d bring him presents; they’d bless him in
order to get the benefit of his wisdom and benefit of his counsel. It was just
everywhere—the wealth, the grandeur.”
*****
Of course, it was in the midst of this unparalleled blessing Solomon got it in his head to go after “outlandish women,” as Nehemiah defines them, and “had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.” (I Kings 11:3)
I Kings 11 explains, “For it came to pass, when Solomon was
old, that 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.
[5] For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians,
and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
[6] And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully
after the LORD, as did David his father.
[7] Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of
Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of
the children of Ammon.
[8] And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense
and sacrificed unto their gods.”
The primary distinction between Solomon and his father, as verse 4 clearly tells, is Solomon’s “heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.”
“David was an adulterer, a
philanderer, a murderer. He’s a guy who would have been a good senator from
Massachusetts. He commits adultery, covers it up with murder and
destroys the integrity of his own army and commanding staff by
doing so. He makes them complicit with it and brings judgment on his
nation.
“He’s a lousy father. He raised some of the biggest brats
you’ll ever want to know who destroyed his nation, his kingdom. One of his boys
raped his own sister. I mean this is not a happy home and yet King David is a
great man in the Bible; a sainted man—the man God made a covenant with and
said, ‘I’m going to bless him.’
“God had said of David, ‘He’s a man after my own heart.’ David got caught up in
a lot of the sins of the flesh but his heart never left the Lord; he never went
out and worshipped idols. Solomon did, and in doing so, he forsook the wisdom
of God and sought after the wisdom of man.”
*****
In a classic macro code tucked into the Old
Testament, pointing to Solomon as a type of the Antichrist, I Kings 10 lists
the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year as “six hundred threescore
and six talents of gold.” That’s 666!
I Kings 10:16-19 further reveals, “And king Solomon made
two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of gold went to one
target.
[17] And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three pound of
gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of
Lebanon.
[18] Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it
with the best gold.
[19] The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round
behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat, and two.”
“You notice in Solomon’s life from this point on there becomes a fixation; a downward spiraling fixation with sixes. In verse 18, he’s got six steps, six lions, six steps. He does that in the architecture. Now do you think when he sought wisdom from God, God divided the architecture like that? No! He did that from human viewpoint, and as you go on in Solomon’s ministry life, you see Solomon just slowly drifting, falling down and it’s at this point in his life somewhere along in here that Ecclesiastes is written.
“It’s in these books (Job through Song of Solomon), by the way, that there’s demonstration to Israel for when they’re in exactly the same situation; when there’s the temptation and the draw to be pulled into the 666 system.”