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Summary
- Scripture never says whether Solomon went to heaven: First Kings 11 tells us his foreign wives turned his heart to other gods in his old age, and it records no repentance.
- The Bible gives no cause of death or age for Solomon, only that he reigned forty years, “slept with his fathers” and was buried in the city of David (1 Kings 11:42–43).
- God promised that his steadfast love would not depart from David’s son (2 Samuel 7:14–15), and Nehemiah 13:26 calls Solomon “beloved by his God” while saying foreign women “made even him to sin.”
- Augustine wrote that Solomon “after good beginnings, made a bad end,” while Cyril of Jerusalem counted him among sinners who repented and Matthew Henry read Ecclesiastes as his repentance.
- The Mishnah lists Jeroboam, Ahab and Manasseh as kings with no share in the World-to-Come, and the Talmud says the sages sought to add Solomon and tells of the heavenly signs that opposed it.
- The Orthodox Church remembers Solomon among the ancestors of Christ on the Sunday before the Nativity.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (1 Kings 3:9, 12; 11:1–13, 42–43; 2 Chronicles 9:30–31; 11:17; 2 Samuel 7:14–15; 12:24–25; Nehemiah 13:26; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Ecclesiastes 1:1; 12:13; Proverbs 24:32; Matthew 1:6–7; 6:29; 12:42).
- Proverbs 24:32 in the Greek Septuagint, and in Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint. https://ebible.org/grcbrent/PRO24.htm and https://ebible.org/eng-Brenton/PRO24.htm
- Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, book 4, chapter 27, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103427.htm
- Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 2, section 13, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 7. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310102.htm
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, book 17, chapters 8 and 20, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 2. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120117.htm
- Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:2, and Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 104b, William Davidson Edition English translation, Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.10.2 and https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.104b
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1 Kings 11. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc2.iKi.xii.html
- Orthodox Church in America, “Sunday before the Nativity.” https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2038/12/19/81-sunday-before-the-nativity
- Fr. Jeremy McKemy, explanation of the Resurrection icon, first published on Orthodox Road (December 2012), as excerpted by St. Volodymyr parish, “About the Icon of the Resurrection.” https://www.stvolodymyr.ca/parish-news-updates/about-the-icon-of-the-resurrection
- “Ecclesiastes,” Wikipedia, on rabbinic tradition of authorship and the dating of the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes
- “Cyril of Jerusalem,” “Irenaeus” and “Matthew Henry,” Wikipedia, for dates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Jerusalem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Henry
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