Symmetry and the Sin of Solomon

Symmetry and the Sin ofSolomon SYMMETRY AND THE SIN OF SOLOMON by Jerome T. Walsh Jerome T. Walsh is an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at St. John's University in Jamaica, New York. He is particularly interested in literary analysis of biblical texts and has published several articles on the Hebrew Bible. He is currently writing a narrative commentary on 1 Kings. 11 Several recent studies of the narratives of Solomon's reign in 1 Kings 1-11 have focused on one or both of two issues: the literary organization of the material and/or the point at which the narrative shifts from a positive evaluation of Solomon to a negative one. G. Savran's literary reading of the narrative does not attempt a detailed analysis of the structure; he locates the turning point at 1 Kgs 9:4. B. Halpern's interest is essentially historical critical, and he agrees with the common reading that sees chapters 1-10 as positive toward Solomon, with negative attitudes appearing only in chapter 11. A series of articles in jSOT has offered a variety of structural readings of the Solomon story. K. I. Parker's close reading of the text leads him to a symmetrical structure that balances favorable attitudes in chapters 1-8 against hostile attitudes in chapters 9-11. M. Brettler offers some cogent criticism of Parker's proposal and argues that 9:26 begins the anti-Solomon polemic and that 9:26-11:10 is dependent on an assumed pre-Deuteronomic core of Deut. 17:14-17. But his analysis of the structure of chapters 1-11 is based on essentially redaction critical observations rather than literary ones. A. Frisch presents an entirely different pattern, reading the Solomon story (which he extends from 1:1 to 12:24) as a balanced concentric structure comprising nine units centering on the construction and dedication of the Temple; the negative view of Solomon begins at 9: 10. Parker's response to Frisch's article deals principally with Frisch's arguments for including 12:1-24 in the Solomon story. Parker also defends, though less compellingly, his understanding of the visions in 3: 1-3 and 9: 1-9 as structurally determina- 12 SHOFAR Fall 1993 Vol. 12, No. 1 tive parallels. Frisch's rejoinder summarizes their respective differences but does not materially advance the discussion. Finally, Parker contributes an article on "Solomon as Philosopher King?" that utilizes unmodified the structure he proposed originally.1 The literary structure proposed in this paper is quite similar to that offered by Frisch. Unlike him, I accept the consensus that the literary unit ends at 11:43; other than that, I differ from him primarily in the assignment of 9:10. My own analysis of this structure was carried out independently of Frisch's work and underlies my commentary on 1 Kings in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary.2 In this essay I will examine the problem of the relationship of the visions, one of the key points in the dispute between Parker and Frisch. Then I will· discuss the literary structure of the complex in order to refine and substantiate the arguments made by Frisch. From that discussion I will argue that irregularities in the concentric structure of the Solomon story indicate a turning point in the evaluation of Solomon rather earlier than most commentators have identified. Solomon's Encounters with God Parker's analysis hinges on the explicit textual link that connects Solomon's vision in 9:1-9 to his vision at Gibeon in chapter 3. But the matter is more complex: Solomon encounters Yahweh four times in the course of these eleven chapters. In 3:3-15 he has a vision of Yahweh, recites a prayer, and is answered. In 6:11-13 he receives a divine word. In 9:1-9 he has "a second vision, as he had had at Gibeon" (9:2) and receives 'George Savran, "I and 2 Kings," in The Literary Guide to the Bible, edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 146-64; Baruch Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 144...