1 Kings 11

1 Kings 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the reign of Solomon over the unified kingdom of Judah and Israel. The focus of this chapter is Solomon's decline and death.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language and since the 16th century is divided into 43 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Old Testament references

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Solomon's wives and their Idolatry (11:1–8)

Solomon marrying many wives might not be considered unethical at that time, especially for diplomatic reasons, but it should be intolerable in light of the Torah. The passage focuses on religious rather than moral arguments for the foreign wives in a tone similar to post-exilic texts viewing them as a temptation threatening loyalty to the God of Israel. Solomon gave his wives something similar to minority rights and religious freedom in modern terms, but he went too far that he committed a grave sin against Yahweh, leading to dire consequences.

A Divine Manifestation (11:9–13)

Because Solomon had "turned away from the Lord", thereby he had broken the first commandment, he faced a consequence of losing power, but in recognition of David's merits, the punishment was delayed and his successor would be left with a smaller kingdom.

Verse 13

"Give one tribe": that is "the tribe of Judah", which later became the name of the southern kingdom. However, the tribe of Benjamin can also be counted here due to its close union with the tribe of Judah and their shared property of Jerusalem, because the city was of the Jebusite, later conquered by David, but all the ground north of the valley of Hinnom was actually in the tribe of Benjamin. The prophet Ahijah used the same form of words when speaking to Jeroboam, after expressly tore his new garment into twelve parts and gave ten of them to Jeroboam.
The adversaries of Solomon (11:14–40)

Solomon's disloyalty to God resulted in the emergence of 'adversary' to his reign, in form of three different persons: Hadad, an Edomite prince, Rezon the son of Eliada of Damascus, and Jeroboam ben Nebat. The passage clearly states that God was the initiator of these adversaries. The brief biography of each adversary presented in the passage has similarities with the earlier history of Israel.
The life of Hadad, the Edomite prince, echoes the history of the migration of Jacob's family to Egypt and the Exodus:

Event	Hadad	Jacob's family
moving to Egypt	due to Israel's occupation of Edom by David and Joab	due to famine
kind treatment of Pharaoh	given a house, bread and land	given the fertile land of Goshen
married into royal family	given the sister of the queen as wife	Joseph was given the daughter of high priest as wife
son among Pharaoh's children	Genubath	Moses
out of Egypt	sought to return	Exodus under Moses

Hadad stated his desire to return to Edom using 'exodus language': "send me out".
The biography of Rezon the son of Eliada of Damascus also has a parallel with the history of David, the king of Israel.

Event	Rezon	David
flee from his master	from Hadadezer	from Saul
gather a band	becoming a leader of a guerilla force	becoming a leader of disaffected people in the wilderness
becoming king	rising to the throne in Damascus, Syria	anointed to the throne in Hebron and then Jerusalem

Jeroboam ben Nebat, Solomon's third adversary, arose from within northern Israel, tellingly from among the forced laborers in Ephraim. The parallels of his biography with the life of David are as follows:

Event	Jeroboam	David
valiant warrior	potentially a royal figure	winning battles against the Philistines
in early life faithfully served his master	serving Solomon	serving Saul
prophesied by a prophet	meet the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh	anointed by the prophet Samuel who grew up with the priest Eli in Shiloh
torn cloak	Ahijah tore his cloak and gave to Jeroboam	Saul tore Samuel's cloak
threatened as successor	Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam	Saul sought to kill David
promises of God	to Jeroboam	to David

Ahijah of Shiloh is shown as Jeroboam's supporter in this passage, but he will be Jeroboam's enemy in 1 Kings 14:1-18.

Death of Solomon (11:41–43)

This is the first use regular concluding formula in the books of Kings. The Chronicler mentioned 'the Book of the Acts of Solomon' as a source of information, presumably in form of royal annals.

Verse 42

"Forty years": according to Thiele's chronology, the reign of Solomon began when David died between September 972 BCE and September 971 BCE, until Solomon's death between September 931 BCE and April 930 BCE.
Archaeological proofs

In July 2024, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University announced the discovery of a moat that split the City of David in half, separating the palace and Temple Mount from the rest of the city. It was at least nine meters deep and 30 meters wide, and extended across at least 70 meters, from west to east. The discovery resembles the hole in the wall described in 1 Kings 11:27.