David then said to Abishai and all his officials, “My son, my own flesh and blood, is trying to kill me. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look upon my misery and restore to me his covenant blessing instead of his curse today.”
- 2 Samuel 16:11-12
During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.) …
They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.
- 2 Samuel 21:1-2, 14
“As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’
“But if you or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.
- 1 Kings 9:4-7
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
- 1 Kings 11:1-6
Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.”
- 2 Chronicles 8:11
When I read the charge God made to Solomon in 2 Chronicles (the 1 Kings version given above), it dawned on me at least one reason why Solomon was vastly different than his father, David.
David went to God in everything, almost. David did not go to God when he lusted over Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. David ordered a census to see how many fighting men he could muster, but God should have been David’s only shield. But time after time, David would go to God before going into battle. In the Scriptures above, Ziba is cursing David. Abishai volunteers to kill Ziba, but David humbles himself before God. God will deal with Ziba, but David earned this shame. He did not serve as a good father to Absalom. In the second Scripture, the Lord tells David that the present famine was due to Saul’s destruction of the Gibeonites. David consults the remaining Gibeonites, and the resulting punishment was seven members of Saul’s remaining family would be killed to avenge an entire city being decimated. This might seem cruel, but the agreement was made. This leads to the story of the woman, Rizpah, who chased off birds and wild animals to protect her kindred’s bodies. And the end of the famine only came when David honored the pleas of Rizpah. He buried Saul and Jonathan’s bones and the bodies that Rizpah was protecting. Only then was God satisfied. The Gibeonites were avenged, and Saul’s family was properly honored in death.
Both David and Solomon had a “thing” for women. David had a variety of wives, but Solomon outdid him in that department. Yet, David’s wives were either Israelites or they worshipped God. Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s wife, was banished from the palace when she disapproved of David’s spontaneity upon the Ark being brought to Jerusalem. David was worshipping God, and Michal thought it to not be “king-like” behavior.
But Solomon was lured by his many wives into worshipping false gods. Solomon knew better. He had married Pharaoh’s daughter. He kept her from entering any place where the Ark had been. The Ark made things “holy” in Solomon’s view and obviously he considered his wife to be unholy. Yes, he gained a political alliance with Egypt, but at what cost? God would have protected Solomon’s kingdom without the political alliance.
So, the big difference is that David sought God in everything. Solomon sought God, gained wisdom, and in spite of Godly wisdom, he relied on his own concept of justice and political security, ignoring what God had promised.
But let’s take this one step further. It brings up the matter of suffering.
David praised God throughout his life for he saw God in everything. He killed lions and bears to protect his sheep, but he knew God protected him. He killed Goliath, but then his popularity made Saul jealous. And David was on the run from Saul. He was in battle most of his adult life. Then Absalom rebelled. And at the end of his life Adonijah rebelled. He saw more than one son die: Absolom killing his brother who had raped his sister Tamar, and the first child from Bathsheba. It was one long line of suffering, war, and trouble for David.
Solomon was born in a palace. At a young age, he became king and was granted great wisdom. Other than conquering Hamath Zobah, there is no other reference to Solomon at war. He was at war within himself due to the 700 wives who, none it seems, accepted God as their God.
So, Solomon had the temptation factor within his home, but he never struggled to get where he ended up. It was Benaiah who killed Adonijah and Joab to solidify Solomon’s reign. Solomon came by everything too easily. His great intellect could make decisions, and on the surface, it did not seem that these decisions had cost him his kingdom. But that came with Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.
I have often praised God, after the fact, for placing me in a state of suffering. And now, I praise God during the suffering. God refines us with fire. And while Solomon had wisdom from God, he relied on himself too much and not God. When we suffer, have trials and tests of faith, God is preparing us for that journey.
I do not look forward to the next pain, but when that pain comes, I glorify God. I am one step closer to home.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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