Bible Reading Plan

Day 159 - Read 1 Kings 3-4

Solomon asked God for understanding and discernment. God gave him wisdom and discernment, but also riches and honor. God told Solomon He would extend his years if he walked in His ways and kept His statues and commandments. Solomon went before the ark of the covenant and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to God. His wisdom and discernment were displayed as he settled a dispute between two women over a child. Solomon had many officials who governed and led the people of Israel. Solomon’s wealth and power were great, and God blessed him with wisdom beyond measure. People came from all nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

Broadcast on:: 29 Sep 2024
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Hello and welcome to our daily Bible reading. Today we're looking at 1 Kings 3 and 4. Solomon asked God for understanding and discernment. God gave him wisdom and discernment, but also riches and honor. God told Solomon he would extend his years if he walked in his ways and kept his statutes and commands. Solomon went before the ark of the covenant and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to God. His wisdom and discernment were displayed as he settled a dispute between two women over a child. Solomon had many officials who governed and led the people of Israel. Solomon's wealth and power were great, and God blessed him with wisdom beyond measure. People came from all nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Follow along with me again as I begin to read 1 Kings chapter 3 verse 1. Solomon made a marriage alliance with the Pharaoh king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. The people were sacrificing at the high places however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord. Solomon loved the Lord. Walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places, and the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there. For that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, "Ask what I shall give you." And Solomon said, "You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a sign to sit on the throne this day. And now O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, a great many, too many to be numbered or counted by multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this, your great people? It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, "Because you have asked this and have not asked for yourselves long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind so that none like you has been before you and none like you arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. And Solomon awoke and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants. Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, "Oh my Lord, this woman and I live in the same house and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth and we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house. Only we too were in the house and this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him and she rose at midnight and took my son from beside me while your servant slept and laid him at her breast and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning behold, he was not the child that I had born. But the other woman said, "No, the living child is mine and the dead child is yours." The first said, "No, the dead child is yours and the living child is mine." Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, "The one says, 'This is my son that is alive and your son is dead.'" And the other says, "No, but your son is dead and my son is the living one." And the king said, "Bring me a sword." So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, "Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other." Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, "Because her heart yearned for her son. Oh my Lord, give her the living child and by no means put him to death." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him." Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to the first woman and by no means put him to death. She is his mother." And all Israel heard the judgment that the king had rendered and they stood in all of the king because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice. Chapter 4. King Solomon was king over all Israel and these were his high officials. As a riot, the son of Zaidok was the priest. Elihorath and Ahajah, the sons of Shasha were secretaries. Jehoshifat, the son of Ahalud, was recorder. Baniat, the son of Jehoda, was in command of the army. Zaidok and Abathar were priests. As a riot, the son of Nathan was over the officers. Zabud, the son of Nathan, was priest and king's friend. Ahashar was in charge of the palace and Adonarim, the son of Abdah, was in charge of the forced labor. Solomon had 12 officers over all Israel who provided food for the king and his household. Each man had to make provisions for one month in the year. These were the names, been her in the hill country of Ephraim, been Deeker in Maikaz, Shalbim, Beth Shemash, and Ilan Beth Heynon. Then he said, "In Erebath, to him, belonged Soco and all the land of Heifer, been a Benadab, an all-naefath door. He had Tafath, the daughter of Solomon as his wife. Bianna, the son of Ahalud, in Teinot, Magiddo, and all Beth Shem, that is beside Zarethan, below Jezreel. And from Beth Shem, to Abel Mihola, as far as the other side of Jot Miham, Benghibir, and Reimoth Gilead. He had the villages of Jair, the son of Manessa, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Beishon, 60 great cities with walls and bronze bars. Ehenedab, the son of Ido, in Meinam, Ayameas, in Nefthalah, he had taken Basimath, the daughter of Solomon as his wife. Bianna, the son of Hushah, in Asher, and Bealath, Jehoshafat, the son of Perua, in Isakar, Shimi the son of Ila, in Benjamin, Giber the son of Yura, in the land of Gilead, the country of Saihon, king of the Amorites, and of Og, king of Beishon. And there was one governor who was over the land, Judah and Israel were as many as the sands of the sea. They ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the lands of the Philistines and to the order of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. Solomon's provisions for one day was thirty cores of fine flour and sixty cores of mill, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, rowbucks, and faten fowl, for he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates, from Tifsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates, and he had peace on all sides around him. And Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Bishiba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon. Solomon also had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. And those officers supplied provisions for King Solomon, and for all who came to King Solomon's table, each one in his month. They let nothing be lacking. Barley also, and straw for the horses and swift steeds, they brought to the place where it was required, each according to his duty. And God gave Solomon wisdom in understanding beyond measure, and breath of mine, like the sand of the seashore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all of the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan, the Ezra height, and Heiman, the Calcol, and Darda, the son of Mayhol. And his fame was in all the surrounding ignations. He also spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand five. He spoke of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.