The best known historical record in the world holds a wealth of information among its annals, and no man in the Old Testament was as wise as King Solomon. Solomon was the third and infallible king of the United nation of Israel, succeeding King David. He was the son of David and Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah the Hittite, whom David assassinated to hide his infidelity with Bathsheba while Uriah was away at war.
Solomon was a literary giant who wrote the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and many best known Proverbs. When Solomon ascended the throne, God visited him in a dream to grant divine access to whatever he desired. Solomon humbly acknowledged his unfitness to rule well and nobly. He therefore asked God to bless him with the wisdom needed to govern Israel righteously. God gave Solomon this wisdom and also unfathomable wealth (1Kings 3:4-15). Indeed, “King Solomon was greater in riches than all the other kings of the earth” (1 Kings 10:23). God also gifted Solomon and the nation of Israel peace on all fronts throughout most of his reign (1 Kings 4:20-25).
Solomon was not only wise in his rule as king but exhibited general sagacity as well. The Queen of Sheba once traveled 1200 miles to confirm the legend of his wisdom and dignity:
“Solomon answered all of her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed.” (1 Kings 10:3-5)
Solomon manifested his knowledge and wisdom into action in the way that he ruled his kingdom. The finest example of Solomon’s profound wisdom is of course his judgment over the disputed identity of the actual mother of an infant child (1Kings 3:16-28). Two prostitutes lived together, each mother to a newborn son. One of the babies had died because his mother laid on him during the night. She got up in the middle of the night and took the other woman’s son from his sleeping mother’s side. The dead child was placed where the living one had been, next to the sleeping woman. When she awoke in the morning to nurse the child, she discovered that the baby was not only dead, but not her son at all. Each woman now claimed motherhood of the surviving boy and so the case was brought before the court of King Solomon.
Calling for a sword, Solomon announced his brutal judgment: to split the living child in half, understanding that the true mother would prefer to lose her son to another woman rather than witness his death. The false mother did not object to the ruling, stating that if she could not have the baby, then neither of them should. This revealed the misery of a grieving mother, not the protective instinct of one whose son was yet living. The other woman begs Solomon to give the baby to her opponent rather than have him killed. Solomon declares the second woman to be the true mother, since she showed the compassion of a mother who would give up custody of her child to save his life:
“All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king because they perceived the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.” (1 Kings 3:28)
This chronicle provides us with two important takeaways. Firstly, its timeless message takes us to the heart of many contemporary political problems. The traits expressed by the cunning, illegitimate mother in Solomon’s time are the same ones burdening us today. At the societal level, we still lack the ability to be impartial and just while living with a nature that is inherently self-absorbed and unconcerned with objective truth. It is natural to see things in the context which most closely meets our needs and desires; it is also completely unnatural to put aside our own biases in search of truth and justice.
Secondly, the schism we now have in the West is just like Solomon’s call to judgment: many of us are unable to tolerate leadership that is severe yet wise. It may not appear to be as dramatic as the threat of a dismembered baby, but it is. Despite this, it should be evident by now that we must prioritize the need to find common ground where we can—but finding it is not the same as compromising away right and wrong. In fact, doing so begins to feel like moral quicksand.
What can ‘feeling right’ about knowledge mean in a head stuck on politics, and what wisdom can come from a cold heart? How can ‘feeling right’ connect to justice when the realities of being human are dismissed, as is done commonly by leftists?
At the heart of the matter—often incorrectly framed as a conflict between liberals and conservatives—is the difference between ethics based upon the politics of the day and morality reflecting centuries of human experience. The leftist posture disregards unity between generations (change=progress), while the so-called conservative stance is mindful of the organic continuity between generations. The one relates all justified action to a vertical Now; the other to a horizontal Always.
So which of the two stances of mind and heart is preferable regarding what is right or wrong, what is acceptable or unacceptable, and what is justified or unjustified in political action and social conduct? Which of the two attitudes is essential to feeling right about morality? Metaphorically speaking, which of the two mothers is being truthful about the true identity of their moral progeny?
These are idle questions only to those who turn their backs on justice for whatever reason—personal gain and convenience top this list. But it happens to be front and centre to those of us who, like wise King Solomon, are serious about doing justice to humanity.
It is rarely noticed that the social and political science have nothing to say about greed, plunder, revenge, and other negative tendencies of the heart and mind, once called “sins”; as though these adverse qualities are irrelevant to the right human conduct. The so-called social sciences necessarily dispense with the intellectual rigor of scientific methodology, thereby ripening them for political manipulation. The leftist take on what is acceptable depends upon such fungible science to prove its case and to move ‘progress’ forward. The regrettable result is that what is deemed possible finds its way from hypothesis into law, and works as a free filter for destructive extremes.
Is there a right to murder? Or is it right to kill or plunder those who disagree with a given worldview? These are the kinds of questions that are let out the back door by social and political sciences, or is assigned to perpetual studies to keep them out of the way. What else can we expect when possibility is more important than objective truth?
It is plainly true that possibility and justification are not equivalent concepts, and that morality enters every human interaction. The hand that feeds, caresses and protects, can also strangle, destroy, and pull a trigger. Science, both the fake and real varieties, cannot provide the necessary wisdom to distinguish between what is possible and what is morally correct. Ethics based upon what is possible in human affairs gives radicals the license to weaponize justice to serve their evil agendas.
The basics of our existence—how we grow, breathe, suffer, learn, and experience pleasure—may be understood scientifically but being human in its totality is off the radar screen of scientific inquiry and cannot be controlled empirically. Biotechnology, for example, is a fine tool for mending bodies, but if the attempt is made with it to own the forces behind our existence, then the result must be failure. The reality is that our chronic ignorance of the most compelling aspects of life is as profound today as it was three thousand years ago during Solomon’s reign:
“Man is now only more active—not more happy—nor mor wise, than he was 600 years ago.” —Edgar Allan Poe.
It should be clear to all, regardless of generation, that a disengagement between knowledge and wisdom leads to serious trouble. An enduring such disconnect, notably among leftists, currently plagues our streets, our schools, our homes, our workplaces, our stores, our sports, our entertainment, our families—and even our churches, where the spreading disruption of knowledge and wisdom has even corrupted the doctrines of faith. Case in point is the growing movement to bend the ancient religious doctrines of Christianity, Judaism, and even Islam to embrace the moral perversity of the Alphabet Agenda. What excuse is there for the abandonment of wisdom and morality and allowing the consequent insanity to spread through the true north strong and free, that so many fought, sacrificed and died to preserve and protect?
In a free society, most of us, from the mediocre up to the genius, accept and cherish the essential mysteries of life. They move with its natural flow, feeling not the least slighted for their dependence upon a power felt in the heart, acting as a spiritual gateway to one’s ground of being that most people know as God. It is a ground expressed in religious scripture, in tradition, in love for one another in spite of our many differences. It is what we mean by ‘feeling right’ about morality.
It is a feeling evidently absent from people in high positions of authority today who have no use for God or who have appropriated the role of God as a prop to lord over others. How far such cultural dereliction has advanced in this country is daily news. For the first time in our history, Canada is being deliberately dismantled by its federal government. There is no spin that can hide the fact that this is a treacherous coup.
A head inclined to the left, despite its unspeakably bloody history under communism, finds the concept of God upsetting. Whether it is admitted or not, the fact of a higher authority than the state punches too many holes in the left’s materialist plans for total control of humanity and indeed the world. But when enough of us have had more than we can stand of the leftist rubbish regarding reality, knowledge, wisdom and truth, the purveyors of such rubbish must retire.
Having identified some of the moral, ethical, social, and political issues plaguing modern society, let us return to King Solomon and the two disputing mothers. We begin to see the story as an allegory, with Solomon the avatar for justice and the state, and the two mothers representing divergent visions of a coherent moral code by which people will govern themselves. Neither woman is perfect or even pure. We are told that they are both “harlots”, which is to say, sinners. Their dispute cannot be decided based upon one of them possessing greater social or moral status. They are equal before the law, and that is important here. But they are very different. One woman prizes the health of the baby—representing society and its verdant potential—while the other makes herself and her own pain pre-eminent. The former thus respects the law and by extension, God; while the other has succumbed to the sins of lying, covetousness, theft, and of bearing false witness. Solomon correctly applies the Mosaic law, which places objective truth, justice, the well being of society (as represented by the baby), and God above all. The result is that justice is done, and the baby, representing all Israel, is restored to his rightful, just, self-sacrificing mother.
But now let us take a different view of this scene in order to illustrate the essential and often misunderstood difference between justice and the post-modern concept of social justice. The first difference we discover is that social justice places no value upon wisdom. Whereas this was the most important quality of a ruler or judge to Solomon, a society which exalts social justice selects rulers according to other criteria. Here, youth is exalted above wisdom. Consequently, a petulant, uneducated child like Greta Thunberg is more revered on the subject of climate change than a wise old professor like Dr. Patrick Moore, who holds multiple post-graduate degrees, is a world renowned climate expert, has published several books on the subject, and was one of the founders of Green Peace. Here, a handsome, inexperienced, unaccomplished, but famous younger man like Justin Trudeau, can defeat a silver haired intellectual like Stephen Harper, despite Harper’s obvious brilliance, a lifetime in politics, and a decade of sound leadership as our Prime Minister. Here we worship youth, rather than wisdom.
Nor are judges selected here for their wisdom; rather, they are carefully screened by the state for their politics and their social values. They are plucked mostly from universities, big corporate law firms, or the public service. They are there to express the state’s vision of social justice, and to expunge any concept of natural law or morality from legal decision making. They are secularists. As for babies, well, social justice does not value them, either. In fact, this society has made abortion the number one cause of death for humans. If Solomon were applying social justice principles rather than natural law, the only value that could be placed upon the baby is what it holds for the individual mother who owns it; the baby has no intrinsic value. Its worth is subjected to that of the adult who owns it. This is why we have men who think that they are women injecting themselves with synthetic hormones and testosterone in the vain hope that they can breastfeed a baby. It is understood and agreed under social justice principles that fulfillment of the transgender parent’s delusion is much more important than the health, welfare, safety, or even survival of the child being nursed with this hellish ‘milk’. By extension, this is the same attitude which social justice has toward the well being of society as a whole versus the unleashed and unmitigated expressions of individual freedoms that are enforced upon the rest of humanity.
So let us now come to the two complainants before the court. They are equals before the law, surely, but are they equal in social justice terms? Hardly. They must be ranked according to their comparative degrees of social grievance and harm. Objective truth and natural justice are not in it; the decision must be made based upon which one of them has suffered the most. On that metric, it is a close race. There are no racial, gender, or economic distinctions here. So the court must look deeper. The actual mother has faith. She values God and respects Mosaic law. The other does not, but she has something much more vital and less prejudicial to her chances in this social justice court—her own baby is dead. She killed it, which is a striking parallel in abortionist terms. The other woman’s child is not dead, and so she is not suffering the same degree of grief. Never mind that the grieving mother killed her own child, never mind that she is a liar, a thief, covetous, vindictive, jealous, and willing to lie to the court before God. Never mind that she is prepared to sacrifice the child upon the altar of the state. She is the winner. This is the kind of mother that social justice exalts. On a social justice metric, she is the most aggrieved, and so the court must award her the child. The other woman must sacrifice her child in order to make restitution on behalf of society for the loss of the other woman’s dead baby. The grieving mother’s suffering is the most important consideration. The other woman’s refusal to surrender her child or to acknowledge that the grieving mother’s suffering is more important than her own pain, are signs of her own bigotry, intolerance, and privilege.
After all, she can always go off and have another baby, so what is the harm to her? Parental rights are irrelevant in the court of social justice. Prime Minister Trudeau has all but said so publicly in the House of Commons. Most importantly, this morally unjust decision emphasizes the supremacy of social justice above any consideration of natural justice or the rule of law. The decision now reversed, is perverse, and that is precisely the point.
Wisdom is a scare commodity these days. There is a glut of opinions, conjectures, lies, half-truths, perversions, propaganda, and dubious facts flooding the intellectual marketplace, but little wisdom is to be found there. In our times, it is difficult to make sense of the strange things that we are constantly seeing and hearing about, to separate the truth from whatever worldview is being mass marketed to us; to know how we are to think and act in a world that seems devoid of reason or truth. What we really need is a template to help us process the meaning of the world around us. The wisdom of King Solomon may be exactly the commodity we must rediscover.
Solomon lived a millennium before Christ. He was born of the union of the great King David and Bathsheba, and became heir to his father’s throne. When David was near death and Solomon was about to inherit the kingdom, God appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked what the new King wanted from him. Solomon did not ask for wealth, status, or power. He sought only the wisdom to rule righteously. God was so pleased with Solomon’s request that he honoured it with miraculous abundance.
God made Solomon the wisest man on earth, but did not stop there. Since Solomon did not ask for worldly wealth, power, pleasure, or fame, God granted all of these to Solomon in unimaginable degrees. We read in 1 Kings 10:14 that Solomon collected tributes amounting to 666 talents of gold in a single year (he was king for 40 years)—the modern equivalent of over a billion dollars. Solomon raised cities from the ground up and restored others. He constructed an enormous temple. He had countless horses, chariots, and untold material goods. He ruled a vast kingdom. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He was revered throughout the world as its greatest and wisest king. Solomon had everything we modern folk spend our lives chasing. He was wiser, richer, more powerful, and more illustrious than anyone else in the world.
So he was living the dream, right? Hardly.
Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes to share his knowledge and wisdom with us. Given what we already know about Solomon, one might expect this book to begin with a sentence like “Man, it is so great to be me!” But Solomon shocks us with a clear blast of reality. He tells us that
“All things under the sun are vapour.”
All that we spend our lives pursuing is like trying to rope the wind. Even wisdom itself was meaningless to Solomon because he could see how things really were in the world, and this made him miserable. Self-indulgence was equally hollow to him because even though he could do anything he liked and denied himself nothing, he discovered that pleasure was ephemeral and joyless. He also came to understand that his assiduous accumulation of things meant nothing either since he was fated to die and had no control over what happened to his possessions after he was gone.
Solomon had it all in the eyes of the world, and yet it meant nothing to him.
Now I realize that this message may not be comforting, nor am I suggesting that the purpose of Ecclesiastes is to depress us. But its message is one of profound wisdom if we would only pay close enough attention.
Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes to set us free. He had turned away from God and the Mosaic law, and suffered the consequences:
“And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared to him twice…Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.” (1 Kings 11:9-11)
Solomon became estranged from God and the natural law, that is to say the truth, because he had become focused upon carnal things, upon his own personal desires. He therefore wanted to save us the wasted struggle that he endured. He presents his own life as a sort of cautionary tale. He had been there and done that, and wanted to let us know that these things do not bring us truth, clarity, happiness, fulfillment, peace, or joy. Having thus made it clear what is meaningless, Solomon proceeds to share the wisdom of what truly means everything:
“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Eccl. 12:3-14)
With these words, the wise king culls away all that we obsess about, worry about, and devote our time, energy, and industry to possessing. Ecclesiastes guides us to the real truth behind all things: putting our fear, love, trust and faith in God alone.
Solomon’s wisdom teaches us that life is long and difficult; that too much of our time is wasted on vanity. He does not invite us to despise our lives, or work, our possessions, or any of life’s abundant pleasures. He instead shares the wisdom that life is much more than just these things. Our worry and obsession with clinging so tightly to the things of this world sends us on a daily fool’s errand which profits us nothing.
As we lay dying, none of us will be consumed with social justice, or who we voted for, if we had an old cell phone, if we wore a mask during Covid, if we were salesman of the year, if we failed to win a lot of trophies or internet battles, or if we were the smartest, best, or most notorious human. All that will matter at that moment will be the transcendent peace of Christ that passeth all human understanding.
Solomon teaches us that there are joy and laughter in bread and wine, so here is his wisdom for life: place your fear, love, and trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and have dinner with the ones you love. Put vanities aside, live well in the truth of a Father who sent his Son to win a bride and the Holy Spirit who guides us to give eternal life. In there end, there is nothing else.
