Text: 1 Kings 11:1
OT Text Referred to: Deuteronomy 23:7
Subject: Solomon's Edomite and Egyptian wives and Deuteronomic regulations
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): None
Significance: Deuteronomy 23:7 instructs Israel not to despise the Edomite ("for he is your brother") or the Egyptian ("because you lived as a foreigner in his land"), treating these nations more favorably than Ammon and Moab. Solomon's marriages to Edomite and Egyptian women in 1 Kings 11:1 thus involve nations whose assembly status was less restrictive — their third-generation descendants could enter the assembly (Deut 23:8). Yet even this more permissive framework did not authorize royal intermarriage, which the broader prohibition of Deuteronomy 7:3-4 and Exodus 34:15-16 forbade precisely because foreign wives would turn the king's heart after other gods, as indeed they did.