King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women. These women were from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them, for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods." Yet Solomon clung to these women in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD; unlike his father David, he did not follow the LORD completely. At that time on a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
He must not take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray. He must not accumulate for himself large amounts of silver and gold.
Significance
The king-law forbids the Israelite monarch to "take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray" (Deut 17:17 — sûr + lēbāb, the heart's turning aside from the LORD), guarding the king's undivided covenant loyalty against the seductions that royal alliance-marriage breeds. First Kings 11 narrates the prohibition's exact materialization: Solomon "loved many foreign women" (11:1), "had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away" (11:3 — nāṭāh + lēb), until "his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD" (11:4). The narrator writes with the Mosaic clause open: the very danger the charter named — a heart turned away by multiplied wives — is realized verb for sense, the wisest king of Israel building high places for Chemosh and Molech (11:7-8). The link is an Allusion rather than a Direct Quotation: the shared element is the concept and the heart-word root (Deut's lēbāb, Kings' lēb) and the multiplied-wives-turn-the-king's-heart correspondence, not a verbatim citation (the turning-verb itself shifts from sûr to nāṭāh). The method is Contrast set within Redemptive-Historical Progression, not typology: Solomon is not a figure foreshadowing a greater Solomon by analogical escalation; he is the charter's most spectacular breach — the king who had the Torah-scroll in hand yet let his heart be taken — and his collapse (the kingdom "torn" from his son, 11:11-13) is the negative fulfillment of the purpose clause the charter staked the dynasty on (v. 20). That breach is precisely how the network advances toward Christ: the canon's audit of every son of David against the wife-clause builds the case that no born king kept it, summoning the true Deut-17 King who takes no harem but cleaves to one Bride (Rev 19:7), whose heart is never turned away because the law is not merely with Him but within Him (Ps 40:8 / Heb 10:7). The telos: where Solomon's love ran out to a thousand women and his heart was carried off from God, the true King's whole heart is fixed on His Father and spent for His one Bride — and to behold that undivided, unturnable love is to see the King who is Himself the soul's undivided delight, the one Lover worth forsaking every Ashtoreth to have.
Found via
Anchor-Text Network (Deuteronomy 17:14-20 — The Law of the King)
