The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
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.
Earlier text
Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.
Deuteronomy 7:3-4 prohibits intermarriage with the Canaanite nations with a specific reason clause: "because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods" (כִּי־יָסִיר אֶת־בִּנְךָ מֵאַחֲרַי, ki yasir 'et binkha me'acharay). In 1 Kings 11:2-4, the narrator explicitly states that Solomon's foreign wives "turned his heart after other gods" (הִטּוּ אֶת־לְבָבוֹ, hittu 'et levavo), using the other gods language of the Deuteronomic warning. The fulfillment of Moses' prediction demonstrates that the king was not exempt from Torah — Solomon's seven hundred wives accomplished precisely what Deuteronomy said foreign marriage would do. The Deuteronomic prohibition was never arbitrary boundary-keeping; its stated reason was the heart, and the tragedy of Solomon is that the wisest king in Israel — who had asked God for a discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9) — let that very heart be divided. The word Moses spoke as warning stood true against the throne itself; no crown exempts a man from the law of the heart. Here the connection presses toward Christ by way of its lack: Israel needed not merely a king who kept the rule outwardly but a Son of David whose heart would never turn — one who, tempted by every kingdom of the world, would worship the Lord his God and serve Him only (Matthew 4:10). Where Solomon was corrupted by the nations he married, Christ sanctifies the bride He gathers from among the nations, presenting her to Himself in splendor (Ephesians 5:27). The law that Solomon broke is kept at last by the One whose heart is wholly the Father's; and the undivided heart God has always required is now, by union with Him, given to His people, so that they may love the LORD their God with all their heart and find in Him their exceeding joy.