Last week, David at the age of 70 had died and this after he had appointed his son Solomon to be the king.

And at the time that he did this, it's believed that Solomon was about 16 years of age, very young, a teenage boy really. About three or four years

have gone by, and we know that because of what we're told at the end of the last chapter,

where after three years this Shimei whom Solomon had given another chance, defied his order, and ended

up being put to death because of it. So we can conclude that at this time, in this chapter,

Solomon is probably about 19 or 20 years old, very young still, as he begins his reign as

king over all Israel. Very interesting chapter, really looking forward to what the Lord has for us.

So let's jump in, verse one. Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh's daughter.

Then he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord

and the wall around Jerusalem. Okay. Let's just take verse one. There's a lot here and there's somewhat of a difficulty here with what Solomon does by marrying the daughter of the Pharaoh. Now why does he do that? Well in one sense it's wise

because this was actually the custom in that day, in that culture. They would typically marry

royalty and they would do so in order to avoid any conflict between the nations, it was a way of keeping the peace,

I guess you might say. So it was a very common practice back then, and really in some cultures

today it is also practiced because I guess you could say it's a politically beneficial strategy. So again in one sense,

this is a display of the wisdom of a young Solomon who as we're about to see does possess

wisdom beyond his years at such a young age. And it's not even the supernatural wisdom that God

is going to bestow upon him, which we're going to see here in a moment towards the end of

the chapter. Now, the question is, is Solomon sitting against God by marrying an Egyptian

wife? And the answer is is no because God did not

specifically forbid the marrying of an Egyptian wife however God did forbid the

marrying of a Canaanite wife so Solomon's sin was not in marrying an Egyptian wife, but his sin was by virtue of the

fact that he multiplied wives. And we know from First Kings chapters 11 and 14 when we get there,

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