To Encourage You

1 Kings 4:7 “Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel who provided food for the king and his household. Each man had to make provision for one month in the year.”

When you read the verse above, does it seem strange to you?  We are told that there were 12 officers appointed by Solomon simply to feed him and his household. Later we read that these officers presided over 12 districts into which the kingdom had been divided. Thus, the food for Solomon and his house came from every part of the land.  But this wasn’t a matter of simply passing the baton from one person to another in the sense that “it’s now your turn to cook.” No, what we read just a few verses later is this: “Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors (Note: 1 cor was equal to about 6 bushels) of fine flour and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl . . . Solomon also had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen. And those officers supplied provisions for King Solomon, and for all who came to King Solomon’s table, each one in his month. They let nothing be lacking. Barley also and straw for the horses and swift steeds they brought to the place where it was required, each according to his duty.”

So, can you imagine being responsible for such provisions?  It was a huge undertaking. It was an all-consuming task. No wonder the duty was taken on just one month at a time by his officers. It likely took them the other 11 months to recover!

So, what does this have to do with you and me?  Why does the Bible tell us about such things? Well, I’m certain there are multiple reasons, for we have been told that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That equipping is so often provided for us in the form of a growing awareness of the infinite Christ.  So, does 1 Kings speak of Him, this portion of Scripture about Solomon?  I believe the resounding answer is “Yes,” for all the Scriptures point to Him if we will but have our eyes opened to see it.

In the New Testament Jesus spoke about Solomon.  He spoke of Solomon’s great wisdom and then He said “Someone greater than Solomon is here!” (Matthew 12:42) Of course, with these words, Jesus was speaking of Himself. Jesus also spoke about the fact that Solomon was one who was arrayed in great glory (Matthew 6:29).  Yet, Jesus, in comparison, has a glory that is unmatched, a glory that was so magnificent that Saul, when confronted by the resurrected Jesus on the Road to Damascus, was blinded by it.  So, is that glory seen in some way in the passage above in this description about the officers of Solomon’s kingdom that were commissioned to meet Solomon’s great needs?  Well, I think that in this there is a shadow of something greater, in fact, much greater indeed.

You see, every one of us who calls ourself a believer is in the service of a much greater King.  But this King, unlike Solomon, is “the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24-25). This King is the One Who has told us that, “every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.  I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” (Psalm 50:10-12). Unlike Solomon, who depended upon an entire country and its people to feed him, we are told of our God, “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16).”

You see, Solomon was great consumer. He had such great demands that had to be satisfied. Conversely, our King is a great provider.  Every good gift that we have ever received has come from Him (James 1:17). And as John 1:16 puts it (I love the NIV translation here), “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” And those blessings aren’t just limited to the physical. Rather, He has given us much more glorious things that are spiritual and eternal.  He has laid down His very life for us. For us He gave His all. 

May God lift our hearts with thanksgiving to our great King, this one who is so much more glorious than even Solomon in all his splendor.