50 Fun Facts About King Solomon

Who was King Solomon's father?

David wanted to build the Temple himself, but in Chronicles God refuses him because he has shed too much blood in war, and the task passes to his son Solomon.

Who was Solomon's mother?

Bathsheba's first child by the king died after a week's illness; years later she went to the dying king's bedside and held him to his oath that her son Solomon would reign.

By what other name is Solomon known in the Bible?

Jedidiah, 'beloved of the Lord', was a second name sent from God through Nathan at Solomon's birth, because, the text says, the Lord loved the child.

In the Sermon on the Mount, which flowers does Jesus say were dressed better than Solomon in all his glory?

Lilies: 'Consider the lilies of the field', Jesus says. They neither toil nor spin, yet the richest king in the Bible was never dressed as well as a wild flower.

What did Solomon ask for when God offered him anything he wanted in a dream?

Wisdom to rule his people: God was so pleased Solomon had not asked for long life, riches or his enemies' deaths that he promised him the riches and honour as well.

In the Judgment of Solomon, what did the king order done with the disputed baby?

Cut in two with a sword was only a test: one woman begged him to give the living child to her rival instead, and Solomon declared her the true mother.

Which foreign ruler visited Solomon bearing gold, spices and precious stones?

The Queen of Sheba had heard of Solomon's fame and came to test him with hard questions; after his answers and the sight of his court, the Bible says, there was no more spirit in her.

According to the biblical account, how many wives did Solomon have?

700 wives, each called a princess, is the count in 1 Kings. Deuteronomy had told Israel's kings not to take many wives; Solomon broke the rule hundreds of times over.

Which older half-brother of Solomon proclaimed himself king while their father lay dying?

Adonijah was hosting his own coronation feast when a blast of trumpets told the city that Solomon had just been anointed; his guests fled, and he ran to cling to the altar.

In the anthem sung at every British coronation since 1727, which priest anoints Solomon king?

Zadok: the anthem Zadok the Priest was written for George II's coronation, and in 1992 its soaring opening was reworked into the UEFA Champions League anthem.

Solomon's Temple took seven years to build; what took him thirteen?

His palace took thirteen years, and 1 Kings says he levied forced labour to build both houses; after his death his subjects begged his son to lighten the yoke.

Chronicles sets Solomon's Temple on which mount, traditionally where Abraham bound Isaac?

Mount Moriah: the site had been a threshing floor, which Solomon's father insisted on buying at full price because he would not offer God a sacrifice that cost him nothing.

Which Phoenician king supplied Solomon with materials and workmen for the Temple?

Hiram of Tyre floated cedar and cypress down the coast as rafts in return for wheat and oil; Solomon later paid him with twenty towns in Galilee, which Hiram inspected and did not like.

1 Kings puts Solomon's yearly income of gold at how many talents, a number better known from Revelation?

666 talents is the haul 1 Kings records shortly before Solomon's fall; Deuteronomy had warned Israel's kings not to heap up silver and gold, and Revelation later gave the number to its beast.

When ten tribes left Solomon's son to form the northern kingdom of Israel, which kingdom stayed loyal?

Judah: after Solomon's forty-year reign it kept Jerusalem, the Temple and his dynasty for more than three centuries, outlasting the larger northern kingdom, which fell to Assyria.

Which of Solomon's sons succeeded him and lost ten tribes to Jeroboam?

Rehoboam was asked to ease his father's forced labour and answered that he would make the yoke heavier, with scorpions for whips; the northern tribes walked out on the spot.

According to the Bible, why did God divide Solomon's kingdom after his death?

He turned to other gods: 1 Kings says his many wives won the ageing king over to their deities, and God told him the kingdom would be torn away, but only from his son.

Which three biblical books has Solomon traditionally been considered the author of?

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs bear his name by tradition, but Ecclesiastes uses Persian loanwords, which dates its writing to centuries after Solomon's time.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, where does the poet meet the spirit of Solomon?

In Paradise: Dante meets Solomon in the Heaven of the Sun, calls his the fairest light in a circle of twelve wise souls, and has him explain how the blessed will shine after the resurrection.

Which conqueror destroyed Solomon's Temple and carried Jerusalem's people into exile?

Nebuchadnezzar II's army burned the Temple and marched Jerusalem's elite to Babylon; about fifty years later Cyrus of Persia took Babylon and let the exiles go home to rebuild.

In Ethiopian tradition, which son of Solomon founded the country's royal line?

Menelik I's line, Ethiopia's emperors claimed, ran unbroken down to Haile Selassie, whose 1955 constitution wrote the descent from Solomon into law.

According to Ethiopian legend, what sacred object did Solomon's son carry off to Axum?

The Ark of the Covenant: in the Kebra Nagast his young companions smuggle it out of the Temple without telling him, and a chapel in Axum is still said to hold it.

In the Quran, which small creature warns its fellows to hide from Solomon's approaching army?

An ant: Solomon overheard the warning, understood it and smiled, then thanked God for the gift, and the chapter of the Quran that tells the story is named The Ant.

In the Quran, which force of nature is made subject to Solomon, covering a month's journey in a morning?

The wind obeyed him, and so did the jinn, who the Quran says went on labouring after Solomon died leaning on his staff, until a creature gnawed it through and his body fell.

Rabbinic legend says Solomon cut the Temple's stones without iron, using the shamir, usually described as which creature?

A worm: the shamir's touch was said to split rock, and Solomon's men won it by covering a wild bird's nest with glass, then seizing the worm when the bird fetched it to break through.

In Jewish legend, which demon king flung Solomon far from Jerusalem and sat on his throne?

Asmodeus, freed from his chains by a trick, hurled the king away and reigned in his place, while Solomon went from door to door as a beggar insisting that he had once been king.

What is the Seal of Solomon?

A legendary signet ring: engraved with the name of God, it was said to let Solomon command demons, and its star-shaped design became a favourite amulet of medieval magicians.

In One Thousand and One Nights, who frees a genie that Solomon had sealed in a bottle?

A fisherman hauls the jar up in his net; the freed genie vows to kill him, so he asks how anything so huge ever fitted inside, and traps it again when it shrinks back in to show him.

In the Quran and in Jewish legend, which bird brings Solomon news of a distant queen and her rich land?

The hoopoe was missing when Solomon inspected his birds, and in the Quran he vows to punish it; it flies in just in time with news of a queen whose people bow to the sun.

In 1 Kings, twelve statues of which animal stand on the six steps of Solomon's ivory throne?

Lions: later legend made the throne a machine whose golden beasts each stretched out a limb to help the king up the steps, and which lamed a pharaoh who did not know how it worked.

In the Quran, a visiting queen mistakes Solomon's floor for what?

A pool of water: she bared her legs to wade in, but the floor was smooth glass, and when Solomon told her so, the Quran says, the sun-worshipping queen gave up her old faith on the spot.

The Solomon Islands were named after a 1568 voyage in the belief that they held what?

The source of his gold: Mendaña's crews found only traces of the metal, but reports of the voyage were talked up into King Solomon's treasure land, and the name stuck.

Which composer wrote an oratorio titled Solomon in 1748?

Handel: the oratorio's lively sinfonia for a royal visitor's entrance outgrew the work itself, and accompanied James Bond's arrival at Buckingham Palace in the London 2012 Olympics ceremony.

In H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, which hunter leads the search for the lost diamond mines?

Allan Quatermain: Haggard wrote the novel to rival Treasure Island, and one publisher after another turned it down before it became the bestseller of its year.

Which Spanish royal palace, said to be modelled on Solomon's Temple, has his statue at its basilica door?

El Escorial: tradition says its grid plan honours St Lawrence, martyred on a gridiron, but Philip II saw himself as a new Solomon, and many scholars trace the layout to descriptions of the Temple.

Which fraternal organisation's temples are an allegorical reference to King Solomon's Temple?

The Freemasons: their central ritual acts out the murder of the Temple's master builder, struck down by three workmen for refusing to give up the masons' secrets.

Archaeologists once credited Solomon with the great six-chambered gate at which ancient city in northern Israel?

Megiddo: Yigael Yadin matched its gate to near-twins at Hazor and Gezer, all cities 1 Kings says Solomon fortified, but Megiddo's later excavators date it about a century after him, and the argument goes on.

Solomon reigned in the tenth century BCE; which wonder was already ancient?

The Great Pyramid was already about 1,600 years old in Solomon's day; his usual dates, around 970 to 931 BCE, are worked out backwards from the Bible's lists of kings and their reigns.

Why have archaeologists barely dug where Solomon's Temple is thought to have stood?

It lies under Muslim shrines: the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa stand on the Temple Mount, where no modern dig has been allowed, so no certain trace of Solomon's building has been found.

For which of his many wives does the Bible say Solomon built a separate house?

Pharaoh's daughter: her father sealed the match by capturing a Canaanite city, burning it and handing it to her as a wedding gift.

To which two distant lands does the Bible say Solomon's fleets sailed for gold, silver and ivory?

Tarshish and Ophir: nobody now knows where either lay, and guesses for Ophir run from Arabia to India, yet a potsherd dug up in Israel reading 'gold of Ophir' shows the place was real.

In the Testament of Solomon, which archangel brings the king the power to command demons?

Michael brings Solomon a magic seal after a demon keeps stealing a young labourer's pay; with it the king puts one demon after another to work building the Temple.

Deuteronomy warned Israel's kings against multiplying wives, gold and which animals, all of which Solomon amassed?

Horses: the same law forbade trading abroad for them, yet 1 Kings has Solomon importing them in droves for his 1,400 chariots, on top of a harem that included 300 concubines.

Which Gospel's family tree of Jesus runs through Solomon, while another runs through his brother Nathan?

St Matthew's Gospel traces the line through Solomon and the kings who followed him; Luke goes through Nathan, a brother who never reigned, a mismatch commentators have tried to reconcile ever since.

On which animal, lent by his dying father, did Solomon ride to be anointed king?

A mule: it was the old king's own, and seating Solomon on it showed the crowd at the Gihon spring which son had been chosen, while a rival's coronation feast was still under way nearby.

Hadad, a prince who returned from exile to trouble Solomon, came from which kingdom of Esau's descendants?

Edom: Hadad was a child of its royal house who escaped when Israel's army spent six months killing the men of Edom, grew up abroad, and came home once the general responsible was dead.

In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who argues with Huck over whether Solomon was really wise?

Jim wins the argument: no wise man, he says, would choose to live amid the racket of a harem that size, and an exasperated Huck gives up trying to change his mind.

Solomon tried to kill the rebel Jeroboam, who fled to which kingdom until the king died?

Egypt: Pharaoh Shishak sheltered Jeroboam, and five years after Solomon's death marched on Jerusalem and carried off the Temple's treasures, golden shields and all.

Which Syrian desert city, under its old name Tadmor, does Chronicles credit Solomon with building?

Palmyra: Chronicles calls it Tadmor, but the matching verse in Kings reads Tamar, a place far to the south, and Palmyra was only a small settlement in Solomon's day, so historians doubt the claim.

In Islam, Solomon is honoured as a king and as what else?

A prophet: the Quran says God gave Solomon the better understanding of a case his own father was judging, over sheep that strayed into a field by night.