Solomon, Jeroboam, and Naboth’s Vineyard

…by way of examples, taking up our own members; only in this way do we rise, and barely, to faint thoughts about God.

“And the queen of Sheba,” and so on (1 Kings 10:1). (Cyril, from his Commentary on Luke.) A foreign woman, though great distances kept her away, overcame her reluctance, not to gather riches but to hear the wisdom of Solomon, who spoke in parables and riddles and sketched both the beauties and the faults of human character.

“Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the idol of Moab” (1 Kings 11:7). What could be more grievous than such monstrous offenses: to assign to herds of demons the dignity of honor and love that belongs to the one God, who is God by nature; or rather, to fashion them out of stones and wood, and to build temples for them?

“And the Lord was angry with Solomon,” and so on (1 Kings 11:9). And what, then, had been commanded to him and to all men under the Law? That they should not marry foreigners. For he said: “You shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son. For he will turn your son away from me, and he will go and serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). Forgetting this command, then, he joined himself to the daughters of foreigners. “Since, then,” he says, “you have counted as nothing the command that was given, and have slipped into apostasy and served the gods of foreigners; and since, though you knew that creation is my servant, you have assigned to it the honor and glory that are mine and that befit me alone, I too will tear your kingdom apart and give it to your servant (1 Kings 11:11), so that you may learn what you have done from what has happened to you.”

For Solomon, very wise though he was, was overcome by his desires for women, and all but tore apart the kingdom of God, so far as his efforts could reach, by attaching to idols the honor and glory that befit God alone. For this very reason God threatened, and with good cause, to tear his kingdom apart, grieving him in equal measure, as it is written in the prophet Ezekiel: “As you have done, so it shall be to you; your recompense shall be repaid upon your head” (Obadiah 1:15; compare Ezekiel 16:59).

“And the king took counsel, and went, and made two calves” (1 Kings 12:28). Jeroboam became the author of ruin for the people of Israel, displaying their choice of the kingship of men instead, and their turning away from being ruled by God through prophets. For: “See, Jeroboam has provoked me, the Master, by devising new calves and investing them with my own dignity.” And again: At the start Jeroboam devised the calves and ordered the customary rites to be performed before them, the wretch, attaching to his own inventions the glory that befits God, so that he himself might hold the kingdom securely; and so he robs God, as it were, of what is his own.

“And Naboth had a vineyard” (1 Kings 21:1). Isaiah teaches us to understand the vineyard as Israel (Isaiah 5:7). But its leaders, of whom Ahab bears the type, longed to have it; yet they could not persuade him to betray to them his father’s choice vineyard, so that they might turn it into a vegetable garden, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men (Matthew 15:9), and giving…