1 Kings 3 Bible study: A hearing heart

The chapter opens with a marriage: "Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into David’s city until he had finished building his own house, the LORD’s house, and the wall around Jerusalem" (3:1). Three buildings are named, and none of them is finished yet. The next verse says, "However, the people sacrificed in the high places, because there was not yet a house built for the LORD’s name" (3:2) (tap high places). The LORD had said to David of his offspring, "He will build a house for my name" (2 Samuel 7:13). Then Solomon himself: "Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father, except that he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places" (3:3). In Hebrew "However" in 3:2 and "except" in 3:3 are the same small word, raq, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "only". "The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar" (3:4).

1 Kings 3:5→leads toMatthew 7:7

At Gibeon "the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask for what I should give you.”" (3:5). Solomon asked for "an understanding heart to judge your people" (3:9), and God said, "I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches and honor" (3:13). Teaching his disciples on the mountain (Matthew 5:1-2), Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you" (Matthew 7:7), and "For everyone who asks receives" (Matthew 7:8). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Kings 3, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject, asking God and receiving from him, not on a shared word. Some hear in Jesus' words the invitation Solomon was given at Gibeon, opened to "everyone who asks" (Matthew 7:8). Others read 3:5 as a word to Solomon alone, given in a dream at the start of his reign and followed by a condition (3:14), and Jesus' words within his own teaching to his disciples (Matthew 5:1-2), without looking from one to the other.

שָׁמַעshamasay sha-MA

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "hear". Strong's: "to hear intelligently". Solomon asks for "an understanding heart" (3:9): in Hebrew lev shomea, a heart that hears, with this ordinary verb for hearing. It comes three times in the chapter. God says Solomon asked "understanding to discern justice" (3:11), where discern is this verb again, and the chapter ends, "All Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged" (3:28). Later the nations come to hear: "People of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon" (4:34), and "All the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart" (10:24).