Before Solomon became a king, he had been preceded by three kings – King Saul, King Ishbosheth, and King David. At the time Solomon inherited the throne from his father David, idol worship was either scarce or non-existent on the land of Israel.
King Solomon was a very pious man right from the beginning of his reign. Because of his piety, he had an encounter with God which resulted in him asking for wisdom from God and God, pleased with his request, gave him wisdom and everything thing that he could wish for – money, wealth, fame, dominion, etc. One of King Solomon’s greatest achievements was that he built the famous temple of Jerusalem – he used the best resources he could get to construct the temple – cedar of Lebanon, gold, etc.
Upon all his earlier piety, Solomon’s unquenchable desire for women made him marry so many women, most of whom were from foreign pagan nations. Solomon had a thousand women in his life in all – 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines.
The Bible categorically mentioned that Solomon’s wives led him astray; as Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart to other gods; though Solomon did not completely abandon serving the one true God, his heart was not fully devoted to Him as the heart of David his father had been. And this is what Solomon did to introduce idol worship in Israel.
- Aside from being a worshipper of the one true God, he was also a worshipper of the pagan deity Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the god of the Ammonites. (1 Kings 11:1-13).
- On a hill east of Jerusalem, King Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the god of Moab, and for Molek the god of the Ammonites. Also, he built high places for the gods of all his foreign wives, and his foreign wives burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods at those high places.
- Though the high places, idols, and shrines Solomon built were meant for his foreign wives, later, many of the natives of Judah turned to idol worship. Through King Solomon, a lot of pagan gods were introduced in Israel such as Ashtoreth, Molek, Chemosh, and many others. So King Solomon was the first king to introduce polytheism in Israel.
God promised David that if his descendants would fear the Lord and serve him only, He would make them rule over Israel forever. But because of Solomon’s sin of idolatry, the promise God made to David was annulled and God threatened to strip the kingdom of Israel from the house of David. During the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, the Lord brought into accomplishment what He threatened to do. He tore the kingdom away from the hands of Rehoboam and the house of David. God divided the kingdom into two:
He gave the tribe of Judah to Rehoboam to rule over and gave ten of the tribes to Jeroboam son of Nabat and made him a king over them. Hence Israel was divided into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.
- The Kingdom of Judah – In the Bible, the Kingdom of Judah is simply called Judah.
- Kingdom of Israel – in the Bible, the Kingdom of Israel is still called by the name Israel.
The first king to introduce idol worship in the newly formed Kingdom of Israel
After the death of Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two, the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. The first king to rule over the Kingdom of Israel was Jeroboam. At the time Jeroboam took the throne, Jerusalem was the city designated for all religious activities. Though the kingdom was divided, God was still the God of both the northern and the southern kingdoms. So the people from the northern kingdom still had to go to Jerusalem in Judah for all religious activities.
But Jeroboam saw an occasion to fear for he thought that if his people went to offer sacrifices in the temple of God at Jerusalem, along the line, their hearts would turn again to King Rehoboam of Judah and acknowledge him as their king, and he King Jeroboam would lose his kingdom and his life.
Therefore he took counsel from his advisors and founded a new religion for the kingdom. He made two golden calves and built altars in Bethel and Dan and placed one of the golden calves in Bethel and the other in Dan. Further, he diverted the attention and devotion of the people from God and God’s chosen place of worship, Jerusalem, to these golden idols of Dan and Bethel 1 Kings 12:31. This sin of worshipping the golden calves was later referred to as the sins of Jeroboam or the way of Jeroboam.
King Jeroboam, in addition to the golden calves, built high places; that is, places for offering sacrifices on top of hills. King Jeroboam forsook the tribe of Levi and ordained ordinary people as priests of the high places and for the shrines (the altar and the golden calves) in Bethel and Dan. He also ordained a day of feasting on the fifteenth day of the eight-month on which burnt sacrifices and incense would be offered to the golden idols in Bethel and Dan.
Hence the first king to introduce idol worship in the Kingdom of Israel was King Jeroboam who also happened to be their first king.
The first king to introduce idol worship in the newly formed Kingdom of Judah.
The idols and the shrines that King Solomon built in and around Jerusalem remained as they were even after his death. His son King Rehoboam did not turn away from the gods his father worship nor pull down the idols, the shrines, the high places, and the altars his father built for pagan deities. Rather, he continued from where his father left off – he too worshiped and perpetrated idol worship in the kingdom of Judah. King Rehoboam who happened to be the first king of the newly formed Kingdom of Judah was also the first king to introduce idol worship in the kingdom.
Conclusion
King Solomon was the first king to introduce idol worship in Israel. All other idolatrous kings walked in his footprint. Now after the kingdom was divided into two kingdoms, north and south, King Jeroboam was the first king to introduce idol worship in the northern part of the kingdom and king Rehoboam was the first king to introduce idol worship in the south.