Asmodeus Saw Everything Solomon Could Not

The King Who Kept the Prisoner Too Long

Solomon had already gotten what he needed from Asmodeus. The demon king had revealed the location of the shamir, the worm that could cut stone without iron tools, and the Temple had been built. Solomon could have released Asmodeus and been done with it. He did not. He kept the king of demons chained in Jerusalem, a living trophy of his wisdom and power.

This was the mistake. Not the original capture, which had been necessary and clever. The mistake was vanity, the desire to keep the proof of what he had accomplished visible in his court. Asmodeus, chained and present, was a daily demonstration that Solomon was the wisest man who had ever lived. The chains were the problem. The wisdom should have known when to let go.

What Asmodeus Wept At and What Made Him Laugh

Before the reckoning, there was a journey. Asmodeus had been brought to Jerusalem from a distant mountain, and during the journey through the land, he had behaved strangely. He wept at a wedding party. He laughed at a man buying shoes. He laughed again at a sorcerer performing tricks. He wept when he saw a blind man asking directions. He turned and walked four cubits sideways when he passed a drunk man on the road.

Solomon, curious and irritated in equal measure, demanded an explanation. Asmodeus provided it without softening. He had wept at the wedding because he could see that the husband would be dead within thirty days, and the bride would need to wait the full period before she could remarry. He had laughed at the man buying shoes because the man was purchasing footwear for exactly the number of days he had left to live. He had laughed at the sorcerer because the man was sitting on a buried treasure he would never find. He had wept at the blind man because the blind man was righteous, and the four extra cubits Asmodeus walked around the drunk man were because the drunk man was a Torah scholar, and even the king of demons gave him room.

Asmodeus saw the end of every story he was walking through. Solomon saw only its surface.

The Ring, the Wager, and the Fall

Still in chains, Asmodeus eventually challenged Solomon directly. "You call yourself the greatest of all kings," he said. "You call yourself the wisest of all men. Then show me what you have that I do not." Solomon, who should have known better, accepted the implicit dare. He agreed to remove Asmodeus's chains. He agreed to give him his magic ring, the ring inscribed with the divine name that was the source of Solomon's power over the spirit world. He would lend it for a moment, just to demonstrate that his greatness did not depend on a piece of jewelry.

Asmodeus took the ring and threw Solomon four hundred parasangs away, to the land of Ammon. Then he sat on Solomon's throne wearing Solomon's ring and ruling Solomon's kingdom with Solomon's face, because the demon king could impersonate the king perfectly enough to fool the court.

The Wanderer Who Still Had Justice in Him

Solomon spent years in exile, wandering, begging food from doorways, identifying himself as the king of Israel to everyone he met and being laughed at or pitied. The Legends of the Jews preserves one episode from those years that reveals what exile did not take from him: his judgment.

Solomon brought a legal case before a minor tribunal in Ammon, accusing a local king of murdering a cook and his wife. The king denied killing them, claiming he had only banished them. Solomon called the queen as a witness. When she appeared, the king of Ammon recognized her as his own daughter, and the case unwound. Even in rags, with no throne and no ring, Solomon was still organizing evidence, calling witnesses, and reaching the truth of a legal dispute. Wisdom, the tradition insisted, could not be thrown four hundred parasangs away. Only the ring could be taken.