4 min read

How Solomon Found the Shamir Through Asmodeus's Secret

No iron could touch the Temple stones. Only the shamir could split rock without weapons. Only Asmodeus knew where the shamir was kept.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. What Iron Cannot Touch
  2. The Demons Did Not Know
  3. Asmodeus at the Well
  4. The Bird That Kept the Secret

What Iron Cannot Touch

Solomon faced a problem built into the Torah itself. The stones for the Temple altar, and by extension for the entire Temple complex, could not be touched by iron tools. The prohibition came from Exodus and Deuteronomy: iron belonged to swords and spearheads, to warfare and death. A place built to receive the divine presence could not be shaped by instruments designed to end life. Every stone had to arrive at its place smooth and fitted without the mark of a metal blade.

He was building the most complex structure in the world, with thousands of carefully dressed stones, and he could not use any of the standard tools. He raised the problem with his advisors. They reminded him that the tradition had solved this before: Moses had used the shamir to engrave the names of the twelve tribes on the precious stones of the ephod. Not a tool, not a machine. A creature. A small stone or worm, the tradition was not entirely settled on its nature, that could split the hardest materials by contact alone, leaving no mark of violence on what it worked.

Moses had used it. The shamir existed somewhere. Solomon needed to find it.

The Demons Did Not Know

He turned to the spirits he commanded. If anyone knew the location of the shamir, it would be the beings that moved through hidden places. But the demons were stumped. They knew the shamir was real. They knew it existed. They did not know where it was kept. They sent Solomon to Asmodeus, king of the demons, who made his home far from human civilization and whose knowledge extended further than any spirit Solomon had yet consulted.

Finding Asmodeus required preparation. He lived near a well on a distant mountain, a well he had sealed himself and to which he returned every day to check the seal before drinking. Solomon's servant Benaiah was sent with the ring bearing the divine name and a plan. He dug channels that drained the well and filled it with wine. He covered the opening with a perforated cover that let the wine sink in but kept the surface level appearing normal. Then he hid and waited.

Asmodeus at the Well

Asmodeus arrived, checked his seal, found it unbroken, and drank. Wine, not water. He realized immediately what had happened and who must be behind it. He tried to stay awake. He could not. The king of demons fell asleep on the mountainside, and Benaiah bound him with a chain inscribed with the divine name before he could wake. He was brought to Jerusalem in chains, to the palace of the man who had outsmarted him without being present for the trap.

Solomon asked him about the shamir. Asmodeus did not reveal it gladly. But the name on the chain compelled him. He said the shamir had been given to the Prince of the Sea, who had entrusted it to the wild rooster, which used it to crack open rock and plant seeds in barren places. Find the wild rooster's nest, block the rooster's exit, and it would produce the shamir to cut its way free rather than abandon the nest. Then take it.

The Bird That Kept the Secret

Solomon's servants found the nest, sealed it with glass, and waited. The rooster returned, found itself locked out, brought the shamir, and pressed it to the glass. Benaiah shouted. The bird startled. The shamir dropped. Solomon had it.

The wild rooster, according to the tradition, killed itself out of shame at having lost the thing it had been trusted to guard. That detail matters: the creature kept its trust until a trick defeated it, and then it could not survive the failure. The shamir now belonged to Solomon, and with it, the stones of the Temple could finally be dressed without iron.

SolomonAsmodeusDemonsTempleMosesCreationMysticism
← All myths

From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 5:131Legends of the Jews

It wasn't a sudden plunge, but a slow slide fueled by choices… and a little help from the King of Demons himself.

In Legends of the Jews, Solomon’s troubles began to snowball. while he was building the Temple – that magnificent, awe-inspiring Temple – he ran into a bit of a problem. The Torah is very clear that you can’t use iron tools when you’re building an altar (Exodus 20:25). So how was he supposed to shape the stones from the quarry to fit perfectly?

The scholars reminded him of something fascinating: Moses had used the shamir, a mythical stone with the power to split rocks, to engrave the names of the tribes on the precious stones of the ephod – that ceremonial breastplate worn by the High Priest. The shamir. But where could Solomon find such a thing?

He turned to his demons, as you do when you're a king with supernatural connections. But even they were stumped! They knew of its existence, but not its location. Finally, though, they offered a clue. They suspected that Asmodeus, King of the Demons, held the secret. They even knew where he lived: a specific mountain.

The demons described Asmodeus' peculiar habits. On this mountain, there was a well, Asmodeus’ source of drinking water. Every day, before ascending to heaven – yes, even demons apparently attend heavenly academies to debate Torah – he would seal the well with a large rock. He’d check the seal when he returned, making sure it hadn’t been disturbed before taking a drink. Imagine the life of a demon king!

So, how does this detail about a well and a rock tie into Solomon's downfall? Well, it’s the beginning of a fascinating story involving trickery, ambition, and the subtle ways even the wisest of us can be led astray. We’ll see how Solomon’s quest for the shamir, and his interaction with Asmodeus, would eventually contribute to the heavy price he had to pay for his sins. As we'll find out, sometimes the most seemingly insignificant detail can be the thread that unravels everything.

Full source
Bamidbar Rabbah 19:3Bamidbar Rabbah

The Book of Ecclesiastes puts it perfectly: “All this I attempted with wisdom; I said: I will become wise, but it is distant from me” (Ecclesiastes 7:23). This feeling, this yearning, is at the heart of a fascinating passage in Bamidbar Rabbah 19, a section of the great Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) collection, Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah).

The passage kicks off by talking about Solomon, the wisest of all men. The text reminds us that “God granted wisdom to Solomon…[like the sand that is on the seashore]” (I Kings 5:9). What does the sand have to do with it? Well, the Rabbis offer a beautiful explanation: Solomon’s wisdom was like the sand, encompassing the wisdom of all of Israel, whose numbers were also likened to the sand of the sea (Hosea 2:1). Rabbi Levi adds another layer, suggesting that just as sand acts as a barrier for the sea, so too, wisdom was contained within Solomon.

Even Solomon's legendary wisdom had its limits. As the passage points out, “Solomon’s wisdom exceeded the wisdom of all the people of the east” (I (Kings 5:1)0). What was the wisdom of these "people of the east"? Apparently, they were experts in divination by bird calls. Intriguing. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel even praises some of their customs: they kissed on the hand instead of the mouth, cut with knives instead of biting, and sought counsel in open spaces.

Then there's the wisdom of Egypt, which Solomon also surpassed. The Midrash tells a story of Solomon seeking craftsmen from Pharaoh Nekho to build the Temple. Pharaoh, in a sly move, sends him workers destined to die within the year. Solomon, through Divine insight, knows their fate and sends them back with shrouds. A rather morbid mic drop, wouldn’t you say?

But hold on, the text doesn't stop with Solomon. It goes even further back, comparing Solomon’s wisdom to that of Adam, the first man. Remember how God consulted the angels before creating Adam? The angels questioned the point of creating humankind. To demonstrate humanity's potential, God paraded all the animals before them. The angels couldn't name them, but Adam could. “This one it is fitting to call bull, this one lion, this one horse…” (Genesis 2:20). Even more profound, Adam named God Himself, recognizing Him as “Lord” (Isaiah 42:8).

The passage continues, drawing parallels between Solomon and other wise figures: Abraham, Moses, and Joseph. The story of Joseph is particularly fascinating. The Egyptians, begrudgingly acknowledging his wisdom, tested him by presenting him with tablets written in seventy languages. Joseph, through Divine assistance, was able to read them all, even mastering the sacred tongue (Psalms 81:6).

We then get a glimpse into Solomon's understanding of the natural world. The text asks, rhetorically, how could Solomon speak to trees, animals, and fish? The answer is that he understood the symbolic meaning behind them. For example, he pondered why a leper is purified with both cedar and hyssop. The answer? Because the leper’s pride was as towering as the cedar, and his healing comes through humility, as small as the hyssop.

The passage ends with a powerful statement: Even with all his vast knowledge, Solomon confessed that some things were simply beyond his grasp. He investigated, he asked, he searched, but the mystery of the red heifer (parah adumah), a ritual sacrifice described in Numbers 19, remained elusive. "I said: I will become wise, but it is distant from me" (Ecclesiastes 7:23).

What does this all mean for us? Perhaps it's a reminder that the pursuit of wisdom is a lifelong journey. That even the wisest among us encounter mysteries that defy understanding. And that humility, like the hyssop, is an essential ingredient in the quest for knowledge. Maybe the point isn't to know everything, but to keep striving, to keep asking, and to accept that some things will always remain just beyond our reach. The beauty, perhaps, lies in the reaching itself.

Full source