How Solomon Caught the Demon King and What It Cost Him

The Chain With God's Name on It

Benaiah ben Jehoiada left Jerusalem with three things: a chain inscribed with the divine Name, a flask of water, and a flask of wine. His mission was to find the spring where Asmodeus, king of demons, came to drink each day, substitute wine for the water, wait for the demon to fall asleep, and bring him back in chains to Jerusalem. Solomon needed something only Asmodeus knew: the location of the Shamir, the miraculous worm that could cut stone without iron, which was required to build the Temple according to the commandment that no iron tool touch the sacred stones.

The plan worked precisely. Asmodeus arrived at the spring, found his water replaced with wine, refused it at first on principle, then drank, fell asleep, and woke up in chains with Benaiah standing over him. He came to Jerusalem without resistance. He had already decided what he would do when he got there.

What Asmodeus Told Solomon About Himself

During his captivity, Asmodeus watched Solomon on his throne and wept. He watched a cobbler measuring a man's feet and wept again. He watched a wedding procession and laughed. He asked a blind man for directions to a town and set the blind man on the right road. Solomon asked him to explain each action.

The throne: I weep because you will lose all of this. The cobbler: he was measuring for shoes to last seven years, but the man has only seven days left to live. The wedding: the groom will be dead within thirty days, and his bride will marry one of Solomon's officers. The blind man: I showed him kindness because I saw that he was righteous, and righteousness deserves the road even when I do not have to give it.

Solomon heard all of this and kept Asmodeus in chains. He was using the demon as entertainment and as muscle, and he saw no reason to release him now that the Temple stones were cut. This decision, the tradition makes clear, was the actual mistake. Not catching the demon. Keeping him after the work was done.

The Ring and the Sea

Asmodeus eventually asked Solomon to remove the chain with the divine Name, just for a moment, just to demonstrate that Solomon trusted him. Solomon removed it. Asmodeus stood at his full height, which reached from earth to heaven, and flung Solomon four hundred miles through the air, to the land of Ammon. Then he sat down on Solomon's throne and wore Solomon's face.

Solomon wandered through Ammon as a beggar. He told people he was the king of Israel. They gave him food sometimes. He traveled from city to city, sleeping in fields. He arrived eventually at the kitchen of a household where he recognized someone, and was taken in, and worked his way slowly back toward Jerusalem. When he arrived, years later, Asmodeus had already left. The demon's interest was in the demonstration, not the throne.

The Bed Surrounded by Sixty Soldiers

When Solomon returned and reclaimed his kingdom, the tradition records one change in his behavior. He built himself a bed surrounded by sixty armed warriors, one for each of the sixty mighty men described in the Song of Songs, and they stood guard over him every night because he was afraid of the terrors in the night. A man who had stood face to face with the king of demons for months and had lost the encounter had been taught a specific fear, the kind that does not go away when you recover your throne.

The Temple was built. It stood for four centuries. Solomon's ring, which bore the divine Name that had let him command demons, was eventually recovered from the sea. But the man who came back from Ammon was not the same man who had sent Benaiah to the spring with a chain and a flask of wine. He had been shown, by someone who had no reason to lie to him, exactly where his confidence would take him. He had heard the warning. He had not listened. And then everything the demon promised had happened, precisely as described.