Solomon the King Who Needed Daily Reminders of the Law
The first herald waited at the lowest step. Before Solomon's sandal landed, the man opened the king's law and spoke it into the air.
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Solomon set his sandal above the first step and the court held its breath. Seven men waited on the stairs. Their only work was to speak the king's law into his ear before he sat, every morning, the same words, as if wisdom itself could forget overnight.
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The first herald stepped in as the sandal came down. "He shall not multiply wives to himself." At the second step the next man said, "He shall not multiply horses to himself." At the third, "Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold." The fourth warned him not to wrest judgment. The fifth, not to respect persons. The sixth, not to take a gift. When Solomon reached the seat, the seventh herald cried out, "Know before whom thou standest."
The Dove Put the Scroll in His Hand
The throne did not sit quiet under him. When his foot touched the first step, a golden ox rose and led him to the second. Beasts there took him onward. Eagles received him at the sixth and set him on the seat, and a great eagle laid the royal crown on his head. A huge snake rolled against the machinery until lions and eagles rose and encircled him.
Then a golden dove flew down from a pillar, took the sacred scroll out of a casket, and put it in the king's hand, so he might keep the injunction to have the law with him and read in it all the days of his life. Twenty-four vines interlaced above him and made a shady arbor. Two golden lions breathed sweet perfume. The whole climb was a machine for reminding a man who already knew.
He sat with the scroll warm from the dove's grip. The seven voices were still in the air. For a time the reminders held.
The Book Complained
Wealth accumulated past what the stairs could contain. Solomon acquired horses from Egypt. He married wives from foreign nations. Silver grew so common in Jerusalem that it lost its price in the market, not as a figure of speech, but as a number a merchant would spit at.
Each acquisition came with a reason. He was expanding trade. He was securing alliances. He was a king large enough to apply the guardrails with more room than smaller kings were given. He did not stop believing the rules. He became sure he understood them well enough to wear them loosely.
The Book of Deuteronomy stepped before God and said, "Solomon is seeking to remove a yod from me. You wrote that the king shall not multiply horses, wives, or silver and gold, and he has done all three." God answered that Solomon and a hundred of his kind would be annihilated before a single letter of that book was wiped away. The stairs had spoken. The scroll had sat in his palm. The book itself had gone upstairs to complain. The reminders were no longer a courtesy. They were a case.
The Tower and the Bird
He learned from the stars that his daughter was destined to marry a poor man. He locked her in a tower on a remote island to prevent the writing from coming true. That night a young man, cold and exhausted, killed a large bird for warmth and climbed inside the carcass to sleep. Wind carried the carcass to the top of the tower. The young man climbed out, found Solomon's daughter, and they married.
When the eunuchs saw she was pregnant they sent for the king. She admitted the marriage. Solomon looked at the poor man the constellations had named and thanked God for a son-in-law distinguished in learning. Wisdom had built a tower. The wind had used a dead bird. The writing had not moved an inch for him.
Keep, Not Only Receive
A verse waited for him that he had not written. "Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart" (Psalm 119:2). He had received Torah from a dove's mouth every morning of his reign. Receiving is a ceremony. Keeping is the part a scroll cannot do for a king.
He had told his own sons, in his own book, to take hold of instruction and not let it go, because it is life (Proverbs 4:13). The seven heralds had been that instruction in flesh, posted on the stairs so he could not reach the seat without hearing it. The throne had put the scroll in his hand. The poor man in the bird had shown him the limit of a mind that tries to outmaneuver what is written.
He still sat. The seventh herald still had to cry the last line, because the wisest man alive still needed someone else to say, before the gold and the perfume and the crown, "Know before whom thou standest."
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