SOLOMON’S WEALTH

The interesting tidbit about the special wood used for making instruments caught my attention. So I did a little digging into it.

“Moreover, the servants of Hiram and the servants of Solomon, who brought gold from Ophir, brought algum wood and precious stones. And the king made from the algum wood supports for the house of the Lord and for the king’s house, lyres also and harps for the singers. There never was seen the like of them before in the land of Judah.”
‭‭2 Chronicles‬ ‭9‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

No one knows what on earth “algum” or “almug” wood is. Strong’s Concordance speculates that it is perhaps sandalwood.

The historian Josephus called it “pine” but explained that it wasn’t like any pine tree that anyone had ever seen before, so – probably not actually pine. He said that the wood looked similar to wood from a fig tree but that it was “whiter and more shining.”

Josephus also claimed that this wood was sourced in “Aurea Chersonesus” which was what the ancients called the Malay Peninsula.

I went down the exotic wood rabbit hole. And there are several likely candidates for strong, whitish wood from Malaysia. Any one of them would’ve made beautiful instruments. Whatever it was, it was a luxury good. Solomon only had the best.

The golden shields on the walls were decorative only. Nobody is lugging a golden shield onto the battlefield. Solomon had to do something with all that gold. He had more than he knew what to do with.

Josephus says that Solomon’s horsemen were basically all tall hunky young models with six-pack abs and long flowing hair and that “they had also dust of gold every day sprinkled on their hair, so that their heads sparkled with the reflection of the sunbeams from the gold.” (Antiq. 8.7.3)

😲 They had REAL gold… hair glitter?

According to Josephus, yes. And they were dressed in “garments of Tyrian purple.”

🤔 So… Solomon’s horse-soldiers were dressed like every other country’s…kings?

Yeah.

🤯 Wow.

And all his servants ate like kings too. Every day.

😧 No wonder the Queen of Sheba was impressed.

Solomon had a fleet of ships that travelled globally. They brought back LOTS of gold and other treasures and exotic items.

We tend to think that until Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred and 92, that humans had never sailed further than their own coasts. There is a lot of archeology and history that point to the opposite. I mean, Solomon’s ships were gone for 3 years at a time. They weren’t just bobbing up and down the Mediterranean. That’s plenty of time to circumnavigate the whole planet.

Interestingly, the amount of gold that Solomon acquired annually was the rather ominous number of 666 talents.

This number only appears in 2 other places in scripture (besides the parallel account of Solomon’s gold in 1 Kings 10:14). One of the references is of course, the infamous “number of the Beast” of Revelation. The other is in a census of Ezra.

“The sons of Adonikam, 666.”
‭‭Ezra‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

That’s it. That’s the whole verse.

Adon/Adoni is Hebrew for lord or master. It’s a title of reverence. Observant Jews often insert this word in place of the sacred name of YHWH. Kam (Hebrew: quwm, rhymes with zoom) means “to rise.” So Adonikam means something like the “lord/master of rising.” It carries the idea of being high/exalted. Sounds rather like AntiChrist to me. I dunno. I wouldn’t build a doctrine on it, but I wouldn’t blow it off as mere coincidence either.

This 666 of Solomon’s; his global significance, wealth, power, unmatched wisdom, and his apostasy make him a candidate for an OT foreshadowing of the Antichrist. If that interests you, I highly recommend the book Shadows Of The Beast by Jacob Prasch. (If you want to buy it, get it for $22-$25 from his website, not Amazon or elsewhere where they’re asking over $90!)

Solomon was the son of David just as Jesus was called “the Son of David.” It’s a Messianic title. The Antichrist is a messianic figure. Other kings and queens came from all over to learn from Solomon. He trades internationally and all of those who serve him live like royalty. Kings will hand over their power to the Antichrist. The beast-kingdom of Mystery Babylon is described as an international trading superpower.

Coincidence?

If Solomon is a picture of some aspect of the “Man of Sin” we would do well to be wary of any international figure (or even an AI) that is the next “wisest man who ever lived;” especially if that figure is effortlessly bringing about radical levels of prosperity. If you see world leaders flocking to someone or something to bring all their most challenging questions and problems and this entity answers them with ease, you might want to avoid any allegiance to such a figure. Just sayin.

🤔 And if he has a bunch of golden glittered hunks dressed in purple and riding on fine horses, that’s a dead giveaway right?

Well – that would be really hard to miss.