What did it mean that David was a man after God’s own heart? This is not an insignificant question because, as we remember, it was God, through His prophet Samuel, who made this statement about the kind of king He was seeking to replace Saul. One way we can answer this question is in a comparison of David and Solomon.
We are told that Solomon loved the Lord
(3:3). That same verse also has an “exception”
(except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places). But remember that even with that God sought a
relationship with Solomon. He spoke with
Solomon, and answered his request for wisdom, and then gave him all the things
he didn’t ask for that kings like to have.
Asking for wisdom was a good thing: you must have wisdom to properly rule
with justice (3:28).
But again, Solomon loved the Lord. A
strong characteristic of love is “sacrifice.”
Solomon offered a lot of sacrifices to the Lord. When the Lord answered his prayer for wisdom,
he offered sacrifices. When the temple
was finished, he offered thousands of sacrifices. We, of course, know the love of God by the
sacrifice (propitiation) of His Son (1 Jn. 4:9-11). Sacrifice is good. Love is, of course, good. We must love the Lord with all our heart,
mind, soul and strength.
Of course, Solomon eventually participated in
offering sacrifices to other gods, those of some of his wives. Perhaps this “single-heartedness” that
Solomon lacked is a key aspect of having a heart like God’s. When you come to the end of Solomon’s life
this is what you hear from the Lord. His
heart was not loyal (lit. at peace with) to the LORD his God, as
was the heart of his father David (1 Ki. 11:4). Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD,
and did not fully follow the LORD, as did his father David (11:6).
Let us not forget. David sinned grievously. But let us not forget: David’s soul was in
deep distress in the matter. Read Psalm
51, David’s Song of Confession. He was
in physical agony. For the prophet
Nathan to confront him was like a relief to him, to finally deal with the
matter. He humbles himself before the
Lord. We do not see this in
Solomon. It appears the idolatry with
his wives became part of his life. And
no matter how the Lord disciplined him (1 Ki. 11:14-40) he did not turn away
from this unfaithfulness. The only
reason God did not take away all of Israel from Solomon’s son was for the
sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen (11:13).
David and Solomon both loved the Lord. But David was loyal to the Lord, to the end
of his life. “Oh Lord, may it be so for
me, to the end of my days!”
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