1 Kings 11:4-10

11:4 When Solomon became old, his wives shifted his allegiance to ¹  other gods; he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. ²  11:5 Solomon worshiped ³  the Sidonian goddess Astarte and the detestable Ammonite god Milcom. ⁴  11:6 Solomon did evil in the Lord’s sight; ⁵  he did not remain loyal to ⁶  the Lord, like his father David had. 11:7 Furthermore, ⁷  on the hill east of Jerusalem ⁸  Solomon built a high place ⁹  for the detestable Moabite god Chemosh ¹⁰  and for the detestable Ammonite god Milcom. ¹¹  11:8 He built high places for all his foreign wives so they could burn incense and make sacrifices to their gods. ¹² 

11:9 The Lord was angry with Solomon because he had shifted his allegiance ¹³  away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him on two occasions ¹⁴  11:10 and had warned him about this very thing, so that he would not follow other gods. ¹⁵  But he did not obey ¹⁶  the Lord’s command.

¹ tn Heb “bent his heart after.”

² tn Heb “his heart was not complete with the Lord his God, like the heart of David his father.”

³ tn Heb “walked after.”

⁴ tn Heb “Milcom, the detestable thing of the Ammonites.”

⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”

⁶ tn The idiomatic statement reads in Hebrew, “he did not fill up after.”

⁷ tn Heb “then.”

⁸ sn The hill east of Jerusalem refers to the Mount of Olives.

⁹ sn A high place. The “high places” were places of worship that were naturally or artificially elevated (see 1 Kgs 3:2).

¹⁰ tn Heb “Chemosh, the detestable thing of Moab.”

¹¹ tc The MT reads “Molech,” but Milcom must be intended (see vv. 5, 33).

¹² tn Heb “and the same thing he did for all his foreign wives, [who] were burning incense and sacrificing to their gods.”

¹³ tn Heb “bent his heart.”

¹⁴ sn These two occasions are mentioned in 1 Kgs 3:5 and 9:2.

¹⁵ tn Heb “and had commanded him concerning this thing not to walk after other gods.”

¹⁶ tn Or “keep.”