"And Solomon made affinity with the Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaohs daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about."
At first it doesn't look like there is much of interest in this verse, but look at it again. "Solomon made affinity with the Pharaoh king of Egypt." Other Bible translations render this word "affinity" as "Alliance" or "Contract." Then it goes on and says that Solomon "Took Pharaoh's daughter." Basically he married Pharaoh's daughter. So we have Solomon, the king of Israel, of God's people, making an alliance with a worldly king and even marrying his daughter. This was definitely not according to God's plan.
First off God commanded the Israelites not to make any covenant or treaty with the pagan nations surrounding them in Exodus 23:31-32:
"And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them nor with their gods."
Now sure, you could make an argument that here God is only talking about the people who are in the land of Caanan, not in other parts of the world. But I think the underlying concept is that by making an alliance with a pagan nation it would make it easy for the pagan gods and customs of that nation to be absorbed by Israel. This was ultimately what God was concerned about.
Also prophetically in the Bible, Egypt represents Atheism. (See Exodus 5:2)
There was another huge mistake that Solomon made though. He married Pharaoh's daughter. God had commanded the Israelites not to marry anyone from any other nations besides Israel in Deuteronomy 7:1-3:
1. "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusties, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
2. "And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
3. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son."
(Now Verse 2 is a topic for another study and is just in there for context.)
Verse 3 shows us that God did not design for the Israelites to marry non-believers. Why is this? Well Amos lays it out for us. "Can two walk together, except they be agreed."(Amos 3:3) So now of course we could give Solomon the benefit of the doubt and say that this Egyptian Princess had been converted, or that he converted her after she was married to him, but this even is dangerous. Later on Solomon marries other women who aren't of his faith, and this turns out badly for him. Look at 1 Kings 11:3, "And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart." Now the fact that he had so many wives is not what God wanted in the first place, but aside from that fact we see that Solomon must have thought himself immune to his wives religion. But they ended up turning his heart far away from God.
Thus we see the downfall of Solomon at the very beginning of his "Ministry" or his reign. Is it possible that we as Christian young people can make the same mistake as Solomon? That right at the time we begin of working for God that we fall into temptation and marry a non-believer, or even a christian with beliefs that are different than our own. We could even marry a someone with the same beliefs as us, but who doesn't have the same mission as us, to carry the gospel to the world in this generation.
Now maybe you are thinking about that one couple you know who got married, and one was a Christian and one wasn't and the Christian one ended up converting his or her spouse. I'm not doubting that this can happen. But 9 times out of 10 it doesn't end up that way. That's the exception. Sometimes Satan can even allow that to happen to someone so that others will stumble. They see that it worked for them, so it will work for me. But then it doesn't.
I know that I'm probably not the most knowledgeable person in the subject, and I personally don't have any experience in this field, but I do see the example of Solomon, and of other young people who lose a lot, if not all of their usefulness for God because they made wrong decision in who they married. We are called to a high standard, especially in these last days.
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" -2 Corinthians 6:14
"And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among who I dwell." -Abraham (Genesis 24:3)
"Do not plow with an ox and donkey yoked together." -Deuteronomy 22:10
"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?"-Amos 3:3
Don't make the same mistake as Solomon. Live up to the standard God has set for us.
Do the right thing, come what may.
