March 26

Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots. — 1 Kgs 4:26

Solomon was very rich. Everything was on the most magnificent scale. This made his reign very splendid, but in this luxury lurked danger. It is sad when in a community there is business prosperity while character is deteriorating. A poet says:

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

The luxury of Solomon’s court, with the vast outlay of money, necessarily incurred heavy taxation, which soon became burdensome, and led ultimately to serious disaffection. An old legend says that in the heart of the staff on which Solomon leaned there was a worm which secretly was eating away the strength of the staff.

The legend has its meaning in the fact that in Solomon’s prosperity there lurked the insidious evil which, by and by, wrought ruin to the king’s own character and disruption to his kingdom.