The Desert Princess (11 page)
When I left the following morning to return to my chambers, I realized he had never answered my question about loving Abishag. But he had done more for me than he could have with any answer. He had reassured me of his love for me, and I knew that as Bathsheba had been to King David, I would not be set aside but favored. I would not allow myself to ever be forgotten.
During those early years, I was in love with the idea of love more than I fully understood love itself. I did not comprehend the sacrifice love would cost me, and I almost missed what God had so graciously placed right in front of me. My children.
Fortunately, wisdom found me soon enough, and I devoted my days to their care and teaching until Rehoboam was sent off to learn from the palace tutors. I fear my influence over him faded as he grew closer to his father.
While that relationship would once have made me glad, in Solomon's later years and through his many indulgences, I came to see the harm their closeness wrought.
And when Solomon married more and more women, who introduced the worship of Chemosh and Molech into the king's household, well . . .
As I said in the beginning, if history is true, it will tell a kinder story of my husband than I have heard during these final years. In the end, perhaps Solomon's great wisdom did return to him.
But the damage was done, and as my husband so aptly said, “Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment to fools.”
If only both my husband and my son would have heeded those words.
Naamah's story is one mostly taken from my imagination. All we are told of Naamah in the Bible is that she was the mother of Rehoboam, who succeeded Solomon as king, and that she was an Ammonite.
When King David fled from his son Absalom, it is said that Shobi, the son of Nahash the Ammonite, brought provisions to help King David and those with him. It was my imagination to place Shobi as the father of Naamah, thus giving her the connection that might have allowed the alliance to take place between her kingdom and David's. Perhaps it was David's way of thanking Shobi for his kindness during the king's distress.
The truth is we don't know if there even was a connection between Shobi and Naamah. But for the sake of the story, I chose to entertain the thought and give it wings. Whether Naamah would have traveled with her father to Mahanaim and met Solomon is also speculation.
Though this story and the others to follow in this novella collection will come more from imagination than Scripture, please remember that Solomon's character
is
taken from Scripture, and in that I tried to diligently understand this most enigmatic person. Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived and yet made choices that painted him a fool. He is a paradox, a man of complexities, not easy to understand. I have done my best to wrap my mind around who he was and why he made the choices he did. Perhaps our understanding of Solomon will allow us the grace to imagine what just a few of his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines were really like.
As always, I pray you will take time to read Solomon's story in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and 1 Kings. Jesus mentioned Solomon's wisdom, so I would say that even in his foolishness, he knew the truth. And in the end, he made the wiser choices.
In His Grace,
Jill Eileen Smith
Thank you to the Revell team, particularly to Lonnie Hull DuPont and Jennifer Leep for suggesting I write this series of ebook novellas. Thank you for putting such faith in me that I could actually do this thing! To my wonderful agent, Wendy Lawton, for cheering me on when I took the plunge into first person! And to Jessica English, who
always
makes my books better!
Thank you to my dear friends and critique partners, Jill Stengl and Kathleen Fuller. Your suggestions make me not only a better writer but, I hope, a better person. I am blessed to know each of you.
To my family and friendsâlife would have no meaning without you, and therefore stories would not be worth writing. We are each living our own story, and I pray they are more interesting than the ones I imagine!
To Randy, Jeff, Chris, Ryan, and CarissaâI love that our family is growing! I couldn't love any of you more, and it amazes me that God loves us even better still.
Adonai Elohim, thank You for giving us Solomon and for the many lessons his life has to teach us.
Jill Eileen Smith
is the author of the bestselling Wives of King David series and the Wives of the Patriarchs series. Her research into the lives of biblical women has taken her from the Bible to Israel, and she particularly enjoys learning how women lived in Old Testament times.
When she isn't writing, she loves to spend time with her family and friends, read stories that take her away, ride her bike to the park, snag date nights with her hubby, eat at healthy restaurants (when she doesn't feel like cooking), or play with her lovable “helpful” cat, Tiger. Jill lives with her family in southeast Michigan.
Contact Jill through email
([email protected]
), her website (
www.jilleileensmith.com
), Facebook (
www.facebook.com
/jilleileensmith
), or Twitter (
twitter.com/JillEileenSmith
). She loves to hear from her readers.
T
HE
W
IVES
OF
K
ING
D
AVID
Michal
Abigail
Bathsheba
W
IVES
OF
THE
P
ATRIARCHS
Sarai
Rebekah
Rachel
T
HE
L
OVES
OF
K
ING
S
OLOMON
(ebook series)
The Desert Princess
