Okay, so the other day I got this question stuck in my head: how old was Solomon when he actually became king? Seemed like a straightforward thing you’d find easily, right? Well, let me tell you about my little journey trying to pin that down.
Digging In
First thing I did was grab my trusty old Bible. I figured, start at the source. Went straight to 1 Kings. You know the story, David’s getting old, there’s that whole fuss with Adonijah trying to take over, and then Bathsheba and Nathan step in, and David declares Solomon king. Lots of drama, coronation details, sacrifices, the whole nine yards. But his age? Not a word. Scanned through the first couple of chapters again, thinking maybe I missed it. Nope. Nothing specific.
Alright, I thought, maybe it’s in the other account. So, I flipped over to Chronicles. Started reading through 1 Chronicles, mostly genealogies and David’s reign stuff. Then into 2 Chronicles, chapter 1, where Solomon takes charge, asks God for wisdom, gets rich. Again, great details about his reign, the temple building later on, but absolutely zero mention of how old he was when he put on the crown. It was starting to feel a bit weird. Such a major figure, you’d think they’d mention it.
Looking Around
So, the primary texts weren’t giving me a clear number. Plan B: see what scholars and historical commentaries say. I spent some time looking through resources I trust, trying to avoid the random guesses you find everywhere online. This is where it got interesting, and honestly, a bit muddy.
- Some folks suggest he was likely quite young, maybe even a teenager, based on how David refers to him or perhaps interpretations of his initial actions.
- Others lean towards him being older, perhaps around 20 years old. This often comes from trying to work backwards from the age of his son Rehoboam later, or just general assumptions about the maturity needed for the role.
- Then you have some who just straight up say, “We don’t know for sure.”
It felt like piecing together clues without a final confirmation. There wasn’t a single verse saying “Solomon was X years old when he began to reign.” It was all inference and educated guessing based on surrounding details or later events.
My Takeaway
After spending a good bit of time on this, reading the passages, checking different interpretations, I came to a pretty simple conclusion: the Bible doesn’t explicitly state Solomon’s age when he became king. Anyone giving you a hard number is likely basing it on tradition or interpretation, not a direct statement from the text itself.
Most credible sources seem to settle around the idea that he was a young adult, probably somewhere between his late teens and early twenties. But a precise number? Doesn’t seem to exist in the records we have.
So, that was my little investigation. Started simple, ended up being a bit of a historical detective job with no definitive ‘aha!’ moment. But hey, that’s how it goes sometimes when you dig into ancient history!