As far back as the seventeen-hundreds, fur trappers for the Hudson’s Bay Company noted that while in some years they would collect an enormous number of Canadian lynx pelts, in the following years hardly any of the wild snow cats could be found—until, some years later, when the trappers found themselves again deluged with an abundance of lynx.
Later research revealed that the rise and fall (and subsequent rise and fall) of the lynx population correlated with the rise and fall of the lynx’s favorite food: the snowshoe hare.
A bountiful year for the hares meant a plentiful year for lynxes, while dismal hare years were often followed by bad lynx years. The hare booms and busts followed, on average, a ten-year cycle.
That still left an unanswered question: What was behind the rise and fall of the hare populations? A recent hypothesis is that the population of hares rises and falls due to a mixture of population pressure and predation:
When hares overpopulate their environment, the population becomes stressed—the fact that the food supply is gobbled up certainly doesn’t help—which can lead to decreased reproduction, resulting in a drop in next year’s hare count.
Meanwhile, predators like lynxes and raptors celebrate the hare bubble by gorging themselves and reproducing like mad. The subsequent decline in hares can lead to a drop in the swollen predator population; fewer predators can then result in more hares surviving to reproduce; and the cycle begins again.
Now, imagine an animal that emerges every twelve years, like a cicada. According to the paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, in his essay “Of Bamboo, Cicadas, and the Economy of Adam Smith,” these kind of boom-and-bust population cycles can be devastating to creatures with a long development phase.
Since most predators have a two-to-ten-year population cycle, the twelve-year cicadas would be a feast for any predator with a two-, three-, four-, or six-year cycle. By this reasoning, any cicada with a development span that is easily divisible by the smaller numbers of a predator’s population cycle is vulnerable.
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Prime numbers, however, can only be divided by themselves and one; they cannot be evenly divided into smaller integers. Cicadas that emerge at prime-numbered year intervals, like the seventeen-year Brood II set to swarm the East Coast, would find themselves relatively immune to predator population cycles, since it is mathematically unlikely for a short-cycled predator to exist on the same cycle.
In Gould’s example, a cicada that emerges every seventeen years and has a predator with a five-year life cycle will only face a peak predator population once every eighty-five (5 x 17) years, giving it an enormous advantage over less well-adapted cicadas.
To test this hypothesis, researchers from Brazil’s Universidade Estadual de Campinas used a computer simulation, very similar to John Conway’s Game of Life, in which simulated cicadas and predators battled it out in a hundred-by-hundred-cell matrix.
They found exactly what Gould had suggested: cicadas with a prime-numbered life cycle had the most successful evolutionary strategy. If we discount those cicadas with life cycles of ten years or fewer (as being too close to predator life cycles), we find that the most successful emergence rates for cyber cicadas are thirteen and seventeen years—precisely what we find in the wild.
So how do the cicadas know how to calculate prime numbers? They don’t. They’re cicadas. The pattern probably emerged as a result of Darwinian natural selection: cicadas that naturally matured in easily divisible years were gobbled up by predators, and simply didn’t live long enough to produce as many offspring.
Those who, by chance, had long, prime-numbered life spans fared best, survived longest, and left the most offspring, becoming the dominant variation of the species. (There are now at least fifteen distinct populations of periodical cicadas.)
As things stand now, cicada emergences are so tightly timed, with the bulk of the insects emerging within a span of a few weeks, that any cicada that tries to break the pattern is simply taking her offspring’s life into her own hands.
Not everyone buys into this hypothesis. Lou Sorkin, the American Museum of Natural History’s cicada expert, pointed out that cicadas evolved during the Pleistocene epoch, about 1.8 million years ago, when the earth was much cooler.
Since cicadas don’t survive well in the cold, he explained, it is possible that the cicadas that were naturally adapted to stay underground longer were less likely to face an unexpectedly cold spring.
But perhaps Adam Smith had it right, as Gould points out: the “invisible hand” of millions of mindless drones working for their own self-interest can create highly organized, mathematically precise behavior that benefits the group. At least for cicadas.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-cicadas-love-affair-with-prime-numbers
In 1937, aboard slowly-moving trains, the Army National Guard used flamethrowers in an attempt to quell a relentless plague of locusts crossing through Colorado. But the flamethrowers failed. And so did explosives. The locusts easily endured, devouring farmland.
Over 80 years later, great locust swarms still can't be contained. Last week, the U.N. announced that desert locusts — the most devastating type — descended upon East Africa, and over the coming months the insects may increase their populations by a whopping 500-fold. "Kenya has not faced a locust threat of this magnitude in 70 years," the U.N. said.
A single swarm of locusts, which are voracious grasshopper species that can spread over 460-square miles of land, have been a scourge — at least through the eyes of humans — for thousands of years.
In more modern times, the British formed an anti-locust unit at the height of World War II to combat the pests in Africa and the Middle East, and a New York Times reporter pondered, in 1976, if "swarms that darken the sky" and "denude the land of crops" could be eliminated by progressing technology. Still today, the locust affliction continues.
"It's not surprising to me that we still don’t have a grip on this," said Iain Couzin, the director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior who researches locust swarms.
Today, the best humanity can do is try and predict where the swarms will form before a massive population outbreak can occur and ultimately consume vast tracts of crops, which are often rural people's sustenance. "You need to catch it early," said Rick Overson, the research coordinator at Arizona State University's Global Locust Initiative.
Once locusts grow wings as mature adults, there's no turning back. "They’re powerful fliers," said Overson. "They can be in one country and move to another by the end of the week."
And "during plagues" of the desert locust, the U.N. notes swarms can "affect 20 percent of the Earth's land, more than 65 of the world's poorest countries, and potentially damage the livelihood of one-tenth of the world's population."
After an outbreak occurs or the swarming begins, the blunt strategy is often to drop millions of liters of chemical pesticides on the insects, which is bad for the environment and human health, Overson explained.
But identifying exactly where the locusts start to swarm can be enormously daunting, especially when it comes to desert locusts in Africa and neighboring areas, which naturally inhabit remote, mostly-uninhabited regions some 16 million square kilometers, or over 6 million square miles, in size.
The creatures usually live solitary lives, but, when the right environmental conditions align (like after a good rainy season), the creatures become intensely attracted to each other, change color, and often grow longer wings and become more muscular. They transform into a formidable swarm.
"Locusts are highly cannibalistic, and we’re not going to solve this problem as a human society anytime soon," Overson said. Critically, humanity shouldn't endeavor to completely wipe out locust swarms, just because their populations can explode.
After all, locust swarms are wild, natural phenomena. Attempting to eliminate the insects, even if that were possible, could have unforeseen, cascading environmental consequences. "It's one of the wonders of the natural world," said Couzin."We don't want to stop them. We just want to manage them."
Locust swarms have similarities to wildfires, explained Overson. Sure, no one wants their house to burn down. But wide-scale suppression of wildfire, a natural phenomenon, has resulted in vastly overgrown forests, contributing to explosive infernos in the Western U.S. What might killing billions of locusts do? It's best not to find out.
To fend off some super-swarms from devouring human food, the primary mission today is prediction. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations currently strives to forecast the swarms. Where will the locusts strike? Locust populations can explode after the right rains, at the right times, or after mild winters, explained Overson.
But, there's a slew of other things to better account for stressed Couzin. "We’re at the tip of the iceberg of what we need to know" for better predictions, he said, like how billions of insects will react to changing weather, what there is to eat hundreds of miles ahead — and how much locusts will eat each other.
"Locusts are highly cannibalistic," explained Couzin, noting that they start cannibalizing when swarming begins and food starts to vanish. "As soon as resources are limited they turn on each other."
Though locust swarms impact about one in 10 people on Earth, there's a glaring lack of funding for swarm research. In part, this is because the swarms exist in boom and bust cycles, so there might be less research interest in the years, or sometimes decades, between outbreaks.
What's more, Couzin pointed out that locust swarms usually aren't descending upon the rich world. "It's affecting poor people," he said, so there's a lack of interest from wealthier nations.
Humanity, though, isn't a completely hapless observer as clouds of locusts come swarming from the horizon. It's quite likely civilization is giving these swarms a boost, both Couzin and Overson agreed.
"We’re trying to change the dogma that humans are passive victims of locust swarms," said Overson. We irrigate vast tracts of land, providing locusts with the carbohydrate-rich foods they (and we) love.
Climate change might make swarms more extreme, as rainfall events become more intense on a warming planet, perhaps giving rise to swarms feeding on plentiful growth following deluges. These questions demand more research.
In the coming months, locusts in East Africa will devour plants and croplands before their food runs out and they fade away — until the next swarm. It's what they're destined to do.
"It's quite extraordinary," said Couzin. "The locusts have found this trick to survive in booms and busts." "It works well for them," he added. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work well for us."
https://mashable.com/article/locust-swarm-africa-explained/
King Solomon, son of King David and Bathsheba, is renowned in the Old Testament for his God-given wisdom, writing, wealth, and women. Solomon was the king of the United Monarchy of Judaea and Israel and was known for his massive harem.
The most often mentioned wife of Solomon is the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, Solomon cemented alliances with the other neighboring Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Zidonian, and Hittite monarchs by marrying to their eligible young women whose polytheistic religious practices he allowed—despite his own Jewish beliefs.
Solomon's heir, Rehoboam, was the son of an Ammonite woman named Naamah (2 Chronicles 12:13). Although many of his concubines were foreign, it's believed that Naamah was his only foreign wife.
According to I Kings 11, Solomon had hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines. His harem consisted of approximately 700 wives and 300 concubines. The round numbers listed in the passage from I Kings 11 is a clue to the fact that it is an approximation.
Passages from I Kings 11 (KJV) - 11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:
11:2 Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. 11:3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
https://www.learnreligions.com/who-were-king-solomons-wives-117402
David is familiar to most people as a great hero in the Bible because of his confrontation with Goliath of Gath, a (giant) Philistine warrior. David is also known because he played the harp and wrote psalms. However, these were only some of David's many accomplishments. David's story also includes many marriages that influenced his rise and fall.
Many of David's marriages were politically motivated. For example, King Saul, David's predecessor, offered both of his daughters at separate times as wives for David.
For centuries, this "bond of blood" concept -- the idea that rulers feel bound to the kingdoms ruled by their wives' relatives -- was often employed, and just as often violated.
How Many Women Married David in the Bible? Limited polygamy (one man married to more than one woman) was permitted during this era of Israel's history.
While the Bible names seven women as David's spouses, it's possible that he had more, as well as multiple concubines who may have borne him unaccounted-for children.
The most authoritative source for David's wives is 1 Chronicles 3, which lists David's descendants for 30 generations. This source names seven wives:
Ahinoam of Jezreel
Abigail the Carmel
Maachah the daughter of King Talmai of Geshur
Haggith
Abital
Eglah
Bath-shua (Bathsheba) the daughter of Ammiel
The Number, Location, and Mothers of David's Children - David was married to Ahinoam, Abigail, Maacha, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah during the 7-1/2 years he reigned in Hebron as king of Judah. After David moved his capital to Jerusalem, he married Bathsheba.
Each of his first six wives bore David a son, while Bathsheba bore him four sons. Altogether, scripture records that David had 19 sons by various women, and one daughter, Tamar.
Where in the Bible Did David Marry Michal? Missing from the 1 Chronicles 3 list of sons and wives is Michal, daughter of King Saul who reigned c. 1025-1005 B.C. Her omission from the genealogy may be linked to 2 Samuel 6:23, which says, "to her dying day Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children."
However, according to the encyclopedia Jewish Women, there are rabbinic traditions within Judaism that pose three claims about Michal:
That she was really David's favorite wife; that because of her beauty she was nicknamed "Eglah," meaning calf or calf-like; that she died giving birth to David's son Ithream.
The end result of this rabbinic logic is that the reference to Eglah in 1 Chronicles 3 is taken as a reference to Michal. What Were the Limits on Polygamy?
Jewish Women says that equating Eglah with Michal was the rabbis' way of bringing David's marriages into line with the requirements of Deuteronomy 17:17, a law of Torah which mandates that the king "shall not have many wives." David had six wives while he ruled in Hebron as king of Judah.
While there, the prophet Nathan tells David in 2 Samuel 12:8: "I would give you twice as much over," which the rabbis interpret to mean that the number of David's existing wives could be tripled: from six to 18.
David brought his number of spouses to seven when he later married Bathsheba in Jerusalem, so David had well under the maximum of 18 wives.
Scholars Dispute Whether David Married Merab - 1 Samuel 18:14-19 lists Merab, Saul's elder daughter, and Michal's sister, as also betrothed to David.
Women in Scripture notes that Saul's intention here was to bind David as a soldier for life through his marriage and thus get David into a position where the Philistines could kill him. David didn't take the bait because in verse 19 Merab is married to Adriel the Meholathite, with whom she had 5 children.
Jewish Women says that in an effort to resolve the conflict, some rabbis argue that Merab didn't marry David until after her first husband died and that Michal didn't marry David until after her sister died. This timeline also would resolve a problem created by 2 Samuel 21:8, in which Michal is said to have married Adriel and borne him five sons.
The rabbis assert that when Merab died, Michal raised her sister's five children as if they were her own, so that Michal was acknowledged as their mother, though she was not married to Adriel, their father.
If David had married Merab, then his total number of legitimate spouses would have been eight -- still within the limits of the religious law, as the rabbis later interpreted it.
Merab's absence from the Davidic chronology in 1 Chronicles 3 could be explained by the fact that scripture doesn't record any children born to Merab and David.
Amid All the Wives of David in the Bible 3 Stand Out - Amid this numerical confusion, three of the many wives of David in the Bible stand out because their relationships provide significant insights into David's character. These wives are Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba, and their stories greatly influenced the history of Israel.
https://www.learnreligions.com/davids-many-wives-in-bible-117324
According to biblical tradition (and some say myth), King Solomon was the third and last king in the ancient United Kingdom of Israel. Other faiths, such as Islam and Rastafarianism, also embrace the notion of Solomon as a sagacious king and powerful prophet of Israel.
He was renowned for his wisdom, his prolific writings, and his building accomplishments. Born around 1010 BCE, Solomon was the tenth son of King David (the second king of ancient united Israel) and the second son of Bathsheba.
Like King Saul and King David, King Solomon reigned for 40 years in one of the highest and most prosperous periods in Israel’s history - called by many, “The Golden Age” of Israel.
During his reign, Solomon controlled the trade routes coming out of Edom, Arabia, India, Africa, and Judea; he constructed an elaborate and profitable web of alliances (cemented by an enormous assemblage of hundreds of wives and concubines), and he purportedly built the first Temple of God in Jerusalem, which was destroyed (along with the entire city of Jerusalem) by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
Despite initial sovereign successes, the end of Solomon’s rule was marked by several insurrections and attacks from both foreign and domestic enemies, as well as a disintegration of national and religious integrity because of cultural appeasements within Israel, which compromised and weakened the social fabric of the United Kingdom. He died in 931 BCE at age 80, possibly the most prosperous and productive king ever to rule over Israel.
The story of King Solomon begins with his father, King David, and his mother, Bathsheba. In the Hebrew scriptures, 2 Samuel 3 states that King David, anointed by the Prophet Samuel before King Saul’s demise to be his replacement, officially became King of Judea (1010 BCE).
Later, 2 Samuel 5 states that (in 1002 BCE) all the elders of Israel approached him to be their ruler, and “The king made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.” King David’s reign lasted 40 years, and like King Saul, it started off better than it ended.
The scriptures state that God gave Solomon not only knowledge & wisdom, but also 'riches & wealth & honor'. David’s initial zeal for God and for ethical integrity paved the way for his early fame and fortune, although being a man of warfare and blood (according to the scriptures), God decided that David was not suitable to be the one to build God’s Temple (that would be placed in the hands of his son, Solomon).
Moreover, David’s illicit affair and subsequent devious actions (leading to the assassination of Uriah the Hittite and its cover-up) complicated the rest of David’s reign - along with the rape of Tamar, the murder of Ammon, and the attempted coup of Absalom, among other controversies.
By the end of David’s life, he had lost touch with Israelite society and eventually lost political control of it, as well. This led to an attempted coup by his son, Adonijah (whose mother was Haggith, David’s fifth wife), who proclaimed himself to be king with the assistance of General Joab and Abiathar the Priest; however, the majority of Israel's institutional agents did not support Adonijah’s claim.
The Hebrew scriptures state that the Prophet Nathan went first to Bathsheba to alert her to Adonijah’s usurpation of the throne, who then went to her husband, King David, to break the troubling news to him.
Eventually, the Prophet Nathan joined the two, and King David officially made Solomon his heir apparent. David said, “Assuredly Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place” (1 Kings 1).
King David died from natural causes in 961 BCE, was buried in Jerusalem, and, as suggested in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, facilitated the establishment of the eternal kingdom of God through his piety and lineage. Before his death, David gave his final admonition to his son, Solomon, saying, “Keep the charge of the Lord your God:
To walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. . . for you are a wise man” (1 Kings 2).
The threat of civil war and Adonijah’s immediate execution as a traitor was averted for a time; however, Adonijah attempted to possess King David’s former asexual concubine, Abishag the Shunammite, behind King Solomon’s back.
This enraged Solomon most likely because of Adonijah’s surreptitious political triangulation of Bathsheba and because of Adonijah’s political machinations to be following in King David’s footsteps.
Thereafter, “King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada’ and he struck [Adonijah] down, and he died” (1Kings 1). King Solomon also dispatched the other ringleaders of the coup - General Joab and Abiathar the Priest, although Joab was executed and Abiathar was exiled.
Perhaps one of the more fantastical yet pivotal parts of the biblical story of Solomon is the divine gift that he received from God as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. Solomon implored, “Now, O Lord God, let your promise to David my father be established, for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude.
Now give me wisdom and knowledge.” According to the Hebrew scriptures, this impressed God, so Solomon received not only knowledge and wisdom, but also “riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like” (2 Chronicles 1).
The Qur'an also indicates that Solomon received a divine gift of wisdom, along with other special gifts (21:78–79) - "And We made Sulaiman [Solomon] to understand (the case); and unto each of them We gave judgment and knowledge."
Solomon’s prosperity and success were also achieved through ingenious reforms and innovations such as the improvement of defense measures; the expansion of the royal court; the financial windfall from more sophisticated taxation, labor conscriptions of Canaanites and Israelites, tributes and gifts from foreign countries under the influence of Solomon;
And a land and sea trading system that utilized a powerful navy and army to protect assets and trade routes. According to the Hebrew scriptures, “The king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedars as abundant as the sycamores, which are in the lowland” (2 Chronicles 1).
King Solomon was also famous for his international relationships, forming alliances with other nearby powerful nations such as Egypt, Moab, Tyre, Arabia, etc. Many of these partnerships were cemented through royal marriages and the giving of concubines to Solomon, eventually gaining him 700 wives and 300 concubines.
One of King Solomon’s more famous political-amorous relationships was with the Queen of Sheba (which some speculate to be modern-day Yemen), who visited Israel with a lavish tribute of 120 talents of gold.
The Hebrew scriptures state, “And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers and their apparel, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her” (2 Chronicles 9).
Clearly, the Queen was impressed with Solomon and his accomplishments, and the two cultivated an intimate relationship, with Sheba helping create, foster, and maintain Solomon’s trading with other Arabian kings.
Additionally, according to the Rastafarian faith, Solomon and Sheba conceived a child together, whose descendants included Haile Selassie I, "the God of the Black race," as Selassie would then be related to both King David and Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
King Solomon is credited in the Hebrew scriptures as sponsoring, planning, funding, and executing the building of the Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, per the wishes of his father, King David, and God.
The building of the Temple is recorded in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, with the ground-breaking beginning in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, and construction was completed seven years later with an ostentatious dedication. In a seven-day celebration, Solomon sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep to celebrate the Temple’s completion and God’s willingness to dwell among them, therein.
The architectural design of the Temple was modeled after the tabernacle that had housed the Ark of the Covenant for decades (if not centuries). Quite lavish, it was double the size and built mainly from stone, with cedar paneling to hide all masonry, which was overlaid with gold.
The inside of the Temple was decorated with elaborate carvings (gourds and open flowers), golden lampstands, an altar of incense (also called “the golden altar”), and two bronze pillars among other embellishments.
In a less-advanced architectural age, at over 100 feet long by 40 feet wide by 60 feet high (30 x 12 x 18 m) with outer doors of ivory, the First Temple must have seemed an impossibility, a miraculous achievement, for most visiting Israelites.
According to the Hebrew scriptures, after the Temple was completed, Solomon had the Ark of the Covenant finally moved from the tent that King David had made for it and placed it in its specialized chamber on the most western end of the Temple called, “The Holy of Holies.”
A perfect 20 x 20 x 20 ft. (6 x 6 x 6 m) cube, this was the most sacred room that no one besides the Chief Priest could enter (on the Day of Atonement) without dying. Institutionally and nationally, it was the intersection of the Divine with his People through his mediator.
The Temple did not just house the Levitical priests of God. Side rooms and a courtyard were constructed around the whole building, with areas sectioned off for both the priests and the common people of Israel.
Being a builder, King Solomon also engaged in other construction projects such as his personal palace, the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, the Hall of the Pillars, and the Hall of Justice. Yet, Solomon did not restrict his projects to Jerusalem alone.
He also rebuilt several cities; he commissioned fleets of ships and built numerous harbors to accommodate the bounty of the trade routes; and he constructed stables to house his thousands of horses and chariots.
It is even possible that he helped erect (or financed with plunder from the Temple by the Assyrians or Babylonians) the famous Hanging Gardens (one of the legendary Seven Wonders of the World).
King Solomon is also credited for contributing several books and literary works to the Hebrew scriptures including the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes, as well as traditionally penning some extra-biblical works including musical songs, poetry, histories, and scientific works in botany and zoology (although no extant writings have been discovered, currently).
Under Solomon, Israel’s golden age produced most of the works that were eventually gathered together into the “The Writings” or “Kethubim” section of the Hebrew scriptures.
Although theology is a component of Solomon’s writings, the wisdom genre (also seen in Egyptian and Akkadian literature) focuses more on areas outside of theology - providing advice on the created world, relationships, practical matters, and assorted personal topics or challenges. Thus, Proverbs deals with the art of living, with how to make intelligent choices for one’s future well-being.
The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is a romantic poem that presents the ultimate union between the bride and the bridegroom, focusing on themes of love, wisdom, beauty, power, desire, sex, loyalty, etc.
The Book of Ecclesiastes is a royal testament that includes personal reflections, meditations, and instructions on the meaning and purposes of life, alluding to several aspects that would have been relevant to Solomon’s own personal experiences - wisdom, futility, riches, servants, hedonism, productivity, and humble self-realization.
Although Solomon was the original sage for many of his proverbs, he also searched his kingdom and empire for other writings and ideas of erudite men and included them in his compilations.
Outside of the Hebrew scriptures, writings also exist that are attributed to King Solomon. In the Pseudepigrapha, The Testament of Solomon is a 3rd century CE book that syncretizes magic, astrology, and demonology to discuss the construction of the Temple among other sub-topics.
In the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Solomon is a deuterocanonical collection of wisdom sayings attributed to King Solomon (based on chapter 9:7–8), although the Muratorian Fragment suggests that it was "written by the friends of Solomon in his honour."
Losing Favour With God - Despite all these great accomplishments, the Hebrew scriptures indicate that the decline of Solomon was similar to the fall of the previous kings of United Israel - similar, in that personal vanity and religious/moral compromise led to social disintegration and strife.
Solomon slowly deprioritized his relationship and obligations to God in order to appease his many foreign wives and in order to protect the prosperity and longevity of his rule. Ultimately, “[Solomon’s] wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (1 Kings 11).
Solomon’s ungrateful, disloyal actions and attitude - despite being the wisest and most blessed man on the earth - provoked the anger and judgment of the Lord.
Thus, although still able to keep control of the nation of Israel because of God’s promise to King David, Solomon lost the protection and favor of God that earlier had provided remarkable peace and prosperity when he was obedient to God.
Solomon soon found new challenges from within and without his kingdom, including Jeroboam who was promised to reign over Israel by the Prophet Ahijah, from Hadad of Edom who challenged Solomon’s territorial control in the southern territory of Israel, and from Rezon of Damascus, who threatened Solomon’s control over the northern territory of Israel.
King Solomon died of natural causes in 931 BCE at the age of 80. His son, Rehoboam, inherited the throne, which led to a civil war and the end of the United Kingdom of Israel in in 930 BCE.
Epigraphical & Archaeological Evidence for King Solomon - As with King David, verifying the existence of King Solomon is challenging, at best, especially since epigraphs typically provide imprecise information, and the biblical accounts rest upon a presupposition of supernatural realities.
Although there is much archaeological and epigraphical evidence to substantiate the possibility of some/many (non-supernatural) scriptural assertions, archaeological finds to date have provided mostly indirect affirmation.
With such huge gaps in archaeological evidence and with the contamination of too many archaeological fields, it is easy to speculate, theorize, or make an argument from silence, but it is difficult to empirically prove or disprove the existence of Solomon.
Still, some provocative-yet-controversial archaeological finds have been recently unearthed over the last century that require consideration. Although its first discoverer is unknown, in 1828 CE, Jean–François Champollion, who also discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799 CE, examined the Bubastite Portal gate (built in 925 BCE) at the temple of Amun in Thebes.
On its walls, among the historical paintings, a long list of defeated peoples by Pharaoh Shoshenq is accessible, including those from the “Highland/Heights of David,” presumably led by King Rehoboam, which led Champollion to conclude that Pharaoh Shoshenq and King Shishak of Egypt, as referenced in 1 Kings in the Hebrew scriptures, are one and the same.
In 1868 CE, Missionary Frederick Augustus Klein discovered an intact stele in Dhiban, Jordan, called the “Mesha Stele” or the “Moabite Stone,” with text that he could not read. Although the stele was smashed by contentious locals the next year, a papier-måché impression had been made of it and the stele was reassembled.
The inscription on the stele references the Moabites, their god, and also references the nation of Israel and Omri, her sixth king. Similar finds such as the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III and the Chronicle of Sennacherib also confirm the existence of Israelite kings during the Assyrian hegemony.
Between 1957 CE and 1971 CE, archaeologist Yigael Yadin began excavations at two of the three cities mentioned in 1 Kings 9 (fully at Hazor and in a cursory investigation at Megiddo), which had gates supposedly built by King Solomon c. 960 BCE.
Based on compared archaeological evidence from all three sites, which included Macalister’s excavation report at Gezer from 1902–09 CE, Yadin concluded that the three city gates were designed by the same engineer (based on the same structural dimensions), built by the same workers (stylistically and methodologically from Phoenicia), and utilized the same material (they contained ashlar masonry quarried in Tyre).
Additionally, in the 1860s CE, Charles Warren discovered a wall and courtyard in Jerusalem that were later found to be identical to the one in Megiddo and dating from the period of King Solomon.
In 1993 CE, Avraham Biran discovered the Tel Dan Inscription on a broken stele in northern Israel. The inscription commemorates the victory of an Aramean king over its southern neighbors, and specifically references both the “king of Israel,” and the “king of the House of David.” This is perhaps the first real, direct, historical evidence for the Davidic Dynasty in Israel.
In 2010 CE, Eilat Mazar and her team discovered a 10th century BCE wall between the Temple Mount and the modern-day Arab neighborhood of Silwan. The wall was part of a larger complex that included a gatehouse, guard tower, and other buildings.
Based on artifacts found in and around the area, Mazar suspects that the wall is at least 3,000 years old, which would place its construction in the time period of King Solomon (as referenced in 1 Kings).
In 2012 CE, Eilat Mazar and her archaeological team discovered an ancient structure at the Ophel in Jerusalem that dated back to the Solomonic era. In a bedrock depression within that structure, the archaeologists also discovered a large storage jar (or pithos) with the earliest alphabetical letters ever found in Jerusalem written on an earthenware jug.
Although the seals do not directly reference King David or King Solomon, the Ophel Inscription not only suggests an advanced society living in Jerusalem earlier than previously believed; it also indicates a fully-functioning administration that collected taxes and implemented regulations during the period of King Solomon’s reign.
In 2013 CE, Erez Ben-Yosef and his archaeological team discovered radiocarbon dating evidence forcing many archaeologists and historians to revise their presumptions about the copper mines in Israel’s Aravah Desert.
Previously assumed to be Egyptian, the new evidence suggests that the mines were actually operated by the Edomites, the ancient enemies of Israel repeatedly referenced in the Hebrew scriptures, who lived during the period of Solomon.
In 2014 CE, students and faculty from Mississippi State University discovered six official clay seals in southern Israel near Gaza. Although the seals do not directly reference King David or King Solomon, the Khirbet Summeily clay seals indicate official government activity in 10th century BCE, which had been assumed to be too tribal for such sophistication.
In 2016 CE, Israeli archaeologists discovered numerous small artifacts from the Temple Mount, which have been dated to the time of the First Temple, nearly 3,000 years ago.
Shards from the archaeological dig include pottery fragments (a standard in general archaeological dating), olive pits, animal bones, and they all share a uniform date from the Solomonic period, according to the team’s findings.
By no means conclusive, the aforementioned discoveries do give some credence to the theory that a United Kingdom of Israel once existed in the Mediterranean region although Israel’s regional influence, military prowess, infrastructural contributions, and early pivotal leaders are still somewhat veiled.
Fortunately, new archaeological discoveries continue to be made and advanced technology continues to bring to light the shadows of that which has been hidden for centuries and centuries.
Archaeological and historical evidence of other kings of Israel and Judah - such as Omri, Ahab, Joram, Ahaziah, Jehu, Hezekiah - have been uncovered in the historical landscape (and one could conceivably expect more to follow).
Still, considering the traditional view of King Solomon as the wisest, most prosperous man on earth and King of his time (and of all future kings of Israel), the lack of direct historical and archaeological references to him, to the name “King Solomon” outside of the Hebrew scriptures, which portray him as the wisest of all fools, is quite ironical or evidential, indeed.
https://www.ancient.eu/solomon/
Question: "Why did God allow Solomon to have 1,000 wives and concubines?" Answer: First Kings 11:3 states that Solomon “had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.” Obviously, God “allowed” Solomon to have these wives, but allowance is not the same as approval. Solomon’s marital decisions were in direct violation of God’s Law, and there were consequences.
Solomon started out well early in his life, listening to the counsel of his father, David, as recorded in 1 Kings 2:2-3, “Be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go.”
Solomon’s early humility is shown in 1 Kings 3:5-9 when he requests wisdom from the Lord. Wisdom is applied knowledge; it helps us make decisions that honor the Lord and agree with the Scriptures.
Solomon’s book of Proverbs is filled with practical counsel on how to follow the Lord. Solomon also wrote the Song of Solomon, which presents a beautiful picture of what God intends marriage to be. So, King Solomon knew what was right, even if he didn’t always follow the right path.
Over time, Solomon forgot his own counsel and the wisdom of Scripture. God had given clear instructions for anyone who would be king: no amassing of horses, no multiplying of wives, and no accumulating of silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:14-20).
These commands were designed to prevent the king from trusting in military might, following foreign gods, and relying on wealth instead of on God. Any survey of Solomon’s life will show that he broke all three of these divine prohibitions!
Thus, Solomon’s taking of many wives and concubines was in direct violation of God’s Word. Just as God had predicted, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God” (1 Kings 11:4).
To please his wives, Solomon even got involved in sacrificing to Milcom (or Molech), a god that required “detestable” acts to be performed (1 Kings 11:7-8). God allowed Solomon to make the choice to disobey, but Solomon’s choice brought inevitable consequences.
“So the Lord said to Solomon, ‘Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates’” (1 Kings 11:11).
God showed mercy to Solomon for David’s sake (verse 12), but Solomon’s kingdom was eventually divided. Another chastisement upon Solomon was war with the Edomites and Aramians (verses 14-25).
Solomon was not a puppet king. God did not force him to do what was right. Rather, God laid out His will, blessed Solomon with wisdom, and expected the king to obey. In his later years, Solomon chose to disobey, and he was held accountable for his decisions.
It is instructive that, toward the end of Solomon’s life, God used him to write one more book, which we find in the Bible. The book of Ecclesiastes gives us “the rest of the story.” Solomon throughout the book tells us everything he tried in order to find fulfillment apart from God in this world, or “under the sun.”
This is his own testimony: “I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired . . . a harem as well–the delights of the heart of man” (Ecclesiastes 2:8).
But his harem did not bring happiness. Instead, “Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (verse 11). At the conclusion of Ecclesiastes, we find wise counsel: “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).”
It is never God’s will that anyone sin, but He does allow us to make our own choices. The story of Solomon is a powerful lesson for us that it does not pay to disobey. It is not enough to start well; we must seek God’s grace to finish well, too.
Life without God is a dead-end street. Solomon thought that having 1,000 wives and concubines would provide happiness, but whatever pleasure he derived was not worth the price he paid. As a wiser Solomon said, “God will bring every deed into judgment” (Ecclesiastes 12:14).
https://www.gotquestions.org/Solomon-wives-concubines.html
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A small fishing boat drifts over Bidong's nearby coral. A few locations may come to mind when you think of the world's most densely populated places. Hong Kong is up there. Manhattan, perhaps. Male, the Maldives' island capital, or the fuvelas of Rio de Janeiro are contenders.
Less would cite Pulau Bidong, a tiny island off Malaysia's north-east coast that, at least momentarily in 1979, laid claim to that title. As the South Vietnamese began to lose the Vietnam war in the mid-1970s, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fled persecution, with the exodus only slowing in the early 1990s.
By then, according to the New York Times, some 800,000 Vietnamese had fled the country. It was one of the largest mass migrations in modern history, and placed an enormous strain on neighbouring countries, who had to quickly respond to ceaseless tides of hungry, desperate people arriving on their shores.
Nowhere was this phenomenon more acutely felt than in north-east Malaysia, where over a quarter of a million refugees arrived. And most of those who made it to Malaysia were quickly relocated to Bidong Island, a small 1 square kilometer mountain jutting its peak out of the South China Sea.
Some Vietnamese spent years on Bidong before being eventually resettled in third countries. By 1991, the last of the refugees left and the Malaysian authorities forbade access to the island, allowing mother nature to reclaim it, and all but destroy the evidence of its past.
This incredible shot (photographer unknown) demonstrates just how many individuals at once called this island home. This taken in Bidong's main 'harbour', on the island's west.
This incredible shot (photographer unknown) demonstrates just how many individuals at once called this island home. This taken in Bidong's main 'harbour', on the island's west.
The island was thought to be the most densely populated place on earth in 1979, when it housed at least 40,000 people (though official signage at Bidong's jetty suggests the peak was over 60,000).
Screenshots from the 1979 ABC News dispatch by Jim Laurie, above, contrast significantly with the same locations on the island today. Having met people in Sydney who passed through this island as children, I was determined to see Bidong while in Malaysia, so I made my way to the peninsular's east coast.
I departed the jetty of Merang, a small and quiet fishing village just 10 kilometers away from Bidong Island, early in the morning. I was surprised to have charted a boat with two teenagers at the helm.
And even more surprised when one of them introduced themselves to me as Rafael, hardly the most common name on the east of the Malay peninsular. The boat ride was fast and bumpy.
The waters were turquoise, but undulating, with the empty boat flying from sea to sea, landing heavily after each wave .After 30 minutes on the empty ocean, we arrived at Bidong jetty.
My guides were somewhat confused as to why I was there. No one comes to the island anymore, save for a few Vietnamese who travel there to pay homage to their past. Some local fisherman plough the nearby waters, and some scientists working on coral preservation come occasionally.
The lack of human presence is immediately felt. What were once were buildings are now just-surviving foundations overgrown with jungle. The endless graves the scatter the interior of the island suffer all the comes with inattention. Most graves are damaged. Some have, sadly, completely caved in on themselves.
Dozens of memorials, too, pay tribite to the generosity of local people. While Malaysia was strained by the presence of so many refugees, locals in Merang - the closest settlement to Bidong - reflect proudly on the way their community responded to the influx.
This otherwise sleepy, unknown town stood up when they needed to, providing food and water to the incoming arrivals. For those who survived the journey and made Bidong their home, an enormous sense of gratitude to the people of Malaysia is clear.
After a hike through the jungle, exploring the endless graves and memorials, we continued around to the island's east, where we met the island's few inhabitants.
3 Marine Biologists Are Trying to Save Bidong's Ecosystem - Though the island's dead number in the thousands, its permanent living population is just three. Yep - three castaways camped just feet away from one of Bidong's only accessible beaches with only each other and their fish for company.
The three marine biologists, my guides and I in the basic shared eating space. A needlefish swimming over recovering coral by Bidong's jetty. A needlefish swimming over recovering coral by Bidong's jetty.
The marine biologists are working to revive coral species that were lost when populations hit their peak on Bidong and continue to be challenged by warming ocean waters.
These young upstarts, employed by the Malaysian University of Terengganu, live a spartan life, sharing basic accommodation and spending their days tending to climate-controlled fish tanks which house a range of coral species, including, much to my guide's delight, schools of Nemos (more professionally known as clown fish).
Their goal is to eventually re-integrate the species they are saving into the natural environment just feet away. The future of the island is uncertain. No one really knows what to do with Bidong in the long term.
Tourism is touted by some as one option. But Bidong's dark, powerful history, its lack of accessible beaches and the small number of travellers who come to its side of Malaysia make such an investment highly unlikely.
Its awkward distance from the mainland also makes it hard to justify converting the island into a museum displaying its history, as some have suggested.
But there is some hope that the recovering coral reef surrounding the island could one day bring ecotourists, divers and scientists. For now, though, Bidong remains largely abandoned, defined by its past, and uncertain of its future.
https://www.oneroadtolondon.com/articles/malaysiasabandonedparadise
The secret of manifestation is that you do not create reality by what you think but by what you feel. Everything is vibration and you attract those things that you are in vibrational resonance with. Your vibration is your feeling. It is your feelings that attract your experiences.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008470757951
The more you experience the feeling of having what you want, the more you will have it. Higher vibrations and feelings is the medium by which your desires will manifest faster.
The more positive feelings you can experience about yourself and your desires, the easier and faster you ll experience your desires spontaneously manifesting into your world.
Emotions help you create reality. When you believe in something, love and cherish it, you can create it more quickly. You have the power to manifest anything your heart desires! If there is anything you want to create more of, focus upon it.
Whatever you turn your attention to, you will create. What we give out, we get back. The energy you give out is the results you get. Imagine what your life would be like if your mind could always be focused on thoughts that were filled with joy, peace, love, abundance and feeling successful! Whenever you feel good, you are in vibrational harmony with your desires.
Emotion is energy and energy attracts like energy according to the law of attraction. Your feelings create your reality. That is why it is important to choose listening to songs and music that causes you to feel the feelings you would feel in the state of experiencing your desires as reality.
Instead of songs that causes you to feel otherwise because those feelings will very well attract those conditions into your life. The same principle applies to the shows that you watch, the materials that you read and the things you talk about. Choose to engage in things that generate in you the feeling of experiencing what you want.
Of course you can allow yourself to experience every kind of feeling just for the experience of it. Listening to bittersweet or sad songs and watching heart breaking movies sometimes do help us to cherish the positive and happy things in life more.
It is ok to engage in things that causes you to experience them some of the time. Just make sure that your dominant emotional experiences are in accordance to experiencing what you do desire.
Faith is a feeling and vibration. You cannot experience faith without the feeling of faith. When you really have faith about something, you must feel it. A person with a higher vibration will create their desires easier, faster and more effectively than someone who is experiencing a lower vibration.
Our vibrations go up and down with our moods throughout the day. That is why it is important to be conscious of how we are feeling and keep choosing to feel positive.
If you did nothing else but ask yourself, How do I feel right now? , and keep bringing yourself back into feeling good, everything else would fall into place.
The following feelings and attitudes emit a higher vibrational frequency that resonates with your desires and attract them faster. Happiness, joy, bliss, appreciation, gratitude, love, peace, admiration, certainty, confidence, faith, courage, hope, freedom and trust.
The following feelings emit a lower vibrational frequency that attracts negative events and push your desires away. Condemnation, guilt, worry, disappointment, resentment, fear, insecurity, doubt, hesitation and sadness. It is very difficult, almost impossible to achieve any type of success with negative feelings.
You have to constantly fight and push. Nothing comes easily. And whatever you gain in that way won t last. On the other hand, feelings of higher vibrations attract success almost effortlessly.
Of course you still have got to do something. However you don t have to force anything. You go with the flow and your intuition leads you to opportunities and people you might never have experienced or met.
The are three main states of vibration that you can resonate at. The lowest is the state of unhappiness. In this state you feel depressed, overwhelmed, bored, angry, heavy, helpless and so on.
Your world is full of rain and darkness, and that is what you tend to create. The middle is the state of monotony. In this state, you operate on automatic pilot.
You just do things because you should do them. You are like a robot that is following orders. The world appears to be pretty cloudy and boring. When you operate predominantly at this frequency, you tend to create more of the same old thing.
The highest is the state of joy! At this frequency, you feel fully alive and on fire. You are excited about everything that comes your way, and you are in the flow. Your world is full of sunshine, and good cheer. You operate from inspiration, and desire. When you operate at this frequency, you naturally attract your heart s desires.
You can control your feeling with your thought. Positive thought and feeling is high vibration. What you resonate, you will accumulate. You can still make progress even when your vibrations are low but it would not be as quick and easy as it would be when your vibrations are high.
Keep your vibrations high to manifest what you want quickly in life. Anything in motion will continue in motion, unless an opposing force emerges to neutralize it. Feeling positive emotions means you are allowing your desires to flow towards you without resistance.
You can choose to be happy by choosing to think positive thoughts. Focus on what you are happy about. Imagine how you would feel if your desire is a reality now. Allow yourself to feel the excitement, exhilaration, joy, gratitude and happiness now.
This feelings are what you remember when you re intending your desired reality as they become your set point. Whenever you feel good or happy, you become a powerful magnet to rapidly attract your desire. Happiness is a choice, you can choose to be happy in any moment.
Whenever you think or do anything that causes you to feel even the slightest bit better than how you were feeling a moment ago, you will cancel out whatever negative energy you were generating before.
Every moment is a new beginning and you can use it to create reality afresh and anew with full power always. When you think of something that you do not like, then in that moment think of something else that you are happy about to neutralize the negativity and turn it into positivity.
Sometimes negative feelings are a cause for action if they are valid. To deal with your feeling of fear, worry and doubt in the moment, simply think about what you are going to do about what you are thinking and then let go, or do it immediately if you can, so that your mind can rest on the issue. Be happy and your situation will automatically change for the better.
Fear is low vibration and excitement is high vibration. Failure is low vibration and success is high vibration. Like vibrations attract, unlike ones repel.
When you fear failure, you attract it towards you. When you fear success, you push it away. When you are excited about what you do, you become more likely to succeed and less likely to fail. The difference between fear and excitement is joy.
Your true desires are high vibration. When your emotional vibrations are high, you attract and manifest your true desires faster. When your emotional vibrations are low, you attract and manifest things that you do not truly desire.
Your true desires are the state of the source which is abundance, freedom, love, power, awareness and total success in everything. To be godlike. Time is a factor that all manifestations of thought and feeling operate with in the physical plane of reality. When your vibrations are consistently high, your desires manifest faster.
The more enthused, excited, and emotionally charged you are about something and the better it feels, the faster you ll see it show up in our life. Higher vibrations are closer to divine life and they will attract all good things you divinely desire in your inner being. All things are spirit in form.
It is all about consistency and frequency of vibration. Higher rate of vibration means higher speed of motion of energy. Manifestation is energy moving into form.
Things take longer time to manifest on the physical plane because it exist at a lower rate of vibration. That is why consistency of faith is more important while existing on Earth.
Our thoughts manifest as things instantaneously on the mental plane first before manifesting correspondingly on the physical plane over a period of time.
If you could allow yourself to experience higher feelings consecutively for a certain period of time, your world will be bound to become a lot different than before in a much better way!
Enoch Tan aims to help people achieve greater awareness in living and experiencing life. To evolve human consciousness to higher levels. To change lives and transform the universe. To revolutionize the way we understand the mind and reality. Because that is what governs every area of life and destiny.
Get free ebooks of the most powerful knowledge and learn secrets of mind and reality that will fully benefit you now at: Secrets of Mind and Reality.
This is the most life changing information which surpasses and transcends all other levels of self help you have encountered, because it is about understanding and changing reality from the highest place of all! "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."--Carl Jung
http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-success-abundance/tan8.shtml
It is a whole different world in MMA. I think one of the biggest things that I tell people was the hardest going from boxing to MMA is, kind of that inside boxing. You'd get comfortable sitting in the pocket wanting to throw punches, and you'd have this other person coming at you and just clinches onto you. In boxing you clinch a bit and the ref breaks you up, but in MMA (if) they clinch you, they take you down. "So it doesn't mean that he can't learn it. But it's going to be a whole different gameplan from what he's doing in his boxing career. But I don't put it past anybody to be able to do the transition." She also talked about using the shoulder roll defense in boxing (a Mayweather special) and how it’s not very effective in MMA because your opponent can just throw a head kick behind their punches and crack you. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Holm has used head kicks to pick up some of her most famous victories.
https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2017/12/21/16809030/holly-holm-floyd-maywather-boxing-mma-ufc-mcgregor-news
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