1-2. The Lord did not want the Israelites to worship foreign gods, so he had warned them not to marry anyone who was not from Israel.Solomon loved his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt. But he also loved some women from Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and others from Sidon and the land of the Hittites.
3-4. Seven hundred of his wives were daughters of kings, but he also married three hundred other women.As Solomon got older, some of his wives led him to worship their gods. He wasn't like his father David, who had worshipped only the Lord God.
5. Solomon also worshipped Astarte the goddess of Sidon, and Milcom the disgusting god of Ammon.
6. Solomon's father had obeyed the Lord with all his heart, but Solomon disobeyed and did what the Lord hated.
7. Solomon built shrines on a hill east of Jerusalem to worship Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Molech the disgusting god of Ammon.
8. In fact, he built a shrine for each of his foreign wives, so all of them could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.
15-16. Some time earlier, when David conquered the nation of Edom, Joab his army commander went there to bury those who had died in battle. Joab and his soldiers stayed in Edom six months, and during that time they killed every man and boy who lived there.
17-19. Hadad was a boy at the time, but he escaped to Midian with some of his father's officials. At Paran some other men joined them, and they went to the king of Egypt. The king liked Hadad and gave him food, some land, and a house, and even let him marry the sister of Queen Tahpenes.
24-25. He formed his own small army and became its leader after David had defeated Hadadezer's troops. Then Rezon and his army went to Damascus, where he became the ruler of Syria and an enemy of Israel.Both Hadad and Rezon were enemies of Israel while Solomon was king, and they caused him a lot of trouble.
29-30. One day when Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, he met Ahijah, a prophet from Shiloh. No one else was anywhere around. Suddenly, Ahijah took off his new coat and ripped it into twelve pieces.