Hi guys! I’m back on The Spotlight to review a book I finished reading this week. This book, ‘The Heart of A King: The Loves of Solomon,’ was the first of its kind I’ve ever read and has opened to me a whole new world…

Meet the author, Jill Eileen Smith. She’s a popular, bestselling author of Christian fiction, more specifically Biblical fiction, as she uses her imagination and wealth of knowledge, gained from many hours/years of research, to retell stories of old, especially relating to the women in Scripture. Before I started reading the book, I had no idea that she existed, even though the book had been on my shelf for several years!!!

I bought it one day from Sepherbooks, a Nigerian Christian Bookstore, when I saw it on display. The title intrigued me, and I thought it was something I’d be interested in reading one day… It turned out the day would be the 30th of May 2023, when I had to take a long drive out of Lagos. I grabbed it, just in case.

Hmmm… It was a good choice. Although I couldn’t finish it in one sitting, seeing as I’m kind of a slow, day-dreaming reader, I could hardly put the book down. It was written just the way I liked, with short, intriguing chapters that kept me starting the next, thinking, just one more…never knowing where the time was going. I mean, if I hadn’t been so busy these past few weeks, I would have finished the book within two days. There was this gravitational pull it had that made me want to come back to it whenever I set it down to do other things.

That’s to say, Jill is a masterful writer. She hooked me good! Not to mention that she chose a compelling story to weave, and I found myself so intrigued by the story of King Solomon and the different women he married. Her story captured his heart and longing to be king, to do what he had been trained to and told he would do since his childhood. Apart from God, that was his great love, being a ruler. No wonder his request, when prompted by God, to be given ‘understanding’ to rule over the people.

We all know the story… More than understanding, God gave him wealth and favour, good health and long life, and peace within and beyond his borders. But something went pear-shaped with Solomon. With all the understanding he was given, he failed to apply it – the true essence of wisdom – in his relationships with women. And by the time he was nearing his end, he had married 700 wives and had 300 concubines, disregarding the commandments of God. HOW???!

Like seriously, how???! Jill narrated how he married his first wife, drawing on speculation and using her own imagination. Based on the little info about four women in the Bible, she weaved a story capturing their emotions and telling a passionate story of love Solomon had with each woman, so that even the reader is anticipating the consummation of their love. All the while, we deal with the conflict that they dealt with, knowing this can’t be right… How does a man love or claim to love so many women? Did being king give him the right to house women and children like cattle, never mind that he built large palaces to accommodate them?

We see how, like we do, Solomon justified his excesses and put the blame on his circumstance as king, reasoning that it was the only way to keep the peace! For where?!

For me, it showed his lack of trust in the God who GAVE him the kingdom, the one he claimed to believe in and love. If God said his kingdom would be the one of peace, would He not do it? But Solomon thought he was helping God. God couldn’t keep Israel in peace without its king playing the gigolo!

And don’t we do that? With the dreams God gives us; compromising, being wilful and disobedient, thinking God’s hands would be tied unless we do what the world expects of us? The saying goes, “God helps those who help themselves…”

“There’s a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to destruction…” (Proverbs 14:12).

It was an emotional and sad read for me, ultimately. In my heart, I judged King Solomon. I was so angry at the way he treated marriage and ‘love.’ The one who taught the daughters of Israel not to kindle love before its time, and demanded of the men who married his daughters to be true to them, faithful to them only, sang the same song of ‘love’ to hundreds of women! When Jill wrote about how he compelled the queen of Sheba to marry him, as his way of ‘helping her’, only to allow her to leave him, which to him was a sacrifice of love, it was blatantly clear that this man didn’t understand nor appreciate marriage or love, despite all his ‘wisdom.’

When reading this book, I felt the love I have for God, for Scripture, and righteousness so strongly. It was like a whole new way to read the Bible, cos I felt the emotions and I grew to understand and appreciate Solomon’s life for what it was. I’d love to experience that with other Bible stories.

Jill did a really good job with this book, and she has gained a fan in me. I’d love to read other narratives by her. I see she likes to write in series.

My only critique was that not enough time was devoted to Solomon’s thoughts and feelings as she told Siti’s story (the daughter of Pharoah) and Nicaula’s story (the queen of Sheba), a contrast to the beginning, when she showed how he married his first two wives, Naaman the Ammonite and Abishag, the Hebrew ‘wife’ who nursed King David in his last days, and for whom Solomon’s brother, Adonijah, was put to death. Maybe because the last two were foreign wives, and she wanted us to understand their thoughts and feelings more… But when Solomon claimed to be in love with Nicaula, I had to roll my eyes. There was nothing narrated to lead one to believe that. It seemed more a case of lust for a woman who intrigued him.

All in all, it was a blessed read, a true work of a masterful artist. I enjoyed every page of this book, and I loved the note at the end that brought perspective to everything. I highly recommend this if you are a lover of God and biblical stories.

Thanks, Jill, for a great read. God bless your pen! I look forward to reading more from you.

Photo credit: http://www.canva.com, http://www.goodreads.com

If you liked this post, you might like THE SPOTLIGHT – A REVIEW OF “ONCE UPON A FIRST LOVE” BY TEMITOPE OMOTOSHO

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