Heavy is the Head That Wears the Crown (and Collects a Thousand Wives)

In today's reading, I spent time with 1 Kings 10–11 and 2 Chronicles 9—chapters that capture the height of Solomon's reign and the beginning of his decline. It's an interesting arc. One moment, he's entertaining the Queen of Sheba, fielding her riddles, dazzling her with his wealth and wisdom. The next, he's accumulating wives, building altars to foreign gods, and setting in motion the unraveling of the kingdom his father David had unified.

What stood out wasn't just the drama of that shift, but the disconnect between Solomon's personal brilliance and the long-term impact of his leadership. The text goes out of its way to describe his extraordinary intellect and accomplishments. He was admired internationally, amassed unprecedented wealth, and oversaw huge building projects. His throne alone reads like something out of a fantasy novel. Yet somehow, all of this didn’t translate into lasting stability.

Erosion, Not Explosion

What makes this so fascinating is that Solomon doesn't collapse in scandal or get overthrown. His failure is quieter. It’s more about erosion than explosion. He compromises here and there, likely for political gain, and drifts from the values he was once known for. By the end of his reign, there's already discontent brewing in the north. The seeds of division are sown during his lifetime, even though the split officially happens after he's gone.

It raises a question: How do we evaluate leadership? Is it about the quality of one's rule in the moment, or about the conditions that rule leaves behind? Solomon's reign was dazzling on the surface, but it didn’t hold. His son inherits a fragile kingdom, and the decisions made during Solomon's lifetime make it nearly impossible to keep things together.

Building Thrones vs. Building Trust

There's something human about this pattern. Sometimes the traits that make someone successful in the short term—ambition, strategic thinking, charisma—aren't the same traits needed to create something sustainable. And sometimes a legacy isn’t built on the biggest achievements, but on the slow, often invisible work of preserving unity, equity, and trust.

I don’t have a conclusion, just more questions. Would Solomon have ruled differently if he had prioritized the long game? What does it mean to build something that lasts? And is that even possible, or are all human structures destined to crack under their own weight eventually? It’s not a fall-from-grace story so much as a study in complexity—how even the wisest leader can overlook the cracks forming beneath the surface.