380. The most unusual of Solomon's gardens must have been the one devoted to spices, for Solomon's far-flung trade with Arabia and India brought him many exotic plants. One of the prizes of the spice garden was spikenard, which was found in the Himalaya Mountains of Asia. The dried stems became am important trade item in the ancient world.
381. Dried spikenard was transported across Asia by camels and stored in alabaster boxes to preserve its fragrance. That is the reason spikenard was extraordinarily expensive, as John points out when he states that Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with "a pound of ointment of spikenard" (John 12:3 KJV).
382. Acacia, the "shittim wood" referred to often in the Bible, has many uses. Fine-grained and durable, its wood was suitable for beautiful things like the ark of the covenant, the altar of the tabernacle, and the mummy coffins of the Egyptians. Various species of acacia also provide perfumes, gum arabic, medicine, food for cattle, and firewood.
383. An alliance with the Phoenicians was one of the most enterprising of Solomon's many ventures. The Bible never refers to the Phoenicians by name but instead calls them the people of Tyre, Sidon, or Gebal, the three main cities from which the Phoenicians sent out trading voyages to all parts of the ancient world. The word Phoenicians comes from the Greek word for "reddish-purple," which refers to the dye the Phoenicians prepared from species of murex, a marine snail. The murex has a gland that secretes a milky white fluid as a defense against predators, but when exposed to light and air, the fluid turns purple and is a permanent dye on fabric.
384. "Tarshish ships." This Biblical reference to the ships of Solomon refers to those that were built via agreement Solomon negotiated with his Phoenician neighbor, King Hiram of Tyre. Together they obtained skilled workmen to build him a fleet of merchant ships. No one knows exactly what the ships looked like, but they were probably a mix between the Phoenicians battleships and merchant ships. Solomon's fleet was based near his smelters, at Eziongeber on the Gulf of Aqaba. From there his ships sailed with metal and other items to a place known as Ophir.
385. After Solomon's death between 930 and 925 B.C., political and religious differences shattered the kingdom built by David and Solomon. The ten tribes in the north broke away from the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and two weaker kingdoms were left: Judah in the south and Israel in the north.
386. The call of wisdom is made throughout the first ten chapters of Proverbs. Solomon, who was given great wisdom from God, says in Proverbs 8:22 that wisdom was the first creation of God. It's interesting that Solomon always refers to wisdom in the feminine sense: "She calls out..."
387. Canticles or the Song of Songs is a set of love poems shared between a man and a woman. Some of the images are so mature that Jewish boys were not allowed to read it until they reached adulthood. Many people have questioned its place in Scripture, but Jewish leaders decided in ancient times that the book is allegorical-the man chasing a woman is a depiction of God pursuing sinful Israel. In medieval times Christian scholars suggested that the book also represented Christ pursuing the church.
388. "Solomon's sword" is a phrase used to describe a wise choice. It comes from the time two women, both claiming to be the mother of an infant, approached King Solomon and asked him to settle their dispute. Solomon asked for a sword, announcing he would cut the child in half. With that the real mother insisted that the baby not be harmed and instead be given to the other woman. The king, recognizing that the true mother would intervene for the baby's welfare, awarded the child to her.
389. "Turn, Turn, Turn." During the 1960s, there may have been no more widely quoted Bible verses than the words from Ecclesiastes. They provided Pete Seeger with the lyrics that eventually became a hit single for the Byrds. Americans of that era may recall that President Kennedy admired these verses so much that they were read at his funeral.
