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 Why is it that gold is the perpetual image our hearts long for?

consider the fact that before we discovered it was such a good conducer there was really no practical use for the metal besides adornment, yet it was what people exchanged for food which is of ultimate utility.

is it because use used it as an idol of the sun, which gives life to the plants of the world which give life to us?

Or was it because it was of all things we had, the only thing that didn’t decay in this age of decay?

Solomon had a golden kingdom, a kingdom ruled but a king wiser than any king there ever was or ever would be. Gold was so plentiful it made silver of little value. What is the difference between silver and gold? Silver is useful, but it tarnishes. Gold never does.

Did Solomon establish this kingdom? Read the book. No, his father David established it, and his father David did so at tremendous cost and sacrifice. David was, the old testament man of sorrows. Everytime God tells Solomon of the amazing fortune he received it was always because of his love for David. David was the source of the glory and the wealth. Solomon was not the generator of the wisdom as much as the wisdom was simply another reflection of the grace and good fortune that God lavished on him because of his father David.

And Solomon then builds the golden temple, all covered with God on the inside. everything in the temple is covered in gold, did you notice? The temple is eden, eternal eden. the temple is heaven, the realm where the sun shines from, but remember, for the Jews, the sun, unlike other religions, isn’t itself a God, but simply a thing that the one God makes to bless the earth, to give life to the just and the unjust.

But how is the golden kingdom lost?

We have in chapter 12 and 13 three stories, and all three stories reflect decay and corruption.

1. The wise king’s foolish son
2. the shrewd man’s pragmatic heart
3. the holy man’s susceptible fall

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