Solomon’s Marriage to Pharaoh’s Daughter

Diplomatic marriage was as important to Israelite kings as it was to other rulers throughout the ancient Near East. By the time the Israelite royal histories were composed (probably during the 8^th–6^th centuries B.C.E.), there was a significant list of royal wives whose marriages were likely diplomatic in nature:^[1]

• David married the Geshurite Maacah (2 Sam 3:3);
• Rehoboam was the son of Solomon and the Ammonite Naamah (1 Kgs 14:21);
• Ahab married the much-maligned Phoenician Jezebel (1 Kgs 16:31), a union which led to another marriage alliance: Joram, king of Judah, married a daughter of Ahab (2 Kgs 8:16–29).^[2]

A non-Israelite diplomatic marriage reported in the Bible is between Aramean Hadad, a regional rival to David and Solomon, and an Egyptian elite, a pharaoh’s wife’s sister (1 Kgs 11:19).^[3]

Solomon’s Egyptian Bride

Solomon, too, is reported to have had many foreign wives, but only his union with the Egyptian princess receives detailed attention. She is introduced immediately after Solomon secures his position as successor to David:^[4]

^{מלכים א ג:א} וַיִּתְחַתֵּן שְׁלֹמֹה אֶת פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם וַיִּקַּח אֶת בַּת פַּרְעֹה וַיְבִיאֶהָ אֶל עִיר דָּוִד עַד כַּלֹּתוֹ לִבְנוֹת אֶת בֵּיתוֹ וְאֶת בֵּית יְ־הוָה וְאֶת חוֹמַת יְרוּשָׁלִַם סָבִיב.

^{1 Kgs 3:1} Solomon became son-in-law to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, he took Pharaoh’s daughter in marriage, and he brought her to the City of David until he completed construction of his house, bet-YHWH, and Jerusalem’s walls.

The announcement emphasizes that Solomon became son-in-law to the Egyptian king, as if to assure the reader that Solomon has “made it” as a ruler in the broader region.

Diplomatic Marriages in Ancient Near Eastern Political Affairs

Ancient Near Eastern archives reveal a long and relatively well-documented history of alliances and negotiations via treaties and diplomatic marriages among a variety of ruling families.^[5] Their partnerships and unions resulted in a culture of “brotherhood” among the kings and their courts.

Neo-Assyrian documents indicate that kings in the 1^st millennium B.C.E. used marriage to strengthen ties with other states, and even create political leverage.^[6] For example, the Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680–669 B.C.E.) appealed to the sun god Shamash to determine whether a Scythian king who had proposed a marriage alliance, would be true to his word:

^{SAA 04 020, obv. 1–9} Šamaš, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you! Bartatua, king of the Scythians, who has now sent his messengers to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, concerning a royal daughter in marriage—If Esarhaddon, king of [Assyria], gives him a royal daughter in marriage, will Bartatua, king of the Scythians, speak with [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria], in good faith, true and honest words of peace? Will he keep the treaty of [Esarhaddon, king of Assryia]? Will he do [whatever i]s pleasing to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria?^[7]

The importance of marriage in royal diplomacy is best documented, however, in royal letters and accounts from the 2nd millennium B.C.E.,^[8] which reveal how diplomatic marriages were proposed, negotiated, and carried out—at least in relation to the kings’ wishes.^[9] Typically the king seeking or receiving a wife corresponded through letters and couriers with the father or brother of the bride, a fellow king in another land.

The kings referred to each other using familial titles, such as “brother” or “father/son-in-law,” emphasizing the responsibilities each had to each other and solidifying and/or renewing their partnership. In the Amarna era documents (14^th century B.C.E.), for example, a letter from the king of Mittani, Tushratta, discusses the marriage of his daughter, Tadu-Kheba, to the king of Egypt, Amenhotep III:

^{EA 19, ll. 9–23} Since (the time of) your fathers, they always loved my fathers very much. You, moreover, did more and always showed even more love to my father… Inasmuch as my brother sent Mane, his envoy, saying: “Please, my brother, send me your daughter for wife, to be the mistress of the land of Egypt,” I caused no distress to my brother’s heart but said, “with pleasure! Yes!” And as for the one whom my brother requested, I showed her to Mane and he saw her. Inasmuch as he saw her and he praised her greatly, I will convey her in safety to the land of my brother.^[10]

The letter goes on to declare that the kings’ respective gods supported the union. Tushratta promises mutual exchanges of great wealth as gifts of friendship, as well as a greeting gift and a bride price. He asserts repeatedly that the partnership will bring peace and happiness: “Now, with such words let us love one another forevermore.”^[11]

Details about marriage ceremonies themselves are lacking—no doubt there were festive celebrations—but once the bride was received into her new royal household, the alliance was official. Again, Tushratta explains:

^{EA 20, ll. 8–17} Mane, the envoy of my brother came in friendship in order to take the wife of my brother, the lady of the land of Egypt, and I read over and over the tablet which he brought [and] I heard its [w]ords and they were very sweet; the words of my brother were as if I saw my brother himself. And I rejoiced on that day very much. And I made that day and night a celebration.

I will carry out every word of my brother that Mane brought to me. In t[his] very year, now, I will hand over my brother’s wife, the mistress of Egypt, and they will bring her to my brother. On t[hat] day will Ḫanigalbat^[12] and Egypt be as [one man].^[13]

These documents and the long tradition of diplomatic marriages shed light on two aspects of the biblical presentation of the Egyptian princess.

The Gift of Gezer

The book of Kings claims that Gezer, one of the most prestigious cities in the Shephelah, was the princess’s dowry—a win for Solomon, as the strategic city would have been folded into his territory:

^{מלכים א ט:טז} פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם עָלָה וַיִּלְכֹּד אֶת גֶּזֶר וַיִּשְׂרְפָהּ בָּאֵשׁ וְאֶת הַכְּנַעֲנִי הַיֹּשֵׁב בָּעִיר הָרָג וַיִּתְּנָהּ שִׁלֻּחִים לְבִתּוֹ אֵשֶׁת שְׁלֹמֹה.

^{1 Kgs 9:16} Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer, destroyed it by fire, and killed all of the Canaanites who lived in the city, and he gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

This claim agrees with ancient Near Eastern evidence that the negotiations for diplomatic marriages and preparation for the bride’s relocation to her husband’s land included grand expressions of wealth. In a Neo-Assyrian example, Sargon II (721–705 B.C.E.) gifted a subjected territory as a dowry for his daughter upon her marriage to a foreign prince.^[14] In doing so, he was following an already ancient practice in Mesopotamia.^[15]

Goods and luxuries given to the bride were elaborate forms of bride-prices and dowries that served as a function of the etiquette demanded by standards of diplomacy. In over 200 lines of text, Tushratta lists items as varied as jewelry and ceremonial objects, garments and shoes, banqueting supplies, armor and weapons, and horses and equestrian supplies—all of exquisite materials—that he sent to Amenhotep (referred to in the letter as Nimmureya). The king concludes the list:

^{EA 22, col. iv.43–49} It is all of these wedding-gifts, of every sort, that Tushratta, the king of Mittani gave to Nimmureya, the king of Egypt, his brother and his son-in-law. He gave them at the same time that he gave Tadu-Kheba, his daughter, to Egypt and to Nimmureya for marriage.^[16]

A House of Her Own

Solomon’s history also describes his construction of a house for the princess in the royal palace complex in Jerusalem:

^{מלכים א ז:ח} וּבֵיתוֹ אֲשֶׁר יֵשֶׁב שָׁם חָצֵר הָאַחֶרֶת מִבֵּית לָאוּלָם כַּמַּעֲשֶׂה הַזֶּה הָיָה וּבַיִת יַעֲשֶׂה לְבַת פַּרְעֹה אֲשֶׁר לָקַח שְׁלֹמֹה כָּאוּלָם הַזֶּה.

^{1 Kgs 7:8} His house, where he would reside, in another court, was of this same work, and he made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he took in marriage.

Her house appears again in the notice that Solomon built the Millo:^[17]

^{מלכים א ט:כד} אַךְ בַּת פַּרְעֹה עָלְתָה מֵעִיר דָּוִד אֶל בֵּיתָהּ אֲשֶׁר בָּנָה לָהּ אָז בָּנָה אֶת הַמִּלּוֹא.

^{1 Kgs 9:24} So Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the City of David to her house that Solomon had built for her; then he built the Millo.

Mesopotamian royal correspondence indicates that in some cases, the woman played an important role as a representative and spokesperson for her father/brother’s land as well as her husband’s; such was the case during the reign of Zimri-Lim of Mari (18^th century B.C.E.)^[18]

A princess required appropriate residential and official quarters fitting for carrying out her responsibilities. The dowry items furnishing the woman’s quarters would have served as a foundation for the bride’s role as an ambassador and negotiator in her own right, showcasing the wealth and culture of her home country and further illustrating the closeness of the partnering lands.

Egyptian Brides

In one important respect, however, the biblical account of the Egyptian princess does not comport with the ancient Near Eastern correspondence: Egyptian kings seemingly did not marry their daughters abroad. The Amarna era documents describing diplomatic marriages with Egypt only involve Egyptian kings receiving wives from other lands.^[19]

In one letter, a Mesopotamian king desperately wishes to have an Egyptian bride to impress his court, and he laments the rejection he received from his Egyptian counterpart, the aforementioned Amenhotep III (1400–1353 B.C.E.), one of the most prestigious kings of the era:

^{EA 4, ll. 4–9} [Furthermor]e you, my brother, when [you wrote to me] about not gi[ving] (a daughter) when I wr[ote to you] for a daughter for marriage, saying: “From of old a daughter of the king of Egypt has never been given to anyone,” why [has one] never [been given]? You are a king; you can [do] whatever you want. If you were to give (a daughter) who c[ould say] anything?^[20]

He even suggests that Amenhotep send a woman posing as his daughter:

^{EA 4, ll. 10–13} Send one as if she were [yo]ur [daughter]. Who will say, ‘She is not the king’s daughter’?”

The Egyptian rulers of the 11^th and 10^th centuries were not carbon copies of their predecessors,^[21] but they retained many traditions and conventions essential to the office of king. In the matter of marriages, there is no evidence that they sent Egyptian princesses abroad. It is also worth noting that Egyptian sources do not mention any diplomacy with Jerusalem during the 10^th century.

Though this evidence challenges the historical claim of an Egyptian wife for Solomon, it is still fruitful to consider why later Israelites would have recorded a history of an Egyptian princess in Solomon’s court.

Relations between Egypt and Jerusalem

The coastlands around the eastern Mediterranean—rich in natural resources and site of some of the most important transportation and trade routes of the ancient world—have always been active areas for the movement of people, goods, and ideas.^[22] From the founding of the New Kingdom era in Egypt, around 1550 B.C.E., Egypt’s rulers made regular campaigns to the Levant and coordinated with local leaders to keep the area under Egyptian control.^[23] During periods of more intense and direct rule, Egyptian kings installed administrative infrastructure and officials throughout the area.

Archaeologists have documented the influx of Egyptian goods, artistic styles, architecture, and pottery dating to this era, as well as the local production of goods that followed Egyptian artistic conventions.^[24] The cultural influence was thorough and remained in the region even when the New Kingdom collapsed over the course of the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E.

During the 10^th through 6^th centuries, Egypt was not able to regain its hold on the region, but the memory of a strong Egypt remained: Pharaohs aspired to restore it, and the Levantine kingdoms whose lands had been part of the former empire were threatened by it.^[25]‏ By the 8^th century, Eastern Mediterranean rulers had to contend with the power plays of both Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings, and a new era of strategic alliances and coalitions emerged.^[26]

Despite the negative associations relating to Egypt’s dominance in the region, however, Egypt as a political powerhouse and cultural icon had a cachet. Liked or disliked, Egyptian style communicated power, prestige, and longevity across millennia, and Egyptian-influenced culture continued for some time to be imported to and emulated within the Levant.^[27]

Explaining Egyptian Cultural Influence

Depicting an Egyptian princess in the Solomonic court served as a sign of Solomon’s prestige, and also provided an explanation for traditions of cultural and political involvement between ancient Egypt and Jerusalem. In that context, it is significant that references to Solomon’s Egyptian wife consistently appear alongside announcements of Solomon’s building projects: construction of his palace, the temple, and Jerusalem’s wall (1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8); fortification of several cities, including Gezer (1 Kgs 9:15–18); and construction of the Millo (1 Kgs 9:24).

The infusion of Egyptian culture into material goods, fashion, architecture, technologies, etc. meant that the Levant’s long history of relations with Egypt was evident in many aspects of people’s lives. The tradition of a diplomatic marriage may have been inspired by features with distinctively Egyptian character in Jerusalem’s architecture and landmarks.^[28] The house attributed to the Pharaoh’s daughter may have been an Egyptian-style building.^[29]

Whatever the impetus or historical origins, the influence of Egypt on the Israelite world found explanation in the form of the Egyptian princess. This cultural memory or literary tradition of diplomatic marriage made Jerusalem an active participant and beneficiary in relations with Egypt.

Later Condemnations of Foreign Marriages

Solomon’s Egyptian wife fits the centuries-long ancient Near Eastern perspective on diplomatic marriages as both a sound and strategic policy and a prestigious accomplishment—an achievement members of a court or kingdom could be proud of. The narrative neither states nor even implies that the marriage or the woman were detrimental to Solomon’s character or career. We might even say that the marriage was viewed as an asset.

When alliances and diplomacy failed to prevent the devastating conquests by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, however, the perception of diplomatic marriage changed. Some biblical authors writing during and after these catastrophic times no longer perceived interaction with other nations as beneficial to a kingdom.

Consistent with this view, the narrative describing the end of Solomon’s life condemns his worldly ways and many foreign wives:^[30]

^{מלכים א יא:א} וְהַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה אָהַב נָשִׁים נָכְרִיּוֹת רַבּוֹת וְאֶת בַּת פַּרְעֹה מוֹאֲבִיּוֹת עַמֳּנִיּוֹת אֲדֹמִיֹּת צֵדְנִיֹּת חִתִּיֹּת. ^יא:ב מִן הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר אָמַר יְ־הוָה אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא תָבֹאוּ בָהֶם וְהֵם לֹא יָבֹאוּ בָכֶם אָכֵן יַטּוּ אֶת לְבַבְכֶם אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם בָּהֶם דָּבַק שְׁלֹמֹה לְאַהֲבָה.

^{1 Kgs 11:1} King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian,^[31] and Hittite women, ^11:2 from the nations of which YHWH had said to the Israelites, “None of you shall join them and none of them shall join you, lest they turn your heart away to follow their gods.” Such Solomon clung to and loved.^[32]

The authors reinterpret traditions of his many foreign wives as reflecting a character flaw and as a political and theological failure:

^{מלכים א יא:ד} וַיְהִי לְעֵת זִקְנַת שְׁלֹמֹה נָשָׁיו הִטּוּ אֶת לְבָבוֹ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וְלֹא הָיָה לְבָבוֹ שָׁלֵם עִם יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהָיו כִּלְבַב דָּוִיד אָבִיו.

^{1 Kgs 11:4} In his old age, his wives turned away Solomon’s heart after other gods, and he was not as wholeheartedly devoted to YHWH his God as his father David had been.

Solomon’s worship of other gods becomes the primary reason for the division of the kingdom of Israel:

^{מלכים א יא:יא} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה לִשְׁלֹמֹה יַעַן אֲשֶׁר הָיְתָה זֹּאת עִמָּךְ וְלֹא שָׁמַרְתָּ בְּרִיתִי וְחֻקֹּתַי אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִי עָלֶיךָ קָרֹעַ אֶקְרַע אֶת הַמַּמְלָכָה מֵעָלֶיךָ וּנְתַתִּיהָ לְעַבְדֶּךָ. ^יא:יג רַק אֶת כָּל הַמַּמְלָכָה לֹא אֶקְרָע שֵׁבֶט אֶחָד אֶתֵּן לִבְנֶךָ לְמַעַן דָּוִד עַבְדִּי וּלְמַעַן יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֲשֶׁר בָּחָרְתִּי.

^{1 Kgs 11:11} And YHWH said to Solomon, “Because you are guilty of this—you have not kept My covenant and the laws which I enjoined upon you—I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants.... ^11:13 However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give your son one tribe, for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

It is through this later lens that the once impressive marriage to the Pharaoh’s daughter would be turned into a cautionary tale against intermarriage.