Did Solomon Actually Pray for Wisdom? (Part 3)
In Part 1, I presented the view that Solomon’s “prayer” for wisdom in 1 Kings 3 was not a conscious prayer but a dreamed prayer (based on the statements of 1 Kgs 3:5, 15). In Part 2, I addressed objections to that view. In this final installment, I attempt to address further why it matters.
By bookending the entire conversation—God’s invitation, Solomon’s prayer, and God’s response—in the context of a dream, the passage places all the initiative for Solomon’s reception of wisdom with the grace of God alone. I am intentionally pushing back on the common tendency to spotlight Solomon and his exemplary “prayer for wisdom.” To be sure, it’s a great prayer and worthy of emulation—but not because of what it says about Solomon, but because of what it says about God’s grace revealing to the sleeping Solomon (in the form of a dream) what he most needed, and then giving it to him.
In his excellent study on prayer, Gary Millar writes:
There is a sense in which Solomon’s ‘prayer’ should be excluded from our discussion, in that it is not a prayer at all. The interaction between Solomon and Yahweh in 1 Kings 3:1-15 takes place in a dream. However, ensuing events make clear that this ‘dream sequence’ has ‘real-world’ consequences as Solomon’s request is answered. Although normal prayer language is missing from the narrative, it seems reasonable to include it in our discussion, not least because of parallels with other prayers (e.g., 2 Samuel 7). (Calling on the Name of the Lord: A Biblical Theology of Prayer [IVP Academic, 2016], 59)
It’s always encouraging to get confirmation from someone smarter than you, especially when you feel like you’re out on a limb all by yourself way out in left field—but you’re there because you really believe that’s where the text leads you. I discovered this statement in the final stages of putting together this study. Technically, he says, it’s not a prayer—certainly not in the conventional sense—precisely because Solomon is asleep. But that doesn’t mean we cannot learn valuable things about prayer from the passage.
This contextual detail in 1 Kings 3:5 and 15 strikes me as exegetically important and theologically significant. We can make this passage all about Solomon’s prayer in a way that magnifies and focuses on Solomon (as most routinely do). But if the entire interaction with God came while Solomon was fast asleep and no more in control of his faculties than any of us are when we are asleep, then these contextual flags only reinforce the conclusion that this narrative is not about Solomon’s perceptiveness, or Solomon’s priorities, or even Solomon’s prayer. It’s about God communicating his wisdom and perceptiveness and priorities to Solomon. It’s about God’s graciously showing to Solomon what he most needs to ask from God, and doing so in a way that makes God the sole initiator, glorifying God entirely and not Solomon at all.
If we credit Solomon for an unconscious dream-prayer, we diminish God and miss the bigger point of the passage. The detail of 1 Kings 3:5 and 15 is in the text for a reason, and it compels us to weigh carefully what we can and cannot conclude from this passage about Solomon and his dream-prayer.
One might expect that even those commentators who insist that Solomon’s conversation with God was entirely conscious and volitional would nevertheless emphasize God’s grace in this encounter. The truth is, some do and some don’t. I don’t think any of them would deny that truth; but their treatment of the passage itself and its application can, nevertheless, seem to undermine it. Dale Ralph Davis—one of my very favorite OT commentators—is an example; his section headings on this passage include things like “The true incentive to prayer: the generosity of God.” But then he makes applicational statements like “Solomon’s answer (to God) revealed Solomon,” and his prayer “tells us the thinking behind Solomon’s request.” Verses 5 and 15 seem determined to remind us quite pointedly, however, that Solomon wasn’t thinking—he was sleeping. Solomon does not show us here what right prayer is like. God was showing Solomon (and us) what right prayer and right priorities look and sound like. Some of the applications may be virtually identical; but my impression, based on vv. 5 and 15, is that the text insists on sourcing them entirely in God’s initiative, and not Solomon’s.
This was God’s chosen way and time for impressing on Solomon what was, in fact, most important for the success of this young king. And it was God’s means of communicating to Solomon that the wisdom for which he would become uniquely and universally famous was sourced in the gracious initiative of God—not in Solomon’s presence of mind (which was unconscious), and not even as a reward for making such a spiritual request (because he was asleep). If you have ever been aware enough to ask God for exactly what you most needed, that was the grace of God. If you have ever done so in a dream while you were asleep, that was really God!
Does that mean the passage has nothing to teach us about the content or disposition or priorities in a prayer that pleases God? Absolutely not. The passage should instruct us regarding right disposition and motive and priority in prayer. But our teacher in this regard is not Solomon; it is God.
So, whatever you conclude about Solomon’s role in this passage, make sure you credit the initiative and grace of God for this instruction, not the priorities or initiative or perceptiveness of Solomon. It was all of God. It is all of God whenever he shows us—whether we are asleep or awake—what we most need, and then supplies it. To God, not Solomon, be the glory.
