Did Solomon Actually Pray for Wisdom? (Part 2)
Recapping Part 1 briefly, 1 Kings 3 is routinely described as Solomon’s prayer for wisdom, and commonly depicted as displaying the young king’s right priorities and humble dependence on God. But what if Solomon wasn’t consciously praying? What if he was actually asleep?
First Kings 3 is detailed and explicit. The writer bookends the entire interchange with these statements:
1 Kgs 3:5—“the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night, and said…”
1 Kgs 3:15—“then Solomon awoke; and indeed it had been a dream.”
The most logical, exegetical conclusion I know to draw from those statements is that, for the entire duration between verse 5 and verse 15, Solomon was sleeping. To insist that because Solomon speaks during the dream, he must, therefore, be communicating consciously and intentionally as though he were awake seems to conflict not only with the double statement that the encounter was “in a dream” but also with the express statement after the recorded conversation that “Solomon awoke.”
Many commentators either ignore the references to Solomon’s somnolescence altogether (especially 3:15) or note it in passing but proceed to describe Solomon’s dream-prayer as though he were wide awake and his prayer was entirely conscious and intentional. That tends to throw the spotlight on Solomon as a model pray-er with remarkable perceptiveness and mature priorities. But the text plainly states that this encounter was “in a dream at night” after which “Solomon awoke” and “indeed it had been a dream.”
The question I wish to raise is this: Did Solomon speak consciously and with self-awareness? Did his request necessarily express his waking thoughts and priorities? Would Solomon have made the same request if God had confronted him with this opportunity while he was awake? The most we can affirm with exegetical certainty is: maybe. That’s an important point to acknowledge.
God could have made this a direct and entirely conscious encounter (a prophet, an angel, a vision) in which Solomon was awake and aware, his words sentient and intentional. But he didn’t. Instead, it is stated twice that God appeared to him “in a dream” after which “Solomon awoke.” What if 1 Kings 3 does not record Solomon’s actual, conscious prayer for wisdom? What if, rather, God came to him in a dream while he was asleep and asked him what he wished, and in that dream Solomon asked for wisdom—all while he was asleep and functionally unconscious?
Answering Objections
Dreams were not uncommon as a form of divine communication. “Dreams and visions are a valid method of divine revelation in the OT” (William Barnes, 1-2 Kings, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, emphasis added). James Montgomery (International Critical Commentary, emphasis added) likewise noted, “The dream was early recognized as one of the normal means of divine revelation,” and the present passage “observes the Biblical characteristic of the dream for God’s own people as a means of direct revelation . . . a direct word of Deity.” I think all conservative commentators would agree.
That clarification, however, only corroborates my central point. This dream was not a conversation with a conscious Solomon; it was a direct divine revelation to an unconscious Solomon. What Solomon needed more than anything else was wisdom from God. And God’s way of communicating (i.e., revealing) that fact to Solomon was to come to him in a dream while he was asleep—a dream in which Solomon would ask for, and receive, wisdom from God.
What about its depiction as a normal conversation?
The interchange seems to read as a very matter-of-fact conversation between God and Solomon. But it is also recorded just as matter-of-factly that Solomon was asleep during this interchange. I would read it as a normal, conscious conversation if it weren’t for 3:5 and 15. Those bookending verses seem to qualify everything in between as occurring while Solomon was asleep; consequently, the entire interchange is intended to be understood as taking place within the context of the dream itself.
The dream-conversation between God and Abimelech (Genesis 20:3–7) is the closest biblical parallel to 1 Kings 3. Genesis 20, however, does not include the explicit pericope bookends that mark the 1 Kings 3 narrative. One significant distinction, however, is that Abimelech’s dream-conversation pertained to a specific and singular situation regarding Sarah—his actions in the immediate past, and what he needed to do in the immediate future. It seems as if Abimelech’s “dream-self” may have accurately reflected his waking thoughts and actions (as our dreams sometimes do). Nevertheless, God makes it clear that it was he, not Abimelech, who was ultimately responsible for providentially guarding Abimelech’s behavior toward Sarah (Gen 20:6). That is precisely the point that I believe the narrative of 1 Kings 3 is designed to emphasize.
True Story: My son once dreamed that he had an intriguing and remarkably specific conversation with the Apostle Paul involving the university swimming pool, the lobby of our church, and delivering a torch to Timothy (as in, the biblical Timothy). Neither of us believes that just because he “spoke” to Paul and can remember both sides of the conversation, it was anything other than a dreamed conversation (and, we’re pretty sure, non-revelational).
The 1 Kings pericope begins and ends by expressly informing us that the entire conversation happened “in a dream” after which Solomon “awoke.” Given those bookends, if the passage is indeed recording an entirely dreamed two-way “conversation,” it should not be necessary to qualify every statement of the dreamed conversation with the qualification that it was in a dream (“Then God said to Solomon in the dream while he was asleep . . . . Then Solomon said to God in the dream while he was asleep . . . .”).
What about the statements describing God’s reactions to Solomon’s request?
What about the fact that 1 Kings 3:10 explicitly says that God was pleased with Solomon’s request? Again, the defining qualifiers of 3:5 and 15 governs this objection as well. Those contextualizing bookends seem to be directing the reader to understand it this way: God is pleased in the dream with what Solomon said in the dream. And (as one colleague put it), that is revelatory—first and immediately to the sleeping Solomon, and second and mediately to us as readers. God teaches Solomon (through a dreamed revelation) and us (by a written record of that dreamed revelation) how much we should value wisdom itself, and God himself as the sole source and giver of it.
What about God’s commendation of Solomon’s heart priority?
In the Chronicles version God’s words include the statement, “because this was in your heart” (2 Chronicles 1:11). Insisting that this was strictly a dream-conversation while Solomon was asleep would seem to imply that God’s commendation of Solomon was somehow bogus. Surely this divine commendation implies that Solomon’s inclinations were not only right but also genuinely reflective of reality.
Once again, however, this objection seems to me to confuse the issue by insisting on an interpretation of the statement that dismisses the hermeneutical relevance of 3:5 and 15. Even if Chronicles doesn’t mention it, Kings clarifies that everything takes place in the context of a “dream” (3:5, 15) after which Solomon “awoke” (3:15). That contextualization should dictate how we understand and interpret everything in between those two verses. And it is within that context—while Solomon is asleep—that God offers, Solomon requests, and God commends and promises. The sleeping, dream-Solomon makes that request and, consequently, the sleeping, dream-Solomon is commended. There’s nothing bogus about it; but the sphere in which all this takes place is in Solomon’s sleep.
God is the one who chose the mode of interaction with Solomon—the one mode in which Solomon would be not merely passive but unconscious—in order to teach Solomon what mattered most, what he needed most, and what his priorities must be. It was God’s gracious way of unveiling to Solomon his profound dependence on God for a calling and task that was utterly beyond him. That has raised another potential objection.
Why couldn’t the dream have indicated what was already in Solomon’s heart?
Why couldn’t the conversation with the sleeping Solomon be God’s gracious way of encouraging Solomon to pursue the desire for wisdom that God had already implanted in Solomon? Maybe it was. But I see no exegetical evidence that God had already implanted this desire for wisdom in Solomon. However logical a speculation, it remains a speculation (like Jamieson’s speculation in Part 1). We can agree that anything good in Solomon (or anyone else) is ultimately owing to God’s grace; my point is that the sleep-context only highlights that. As far as the actual textual data goes, Solomon’s first inkling that his greatest need is wisdom comes from God while he was asleep. And we don’t usually get credit for what happens while we’re unconscious.
This theory is based on what you happen to think about dreams.
Granted, one might object, the text says that it was a dream; what we make of that, however, is not an exegetical observation, but an inference based on whatever we happen to think about dreams. Actually, no, given the statement in 1 Kings 3:15, I would say it’s based more on what we know about the nature of sleep, both experientially and scientifically: it is a state of unconsciousness during which we are not intentionally communicative or consciously in control. If we are intentionally communicative and consciously in control of our speech, we are no longer asleep. The fact that it’s a dream does not necessarily mean that the content of the dream does not correlate to circumstances in the real world. But, again, the most we can say is maybe it did. What the text does make clear—both at the beginning and at the end of the pericope—is that if Solomon “awoke” after it was over, then he was functionally unconscious for the duration (until 3:15).
So What?
By bookending the entire conversation—God’s invitation, Solomon’s prayer, and God’s response—in the context of a dream, the passage locates all the initiative for Solomon’s request and reception of wisdom in the grace of God alone. I am intentionally pushing back on the very broad assumption (which seems to me not merely exegetically unfounded but exegetically counterintuitive) that the passage records “Solomon’s prayer for wisdom” with the implication that the initiative lay with Solomon’s inherent sense of priorities. What we decide about that will shape how we apply it. It’s a great prayer and worthy of emulation—not because of what it says about Solomon, but because of what it says about God’s grace in approaching, communicating, revealing, and gifting Solomon with what he most needed.
More about the “so what?” in a final installment.
Go to Part 3.
