The Lost Wisdom of Solomon

When I think about Solomon, it is easy to see the gold first. The ships, the cedar, the temple. Those are the things we remember because those are the things we can picture. But what came before them? That is where I think we need to look. Solomon asked for wisdom to govern a people. He had a responsibility, and he needed the capacity to carry it. He did not begin with the question of how much he could accumulate. He began with what he needed to govern well. The wealth followed. It was a consequence, not the thing he had set out to pursue.

I want you to think about that order for a moment. Wisdom before wealth. The ability to govern before the means to do more. We tend to look at what Solomon ended up with and pay less attention to what he asked for. But his request tells us something about how he understood his position. There were people on the other side of his decisions. Governing was not simply about what he wanted for himself. So the question was not just, what can I have? It was, how do I carry what has been placed in my hands? Those are very different starting points.

When I look at modern wealth culture, I see that order turned around. Get the money first. Get the assets first. Get yourself into a position where you have more, and then work out how to handle it. The assumption is that wisdom will somehow arrive with the balance. But why would it? If I have not learnt to make sound decisions with what I already have, what is it about having more that will teach me? Money can give me more choices. It cannot make those choices for me. It cannot supply the judgement I have not taken the time to develop.

Which is not a criticism of wanting to do well. I am not saying there is something wrong with earning more, investing or building a productive business. It is not that. The issue is what I expect the money to do inside me. Do I expect it to make me disciplined? Do I expect it to settle the need to prove myself? Capital amplifies the character it lands on. It is a bit like turning up the volume. If what is coming through the speaker is poor, making it louder does not improve it. You just hear the problem more clearly.

That is why I cannot separate governing money from governing myself. If I cannot exercise restraint with a little, having a lot does not remove the need for restraint. It increases the reach of my decisions. The same lack of judgement now has more money behind it. More room to act. More room to cause damage. I think we often imagine that a larger balance will turn us into a different person, when it may simply allow us to do more of what we already do. Before I ask for greater capacity, I need to be honest about how I am using the capacity I have.

There is another distinction I think we have lost in the way we speak about Solomon. Wealth and riches are not the same thing. I can point to a balance and call it riches. It is a number, and that number may be large. But wealth is productive capacity. It is something built in such a way that it can continue to work when I am not in the room, and eventually when I am no longer alive. One tells me how much is there at a given point. The other tells me whether there is a structure capable of continuing to produce.

Why does that distinction matter? Because I can spend my life making the number bigger without asking whether anything can function without me. I can be busy, earning well and central to every decision, and mistake all that activity for something lasting. There is no criticism here of enjoying your work or wanting to remain involved. I enjoy building. But enjoying my involvement and making everything dependent on my involvement are two different things. If I am the only thing holding it together, I need to be honest about that. My presence may be keeping it going, but my presence is not a permanent structure.

So before I ask how to make more, I want to ask what I would do with more. Not vaguely. Not just that life would be better or that I would have more options. What would the money actually be for? What would it enable me to build, and what responsibility would come with that? It is easy to be clear about the amount and unclear about the purpose. Solomon's request puts that back in order for me. He asked for the wisdom needed to govern. The responsibility gave shape to the request. He was not simply asking for more without knowing what more was meant to serve.

Then there is the question I might prefer to leave out: who am I becoming while I get it? I cannot judge the whole process by the balance at the end. If I gain more money but become less able to govern myself, I have not solved the problem. I have given it more resources. This is where wisdom becomes uncomfortable, because it asks me to examine the person making the decisions, not just the results of those decisions. Am I becoming more capable of carrying responsibility, or merely more capable of acquiring things? Those can look similar from the outside. They are not the same on the inside.

And then I need to ask whether what I am building can survive my absence. I do not mean whether my name will remain attached to it. I mean whether it can still work. Can sound decisions still be made? Can it continue to produce without waiting for me to return? Those questions bring the difference between a number and a structure into plain view. A balance can tell me what I have accumulated. It cannot, on its own, tell me whether I have built something that will outlive me. For that, I have to look at what holds the whole thing together when I am taken out of it.

That is the wisdom I want to recover from Solomon's story. Not a way to use wisdom to get rich, but the right order in which to approach responsibility and wealth. I need wisdom before more money, not as something I hope the money will bring with it. I need to know what more is for, who I am becoming as I pursue it, and whether what I build can carry on without me. Those are not separate questions from wealth. They determine what the wealth finally means. The gold is easy to notice. I am more interested in the judgement that came before it.