I KINGS 11:9-10

Q: This says that The Lord appeared to Solomon twice. I don’t recall these appearances. When would they have been?

“These two verses interpret God's appearance to Solomon on two occasions (I Kings 3:5ff and 9:1ff) as a warning that he should not go after other gods.” (G. H. Jones, 1 & 2 Kings, Vol. 1, p. 236)

The first occasion was when God promised the gift of wisdom to Solomon and then ended the blessing in 3:14 with the words “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments..then I will lengthen your life.” This blessing was conditional and implied that things would not go so well if Solomon departed from God's commands.

God's second appearance to Solomon was after the Temple was completed, and his words this time contained not only a blessing, but also a specific warning to the king: “If you turn aside from following me...but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them...” (I Kings 9:6-7)

One could also add to these two occasions the account in 2 Chronicles 7:1-3 which describes how God sent fire down from heaven and His glory filled the temple. This occurred right after Solomon had given his dedicatory prayer.

I would like to think that most of us would have listened to God if he appeared only once in our lives and would have said with Job, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” However, perhaps Solomon had gotten to the point later in his life where he had come to rely on his own wisdom and had forgotten that it came from God in the first place. Maybe that is why Paul says, “Consider your own call, brothers: not many of you were wise by human standards...But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise...so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” (I Cor. 1:26-29)

In case you think that Solomon's turning from God was a sudden thing, it actually was a long time coming and stemmed from three pitfalls associated with power, all of them predicted earlier by God:

Power: see I Samuel 8:16-17 vs. I Kings 5:13-16. Also I Samuel 8:11-12 vs. I Kings 9:22.

Pleasure: see Deuteronomy 7:3-4,17a vs. I Kings 11:1.

Plenty: see Deuteronomy 17:17b vs. I Kings 10:14-15,21-22.