Israel’s political, military, and economic prowess was, however, only a veneer covering the rottenness of social, cultural, and spiritual institutions in Solomon’s latter years. The records univocally attest to the essential righteousness and morality of both king and kingdom at the beginning, but they are equally in agreement that the picture had radically changed forty years later.

Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel, 310-311.