Audio Download
The Song of Solomon – PART 17a, Solomon Emerges: The Pillars of Smoke and the Peace That Was Betrayed
[Study Aired November 6, 2026]
OPENING: THE WILDERNESS OF WIVES AND THE SOVEREIGN’S EMERGENCE
Only in “the Bride’s” life does she realize the man she married is stepping into something far larger than the bedroom, far larger than her own desires and expectations. He is moving with purpose. He is advancing with authority, and the ground beneath her feet trembles as she realizes she is not the center of his universe—she is being drawn into the center of his.
Luk 19:11 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
Luk 19:12 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
Luk 19:13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
This is the moment when Solomon emerges from the wilderness.
Son 3:6 Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.
The question itself is laden with astonishment. Who is this? The answer, of course, is Solomon—the King, the Bridegroom, the one who has been away, dealing with something far more complex and intractable than a single wife’s devotion.
In remembering that Solomon’s name means H8010 – “peace”, and with his Bride, the Jerusalem above a double peace, here as a co-savior, in H3389 “teaching of peace.” To understand what it means that Solomon comes out of the wilderness, we must first understand what wilderness he has been traversing.
Isa 26:2 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.
Isa 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect [H7965] peace [H7965 – two different words with the same Hebrew meaning], whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.Amo 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Solomon had a thousand wives
This is not a metaphor. This is historical fact, documented in 1 Kings 11:3. A thousand women (churches) in his household. A thousand bedrooms, a thousand demands, a thousand voices insisting they deserved his attention, his affection, his primary allegiance. A thousand women convinced—as Eve was convinced in the garden—that their bodies, their beauty, their sexual desirability gave them the right to be worshiped; to be prioritized; to bend their husbands’ will toward their own satisfaction.
Solomon existed in the wilderness of their collective will. He moved through the desolation of a thousand bedrooms, their own vineyards, each one a woman who believed his primary responsibility was to fulfill her lusts, satisfy her appetite for romantic idealism, and constantly reassure her that she was beautiful, desired, and enough—and a little more legitimately, though terribly unrighteously, she was made to fulfill his lusts. Add the Adamic curses, and no wonder we have wives and the suffragette-like women “against” husbands and men in general (1Co 11:9).
What had Solomon discovered in this wilderness? What had he learned through years of attempting to satisfy the insatiable? He had learned what Adam learned in the garden: that the moment a man surrenders his authority to the appetites of a woman—the moment he says “yes” to the seduction of being desired, of being needed, of being the romantic fulfillment of another’s fantasy—he has given away his peace.
The bed is supposed to be a place of peace. In the Solomonically created perfect wife, it is supposed to be the sanctuary where the husband lays down his weight, rests from the burden of governing, deciding, and bearing the responsibility that comes with authority. Adam, in that first garden, traded the peace of his bed for the very thing he lusted after. Every man since has had to constantly buy back that peace through romantic idealism, through the false promise that if he can just make her happy enough, satisfy her longings deeply enough, prove his devotion dramatically enough, he will finally find rest.
He will never find rest that way.
Solomon, having lived through a thousand iterations of this exact deception and having moved through the wilderness of trying to satisfy desires that can never be satisfied because they are rooted in Adamic corruption, is ready. He has learned. He is done. He emerges from that wilderness like pillars of smoke.
THE PILLARS OF SMOKE: ANGER REFINED INTO PURPOSE
The image is extraordinary, and we need to understand the Hebrew to grasp its full weight.
Wilderness H4057 – wilderness, pasture, or mouth (as an organ of speech). From H1696 – 1. to speak, declare, converse, command, promise, warn, threaten, sing.
The wilderness is not merely a place. It is an arena of speech, of declaration, of command. It is where words are spoken and shape reality.
Pillars H8490 – 1. pillar, column a. palm-like spreading at top. From H8558 – 1. palm tree, date palm. Strong’s: From an unused root meaning “to be erect”; a palm tree: palm (tree).
A pillar is not merely a structural support. It is something that stands erect—something that rises up in defiance of gravity, of pressure, of the forces that would bend it downward.
Smoke H6227 – Smoke. From H6225 – 1. to smoke, be angry, be wroth a. (Qal) 1. to smoke 2. to fume, be wroth, be furious.
Solomon does not emerge as a gentle breeze. He emerges as smoke—as the visible manifestation of heat, of fire, of the burning away of what is false and corrupt.
Listen to what the Scripture tells us about the relationship between smoke and heat:
When you view the lower trunk of a palm tree trimmed of its fronds, its classic bark looks like a distant pillar of dark smoke with slight bumps and “smoky” protrusions resembling its bark. As the hot, angry, moist air cools at great height, it forms a classic mushroom top resembling a palm’s fronds (and the eventual anvil shape of a storm)—”bushy” (Son 5:11), incongruously like a Nigerian Himba male’s dreadlocks, H8534, wavy and branchy H8524 exalt, lofty. Solomon and God’s anger, even bitterness against their wives’ enigmatic, God-given impudence, eventually subside—ironically before nightfall—and their spirit is changed, symbolically perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the merchant’s powders.
Eph 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
Col 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
This is the image: Solomon, burning with the heat of a man who has finally recognised truth. A man who has spent years in the wilderness of female appetites and male capitulation, watching his authority degrade, his peace erode, and his kingship slowly die. Now, at last, that anger—that justified, righteous anger—has been refined into something else. The heat has burned away the dross. The smoke has risen to the heavens. And what remains is perfume. Purpose. The fragrance of a man who has moved through judgment and emerged clarified.
Son 3:6 …Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke?
Because of their witless understanding of Eve’s curse, Solomon’s wives are blind to their imaginary divine providence and prerogative to be worshiped by a husband, and thus sustain their iron grip on bedchamber intimacies. Solomon, like Christ, the Lord of the Old Covenant Israel, effectively strode out of the wilderness through the shimmering heat haze from their same demands.
Deu 33:2 And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.
The wives believed—as so many women still do—that their bodies conferred a kind of divine, even Ashtoreth-like authority. That their sexuality was proof of a spiritual privilege. That their desirability was permission to rule. They were living in a deception rooted in the curse of Eve: they believed that their pain in childbearing, their desire to rule their husbands (Genesis 3:16), was actually evidence of their special status with God.
Solomon recognized this deception, and he walked away from it.
THE GENEALOGY OF USURY: DEBT AND THE FALSE COVENANT
To understand what Solomon discovered in the wilderness, we must trace the genealogy of the false covenant his wives tried to establish with him. This genealogy runs through Scripture like a thread of corruption, connecting the bedroom, the marketplace, and the church.
Exo 16:1 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.
Exo 16:2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:
The wilderness of Sin. Unrecognized spiritual wickedness, but the wilderness where people murmur. Where they demand. Where they insist that their needs are the primary concern. Where they refuse the leadership of their covenant head and instead demand that their appetites be prioritized (Exo 14:11-12; Num 11:1-6).
This is what Solomon’s wives were doing. They murmured against Solomon in the wilderness of marriage—against his authority, his decisions, and his refusal to make their satisfaction his primary concern.
Solomon and Christ are determined, and only Christ succeeds in setting their marriages straight.
Why did Solomon fail where Christ will succeed? Because Solomon, though wise, was still operating under the Old Covenant—the covenant of law, of attempt, of human effort. Though deeply unsettled, he barely held to the fading belief that a husband could satisfy his wife through effort, provision, and romantic idealism. But this is an economy of debt. The more you give, the more is demanded. Because of the Adamic curses, the more you submit, the more aggressively the woman tries to rule.
Jdg 16:15 And she [Delilah] said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth.
Christ, operating under the New Covenant, does not attempt to satisfy. He demands submission to a higher law—the spiritual law of love, which is simultaneously the law of His authority.
Solomon’s thousand wives had not submitted. So he moved through the wilderness—the wilderness of their demands, the wilderness of their murmuring, the wilderness of an economy that could never be satisfied because satisfaction was not the point. Control was the point. The perpetual debt—the perpetual obligation—was the point.
This is why, in Hosea, the prophet speaks of Israel’s—and by extension, Solomon’s—experience in precisely these terms:
Hos 12:4 Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel [House of God], and there he spake with us;
Hos 12:5 Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial.
Hos 12:6 Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.
Hos 12:7 He [Christ] is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress [… loves to righteously chastise his Elect].
Christ is described as a merchant with balances of deceit in His hand. But notice: He takes pleasure in righteously oppressing—for love’s sake, He loves to righteously chastise His Elect. This is the language of chastising grace. Christ does not enter the economy of romantic obligation and debt. He enters the economy of judgment, of correction, of refining fire.
Isa 53:9 And he [Christ] made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Isa 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD [God] to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Solomon’s wives were merchants themselves. They were trading their beauty for authority. They were trafficking in the false economy of sexual desirability, offering their bodies in exchange for rulership over their husband’s will.
Zep 1:11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh [meaning, a mortar, or deep hollow… likely the city dump, the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna], for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver [God’s word and redemption] are cut off.
The merchants are cut down. The traders in false goods—in false covenants, in false promises of satisfaction—are removed from the marketplace. Solomon walked out of that marketplace. He emerged from the wilderness where his wives had attempted to establish their false economy.
He comes out not defeated. Not worn down. Not willing to negotiate. He comes out like pillars of smoke—burning, ascending, refined into pure purpose.
THE MERCHANT AND THE KINGDOM: CHRIST’S BUSINESS IN THE WORLD
However, another merchant appears in this story, and his balance is different.
Mat 13:45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Mat 13:46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price [The Bride finding Christ, and Christ, her], went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Christ is a merchant seeking a pearl of great price. He has found the one pearl—His Bride. And He has sold all that He had to purchase her. This is not the economy of debt. This is the economy of redemption, of exchange, of total commitment.
This is why Luke 19 becomes so critical to understanding Solomon’s emergence from the wilderness:
Luk 19:12 He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
Luk 19:13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
Luk 19:14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
Luk 19:15 And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
Luk 19:16 Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.
Luk 19:17 And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
Luk 19:18 And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.
Luk 19:19 And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.
Luk 19:20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:
Christ, the Nobleman, has gone into a far country to receive His kingdom from His Father following the cross. While He is away, His servants are occupied in business—not in the business of satisfying human appetite, but in the business of gain, of growth, of spiritually productive investment.
The Bride’s joints—the members of her Body—have been faithful. They have gained. They have multiplied what they were given. When Christ returns, having received the kingdom, He calls them to account. Not to punish. But to reward. To establish them in authority.
This is what Solomon is emerging from the wilderness to do. He is returning to His bride not as a consumer of her beauty, not as a perpetual debtor to her appetite, but as a King returning from receiving His kingdom. He comes to call His servants to account. To establish them in authority. To create a new economy—not the economy of romantic debt, but the economy of productive covenant.
THE BRIDE’S RECOGNITION: PILLARS APPROACHING
Now, as Solomon emerges from the wilderness like pillars of smoke—burning, ascending, refined—the Bride recognizes something she had not fully understood before.
Heb 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Heb 5:9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
Heb 5:10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.
He is not coming to be satisfied by her. He is coming to establish her in something far larger than her own desires.
The approach of those pillars of smoke is both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying because it means the end of the economy she may have believed in—the false covenant of her own desirability, her own ability to control through seduction. Exhilarating because it means the beginning of something far more real, far more true, far more transformative.
This is what the Bride in the Song has learned. When Solomon emerges from the wilderness, she does not attempt to seduce him further. She does not try to make herself more desirable. She recognizes that his arrival signals a shift—from the season of her testing to the season of her establishment. From the wilderness of waiting to the kingdom’s threshold.
The pillars of smoke are approaching, and she is ready. Not because she has perfected herself. Not because she has made herself worthy. Rather, because she has finally understood that His coming is not dependent on her adequacy. It is dependent on His purpose. It is dependent on grace.
That grace is chastising. It is refining. It is burning away everything false. Everything rooted in Adamic corruption. Everything that attempted to establish a false covenant between bride and groom.
What remains when that fire burns away? Myrrh. Frankincense. The fragrance of truth. The perfume of a King who has walked through the wilderness of human appetite and emerged—not defeated, not compromised, not willing to negotiate—but burning with righteous purpose, ascending like pillars of smoke into the heavens, refined into the singular focus of establishing His kingdom and His Bride within it—even as the twelve pillars of the Temple that She represents as rulership over the seventy palm trees of those alive in the One Thousand Year reign.
Exo 24:4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Exo 15:27 And they [Israel] came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.
THE PERSONAL INTERROGATION: YOUR OWN WILDERNESS
Now the question turns inward. Are you and I, Solomon, moving through the wilderness of demands that can never be satisfied? Or are you the Bride, standing at the threshold, recognizing the pillars of smoke approaching?
Joe 2:29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
Joe 2:30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
Joe 2:31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Joe 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
Most likely, you have been both. You have known seasons where you attempted to satisfy someone else’s appetite—where you gave, and gave, and gave, only to discover that giving merely created a larger appetite of confusing lust. Where submission was met not with gratitude, but with a greater demand for control. Where you believed that if you could just do enough, provide enough, sacrifice enough, you would finally receive the peace you craved.
Pro 30:13 There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
Pro 30:14 There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
Pro 30:15 The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:
Pro 30:16 The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.
This is the wilderness. Solomon’s emergence poses a stark question: How long will you wander in it?
For some, the wilderness lasts a lifetime. They never learn the lesson. They never recognise that the economy of romantic debt cannot be broken by paying more—with interest. They keep giving. They keep serving. They keep hoping that someday, somehow, the appetite they are trying to satisfy will be sated.
It will not be.
Only when you emerge—when you walk out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, burning with the recognition of truth—can the false economy collapse. Only when you refuse to negotiate with the appetite. Only when you establish a higher law. Only when you move with the authority of one refined in the fire of judgment.
For the Bride, the lesson is equally stark: Will you attempt to seduce the pillars of smoke? Will you try to control them? Will you seek to establish your authority over the authority that has emerged from the wilderness?
Or will you recognize, in their approach, the end of the false covenant and the beginning of something real?
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Deu 30:20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
The choice is (appears) yours. The pillars are coming, and they will not be denied.
THE NEXT MORNING: CHASTISING GRACE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE
What happens after Solomon emerges? What comes after the wilderness? Part 17b will explore these questions. For now, it is enough to know the wilderness is over. The season of murmuring and demand, of false covenant and romantic debt, has ended.
The pillars of smoke have appeared on the horizon, and everything — everything — is about to change.
The Bride will no longer have to search. The waiting is nearly complete. The threshold of consummation approaches.
The peace that was traded away in Eden—the peace of a man’s rest, the peace of a woman’s true security—can finally begin to be restored.
Not through her submission to his appetite.
Not through his capitulation to her demand.
Through the establishment of a kingdom where both Bride and Groom are submitted to something higher than themselves. Where the economy is not debt, but redemption. Where the foundation is not romantic idealism, but chastising grace.
This is what the pillars of smoke announce.
This is what emerges from the wilderness, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, burning with the fire of judgment and the fragrance of truth.
END OF PART 17a
Solomon emerges from the wilderness—not defeated, but refined. Not willing to negotiate, but burning with righteous purpose. The pillars of smoke are approaching. And the Bride stands at the threshold, ready to cross from the season of waiting into the season of establishment.