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When Solomon heard this he was grieved, and greatly confounded, upon
this change of almost all that happiness which had made him to be admired,
into so bad a state; nor had there much time passed after the prophet had
foretold what was coming before God raised up an enemy against him, whose
name was Ader, who took the following occasion of his enmity to him. He
was a child of the stock of the Edomites, and of the blood royal; and when
Joab, the captain of David's host, laid waste the land of Edom, and destroyed
all that were men grown, and able to bear arms, for six months' time, this
Hadad fled away, and came to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, who received him
kindly, and assigned him a house to dwell in, and a country to supply him
with food; and when he was grown up he loved him exceedingly, insomuch
that he gave him his wife's sister, whose name was Tahpenes, to wife, by
whom he had a son; who was brought up with the king's children. When Hadad
heard in Egypt that both David and Joab were dead, he came to Pharaoh,
and desired that he would permit him to go to his own country; upon which
the king asked what it was that he wanted, and what hardship he had met
with, that he was so desirous to leave him. And when he was often troublesome
to him, and entreated him to dismiss him, he did not then do it; but at
the time when Solomon's affairs began to grow worse, on account of his
forementioned transgressions
1
and God's anger against him for the same, Hadad, by Pharaoh's permission,
came to Edom; and when he was not able to make the people forsake Solomon,
for it was kept under by many garrisons, and an innovation was not to be
made with safety, he removed thence, and came into Syria; there he lighted
upon one Rezon, who had run away from Hadadezer, king of Zobah, his master,
and was become a robber in that country, and joined friendship with him,
who had already a band of robbers about him. So he went up, and seized
upon that part of Syria, and was made king thereof. He also made incursions
into the land of Israel, and did it no small mischief, and spoiled it,
and that in the lifetime of Solomon. And this was the calamity which the
Hebrews suffered by Hadad.