KING SOLOMON’S PENCHANT FOR DARK-SKINNED WOMEN  

            Solomon’s penchant for dark-skinned women is possibly due to the fact that his mother, Bathsheba, was a Gilonite, a woman of color from Canaan’s land.  This may explain why the majority of Solomon’s thousand wives were also women of color.  No European districts or tribes were mentioned as being in Solomon’s harem. The Song of Solomon tells how Solomon fell madly in love with a  woman who spoke of herself as being black saying, “I am black but comely [beautiful].”  (Song of Solomon 1:5)  Yet the majority of white commentaries on this woman’s color argue that she was a white maiden sporting a deep dark tan.  Scriptures detail the lineage of Solomon’s many wives.  Recall that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and many of these women were from the land of Ham called Egypt and from other descendants of Ham.  The  Scriptures in 1 Kings 11:1-4 state that:

“King Solomon loved many strange [foreign] women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning  which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: but Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods.”

Most of Solomon’s women were  dark-complected, being Ham’s descendants.  Moreover, Solomon “clave unto these [Hamitic and Shemitic women] in love.” Solomon married an African princess, Pharaoh’s daughter, from “the land of Ham.”  Then there were his Zidonian and Hittite women, as well as his other Canaanite wives who descended from the cursed strain of black people that  Moses’ Law forbad Israelis to marry.  (Deut. 7:1-4)  None were of Japhetic origin, but over half the tribes mentioned were of Hamitic (black) or of half-Hamitic origin.  This is only a paragraph relating to Solomon's Shulamite bride, who said of herself that she was "black but comely." (Song of Sol. 1:5)  Order the rest of the story of this interracial relationship that is still racy by today's standards as it is chronicled in the Holy Bible.  Order Blacks in the Bible Vol. I as well as the rest of the series for your personal library at WWW.BLACKSINTHEBIBLE.NET.