Further aspects of Solomon's career deserve our consideration, contributing as they do to the brilliance of his reign but also to its limitations.
His literary efforts were numerous and varied. Like David, he was famed as a poet; he was credited with over a thousand songs (see I Kings 4:32). Tradition ascribed to him the famed "Song of Songs," implying in Hebrew idiom, "the most beautiful of songs." While having no direct reference to Deity—though it has been allegorically interpreted, as the headings of the King James Version indicate—it contains much of beauty and charm, vividly describing the birds, flowers, trees, and vineyards of Israel, welcoming the close of winter and the advance of spring (see S. of Sol. 2: 11,12). Emphasis is laid upon a country maiden and her peasant lover, to whom she remains true in spite of her royal suitor. The poet cries, "Many waters cannot quench love" (8:7).
Solomon appears to have been equally noted for his proverbs, three thousand of which are assigned to him (see I Kings 4: 32). Passages in the book of Proverbs do contain references to "the proverbs of Solomon," but other contributors are also mentioned. It seems clear that just as tradition attributed all, or almost all, psalms to David—although some may have been earlier, and many clearly later than David's time—so Solomon was viewed as the typical writer of proverbs. His reputed authorship of the book of Ecclesiastes is not generally accepted today, but he is thought to have composed a book or books dealing with natural history. He wrote of trees and plants from the lofty cedar of Lebanon down to the lowly hyssop "that springeth out of the wall" (I Kings 4: 33); also animals, birds, fish, and reptiles.
