1 Kings 11:6 Meaning and Explanation

Here the account renders its plain judgment. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, the same formula used throughout Kings for unfaithful rulers. The specific charge is that he did not follow the Lord fully, the way David had. The contrast with his father is sounded again, for David is the standard against which the kings of Judah are measured.

To follow God only partly is, in the end, not to follow Him at all as Lord. The phrase "not fully" exposes the quiet danger of half-hearted faith, an outward keeping of religion while the heart wanders. God desires not a portion but the whole, and Jesus would teach that no one can serve two masters. Solomon's failure was not the absence of religion but the absence of wholehearted devotion, and that is the failure Scripture names as evil in God's sight.