After David had routed his enemies within the borders of Israel, he was able to rest from his labors and turn the kingdom over to his son (1 Kgs. 5:3-4). Thus Solomon’s reign prefigures the eternal reign of Christ over the New Heavens and the New Earth (Rev. 22) after the defeat of God’s enemies. The ensuing peace was a time of great culturative activity of the Jewish people. Indeed, Solomon was the paradigmatic culturative man. Besides heading up the building of the temple, Solomon used his God-given wisdom for a vast array of culturative pursuits (2 Chr. 8:1-9:28; Eccl. 2:4-8; not to mention his brilliant literary works).
In the kingdoms of David and Solomon we see an important principle which governs the relationship between redemptive and culturative history. Redemptive history—marked by either the conversion or the destruction of God’s enemies, and eradication of evil and sin—paves the way for progress to be carried out by God’s people. This we read in Isaiah 2:4 that “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, /And their culturative spears into pruning hooks.” The weapons of war (antithesis) shall be transformed into tools for farming (the paradigm for culture-making), which hearkens us back to Adam’s original vocation to rule and work the earth, in the opening chapters of Genesis.
—David Hegeman