Sébastien Bourdon

Solomon Making a Sacrifice to the Idols, c.1646–47, Oil on canvas, 156 x 145 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris; INV. 2800, Stéphane Maréchalle © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

In Flagrante

Commentary by Diana Lipton

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The implied reader of Deuteronomy 17:2–7 is not the perpetrator of the crime in question—the worship of other gods—but the person who hears of or sees the prohibited crime. Turning a deaf ear or a blind eye is out of the question. Whoever has reason to suspect is legally obliged to investigate, and witnesses are bound to cast the first stone.

Viewed through this lens, Sébastien Bourdon’s Solomon Worshipping Idols depicts a nightmare. He makes you, the viewer, into an unwilling, terrified witness of a capital crime involving the king.

You come upon a clearing in the Jerusalem hills. A column, a massive urn, and two statues—one male and dark and one white and female—are permanent fixtures, but they can’t be dismissed as the decaying remains of an earlier civilization. An expanse of fabric has been draped around the tree and the urn, creating the sense of an enclosure, and there’s a red carpet trimmed with gold on the steps. The statues are festooned with garlands of fresh flowers. There’s music—you see a small flute and cymbals, and snatches of song emerge from the open mouths of a couple of the women. Pungent smoke drifts up from a golden incense altar, and a libation offering with a silver chalice and platter is in process. Can these be the very vessels designated for use in the holy Temple (1 Kings 7:48–51)?

King Solomon is gazing up at the statues, as directed by a woman in white at centre stage. His hands are on his chest. She’s literally turning his heart towards other gods (Deuteronomy 17:17). There’s no way out of this: you’re a witness to royal idol worship. Your hand will throw the first stone of a public stoning that will end with the king’s death (v.7). You and you alone will be responsible for regicide.

But wait. You and you alone. You’re the only witness, and ‘a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one witness’ (v.6). Without making a sound, you turn on your heels and tiptoe away.

See full exhibition for Deuteronomy 17

Deuteronomy 17

Revised Standard Version

17 “You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever; for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4and it is told you and you hear of it; then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done in Israel, 5then you shall bring forth to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. 7The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.

8 “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns which is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God will choose, 9and coming to the Levitical priests, and to the judge who is in office in those days, you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. 10Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place which the Lord will choose; and you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you; 11according to the instructions which they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the verdict which they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. 12The man who acts presumptuously, by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13And all the people shall hear, and fear, and not act presumptuously again.

14 “When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me’; 15you may indeed set as king over you him whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16Only he must not multiply horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ 17And he shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply for himself silver and gold.

18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, from that which is in charge of the Levitical priests; 19and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them; 20that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left; so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

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