1 Kings 22:28
"22 Solomon's provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour and sixty cors of meal, 23 ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl. 24 For he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates. And he had peace on all sides around him.25 And Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon.26 Solomon also had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen. 27 And those officers supplied provisions for King Solomon, and for all who came to King Solomon's table, each one in his month. They let nothing be lacking. 28 Barley also and straw for the horses and swift steeds they brought to the place where it was required, each according to his duty."
We have before pointed out that Solomon stands as a type of Christ the Prince of peace, and the conditions obtaining during his reign surely are illustrative of those belonging to Christ's kingdom. The picture of peace and prosperity, indeed of well-being and rejoicing, with individual independence and fulfilment (25) is a real foretaste of what awaits us when Christ comes to reign. What the age of Solomon experienced was a fulfilment, on one level, of the divine promise made at the beginning by God. The fact that after Solomon's time declension set in and the kingdom diminished simply indicates the partial realisation of the promise and the typical character of events in the old economy. It is as if God were saying: 'Here is but one illustration of what I mean, and it will serve as a pointer to what in the fulness of the time I am going to accomplish through My Son'. Thus, in the New Testament, we see the still greater spiritual joys brought to birth through the gospel. One has only to read in Acts of the impact the message of the apostles made wherever they went to realise that it brought indeed a reign of peace and joy. Nor is this all. The best is yet to be. He Who came in humility will come again in all his glory, and only then will the full meaning of this Old Testament picture become clear. The words in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) - 'they began to be merry' indicate that the blessings of the gospel here and now, great and wonderful as they are, are but the beginning of joys. As it is written, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him'. Blessed be His Name!