The "United Kingdom" is so termed because it was a period of a little less than 120 years more or less unified under three separate leaders. The three kings were Saul, followed by David, then Solomon. Since each of them reigned for 40 years (See Acts 13.21 for Saul; I Kings 2.11 for David; I Kings 11.42 for Solomon), it would seem that its total span should be exactly 120 years. However, a careful reading of (I Kings 1.1-2.12) will make it clear that both David and his son Solomon co-reigned for some period of time.

David was in poor health and apparently a little senile near the end of his life, so one of his sons by the name of Adonijah presumed to appoint himself as the next king. David was apprised of what was happening, and took steps to have Solomon anointed as the next king. Thus Solomon became at least the titular king, co-reigning with David some time before his death. Fortunately, the precise duration of this overlap may be inferred by a circumstance having to do with the construction of the Temple.

David was a very special kind of person; he had an unusually close relationship with God so that the Lord once referred to David as a man after His own heart. What a compliment! Nevertheless, God refused to allow David to build the first Temple in Jerusalem to house the Ark of the Covenant on the grounds that David had been a man of war. Notwithstanding this prohibition, David’s passion for the Lord’s House was consuming so that he continued to prepare all of the architectural plans for the Temple, organize divisions of service for the priests and Levites, identify craftsmen and leaders required, and even have the materials on site to facilitate its early construction (I Chronicles 28-29). Finally, he solemnly charged his son Solomon with the responsibility for actually building it.

One might get the idea that this project was top priority in the mind of David and that he expected Solomon to expedite it immediately after his death. Therefore, if the Bible should record that Solomon delayed its construction for several years after David’s death, we would be shocked. Indeed no such delay occurred as we shall discover later, though Solomon did not begin its construction until the 4^th year of his reign. A reasonable assumption that can be verified later is simply that David must have died in the 4^th year of Solomon’s co-regency.

A final question remains before this period of the United Kingdom can be connected with the period of the Divided Kingdom that follows it. When did Solomon actually die? This date is needed to connect the two periods together. Remember that the key dates for the Divided Kingdom were based on incidents with the Assyrians involving Ahab and Jehu of the Northern Kingdom. Starting with those two kings, it was possible to determine the first year of Jeroboam I who initiated the Northern Kingdom. Also recall that the Northern Kingdom used a Nisan calendar that began in the spring whereas the Southern Kingdom used a Tishri calendar that began in the fall. When this is coupled with the fact that neither one of these calendars lines up with our present-day calendar, and the month of the rebellion is not given in the Bible, there results a one year uncertainty in specifying the year of Solomon’s death. Thus we are left with either 931/930 BC as the year of Solomon’s death.

When the adjustments just discussed are included, it is possible to construct the following calendar for the period of the United Kingdom.

REDEMPTIVE PLAN