"This Too Shall Pass" — The Words Engraved on King Solomon's Ring
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Most of what's attributed to Solomon involves command — over spirits, over wealth, over kingdoms that traveled great distances just to witness his court. This story is different. It's not about commanding anything outside of himself. It's about the one thing that's actually harder to master: his own mind, in both his highest moments and his lowest ones.
It may be the most quietly powerful piece of wisdom connected to his name — three words that have outlasted nearly everything else.
The Request That Started It
In the version of the story passed down through Jewish folklore, Solomon — at the height of his wealth and power, surrounded by more glory than any king before him — turned to his court and asked for something specific: an object, or a phrase, that could do two opposite jobs at once. It needed to humble him whenever his pride swelled too large, and it needed to lift him whenever his spirit sank too low.
This was not an easy request to fill. Most things that comfort you in grief don't also work to humble you in triumph, and the reverse is just as true. He was asking for something that could hold both extremes at once — which meant it had to be something true regardless of which extreme he was standing in.
Three Words That Could Do Both Jobs
The answer that satisfied him — engraved into a ring he wore from that point on — was a simple phrase: this too shall pass. Three words, equally true at the peak of his glory and at the bottom of his despair, because they made no claim about whether the moment was good or bad. They made a claim about time.
Read in a moment of triumph, the phrase quietly punctures the illusion that the glory is permanent — that this feeling, this status, this height, will simply continue forever. Read in a moment of despair, the exact same words carry the opposite weight entirely — a promise that the suffering, too, has a natural end. Same three words. Completely different function, depending entirely on where you stood when you read them.
The Twist Most Versions Leave Out
One telling of the story adds a final layer that most retellings skip entirely, and it's the part worth knowing. At the absolute height of his power — wealthier, wiser, and more celebrated than any ruler before him — Solomon looked at the ring expecting it to humble him as it was designed to. And for a moment, it did the opposite. His glory felt so complete, so deserved, that even the warning on the ring seemed almost beneath him.
In that moment of nearly resisting the ring's own wisdom, the lesson folded back on itself: even his resistance to being humbled — that too would pass. The phrase wasn't just a warning about external circumstances. It was a warning that applied to his reaction to the warning itself. There was no level of certainty, no degree of feeling exempt from the lesson, that the phrase didn't reach. That's what made it complete.
A Different Kind of Power Entirely
Every other story attributed to Solomon involves reaching outward — binding a spirit, answering a riddle, accumulating wealth that pulled tribute from distant kingdoms. This story is the only one that's entirely internal. The power being demonstrated isn't command over anything external at all. It's the capacity to hold steady — to not be destabilized by either extreme of fortune.
This is, in its own way, the rarest of his three legendary powers. Command over spirits requires a ring. Command over wealth requires alignment and circumstance. Command over your own mind in both triumph and collapse requires something that can't be handed to you by an archangel — it has to be carried internally, and it has to be earned through exactly the kind of perspective this story describes.
Why This Still Matters
Most people come to a reading from one of these two extremes — either caught in a moment of real despair, convinced the current situation is permanent and unbearable, or caught in a moment of overconfidence, certain about a relationship or a decision in a way that isn't actually warranted by what's really happening underneath the surface. Both extremes distort what's actually true.
What a genuine reading offers is exactly the function this ring was designed for: clarity that holds steady regardless of which extreme you're currently standing in. Not false comfort if your situation is genuinely difficult, and not false confidence if it isn't as secure as it feels. Just an accurate read on where things actually stand — which is, in the end, more useful than either extreme on its own.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is this story actually about the same ring as the one used to bind spirits?
The traditions tend to treat them as separate threads of the same overall legend rather than strictly the same physical object across every telling — the magical signet used for binding spirits comes primarily from the Testament of Solomon tradition, while the "this too shall pass" engraving comes from a separate strand of Jewish folklore focused on wisdom and humility rather than command. Both speak to the same underlying figure and the same reputation for unmatched insight, even where the specific details don't perfectly reconcile.
Why does this phrase still get quoted so often today?
Because it solves a real and universal problem with three words: the tendency to treat temporary states — whether painful or triumphant — as permanent. That tendency causes most of the unnecessary suffering people experience during hard times, and most of the carelessness people show during good ones. A phrase that corrects both at once, regardless of the listener's circumstance, has obvious staying power across any era.
How does a reading actually provide this kind of clarity?
A reading bypasses the emotional intensity of the current moment and accesses the underlying energetic reality directly — what's actually moving in a relationship or situation, independent of how overwhelming or hopeless or certain it currently feels from the inside. That outside vantage point is exactly what the ring was designed to provide internally. A reading offers the same vantage point, applied to your specific situation, right now.
Final Thoughts
Of everything attributed to the wisest king who ever lived, this may be the piece of wisdom that asks the least and gives the most. No ritual, no binding, no fortune required — just the willingness to remember, in either direction, that the current moment is not the whole story.
If you're standing in a moment right now that feels too big to see past — in either direction — getting an accurate read on what's actually happening is the next right step.
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