Solomon went la-bamah asher be-Giv‘on to Jerusalem. The lamed of la-bamah is not in place of a mem as R. Jonah [ibn Janaḥ] has written (Riqmah 55–56), for one is the opposite of the other! After all, lamed indicates movement toward, while mem indicates movement away from—so how could one be in place of the other? Rather, the meaning is as follows: Solomon went—that is, he [first] went—la-bamah asher be-Giv‘on (=to the shrine at Gibeon); he [then] went to Jerusalem, [meaning] from before the Tent of Meeting that was in Gibeon he went to Jerusalem; and he reigned over Israel. In a midrashic vein, our Sages, of blessed memory (b. Yoma 53a), explain [the phrase] as follows: When Solomon went from Gibeon to Jerusalem, his face was la-bamah asher be-Giv‘on (=toward the shrine at Gibeon), just as it was when he went there; that is, out of respect for the shrine, when he left the building that it was in, he walked backward, facing the shrine. They derive from this (ibid.) that the same was true when the priests would take leave of their service, the Levites their stands, and the Israelites their posts: they would not turn back their faces and go but would turn them sideways. And the same holds true for a student taking leave of his mentor (ibid.).