Now king David was old and advanced in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he couldn’t keep warm. Therefore his servants said to him, “Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king. Let her stand before the king, and cherish him; and let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may keep warm.” So they sought for a beautiful young lady throughout all the borders of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The young lady was very beautiful; and she cherished the king, and served him; but the king didn’t know her intimately.
Parallel Translations
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Now king David was old and advanced in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he couldn’t keep warm.
Therefore his servants said to him, “Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king. Let her stand before the king, and cherish him; and let her lie in your bosom, that my lord the king may keep warm.”
So they sought for a beautiful young lady throughout all the borders of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
The young lady was very beautiful; and she cherished the king, and served him; but the king didn’t know her intimately.
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Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.
So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.
Show all 3 translations
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NOW KING David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he could get no heat.
Wherefore his servants said unto him: 'Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the king, and be a companion unto him; and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.'
So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the borders of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
And the damsel was very fair; and she became a companion unto the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not.
Cross-references (24)
- Ecclesiastes 4:11 (v2) Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone?
- Genesis 16:5 (v2) Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong is your fault. I gave my servant into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, she despised…
- Micah 7:5 (v2) Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth!
- Joshua 23:1-2 (v1) After many days, when Yahweh had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, Joshua…
- 1 Samuel 16:21-22 (v2) David came to Saul, and stood before him. He loved him greatly; and he became his armor bearer. Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Please let…
Show all 24 cross-references
- 1 Chronicles 29:27-28 (v1) The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem. He…
- Joshua 19:18 (v3) Their border was to Jezreel, Chesulloth, Shunem,
- 1 Chronicles 23:1 (v1) Now David was old and full of days; and he made Solomon his son king over Israel.
- Esther 2:4 (v3) and let the maiden who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” The thing pleased the king, and he did so.
- Psalms 90:10 (v1) The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes…
- Deuteronomy 10:8 (v2) At that time Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, to stand before Yahweh to minister to him, and to…
- Deuteronomy 13:6 (v2) If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul,…
- 2 Samuel 5:4 (v1) David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.
- 2 Samuel 12:3 (v2) but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his…
- Esther 2:2 (v3) Then the king’s servants who served him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king.
- Genesis 18:11 (v1) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
- Genesis 24:1 (v1) Abraham was old, and well advanced in age. Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things.
- 2 Kings 4:8 (v3) One day Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman; and she persuaded him to eat bread. So it was, that as often as he passed…
- 2 Chronicles 29:11 (v2) My sons, don’t be negligent now; for Yahweh has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers,…
- 1 Samuel 28:4 (v3) The Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and encamped in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they encamped in…
- Matthew 1:25 (v4) and didn’t know her sexually until she had given birth to her firstborn son. He named him Jesus.
- 1 Kings 2:17-25 (v3) He said, “Please speak to Solomon the king (for he will not tell you ‘no’), that he give me Abishag the Shunammite as wife.” Bathsheba…
- 2 Kings 4:25 (v3) So she went, and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her afar off, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Behold,…
- Luke 1:7 (v1) But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were well advanced in years.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (24 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–3 He was about 70 years old, 2 Sam. 5:4.
He was about 70 years old, 2 Sam. 5:4.
For his natural heat was worn away with travails.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–4 1Ki 1:1 Now king David was old [and] stricken…
1Ki 1:1 Now king David was old [and] stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
Ver. 1. Now king David was old.] His numbering the people is by some held to be the last act he did before he took his bed. But by others, with more probability, that all those things recorded in the eight last chapters of the First Book of Chronicles were done whilst David was able to go abroad; for it is said in 1Ch 28:2 that he "stood upon his feet in the assembly of the princes," and spake unto them. And he so spake that they might well perceive his intellectuals were no whit decayed, though he were old and cold, rigens prae senio.
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And they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.] He had been a man of sorrows from his youth up. See Pro 17:22 2Co 7:10 Psa 32:3-4; Psa 119:83. Hence his strength was much impaired, and his death hastened, though he lived as long as any king of Judah or Israel: indeed, Manasseh reigned longest of any.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Stricken in years; Being in the end of his…
Stricken in years; Being in the end of his seventieth year. He gat no heat; which is not strange in a person not only of so great an age, but also who had been exercised with so many hardships in war, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows, for his own sins, (as divers of his Psalms witness,) and for the sins and miseries of his children and people. See Pro 17:22. Besides, this might be from the nature of his disease, or bodily distemper.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 David, as recorded in the foregoing chapter, had, by…
David, as recorded in the foregoing chapter, had, by the great mercy of God, escaped the sword of the destroying angel. But our deliverances from or through diseases and dangers are but reprieves; if the candle be not blown out, it will burn out of itself. We have David here sinking under the infirmities of old age, and brought by them to the gates of the grave. He that cometh up out of the pit shall fall into the snare; and, one way or other, we must needs die. 1. It would have troubled one to see David so infirm. He as old, and his natural heat so wasted that no clothes could keep him warm, Kg1 1:1. David had been a valiant active man and a man of business, and very vehement had the flame always been in his breast; and yet now his blood is chilled and stagnated, he is confined to his bed, and there can get no heat. He was now seventy years old. Many, at that age, are as lively and fit for business as ever; but David was now chastised for his former sins, especially that in the matter of Uriah, and felt from his former toils and the hardships he had gone through in his youth, which then he made nothing of, but was now the worse for. Let not the strong man glory in his strength, which may soon be weakened by sickness, or at last will be weakened by old age. Let young people remember their Creator in the days of their youth, before these evil days come. What our hand finds to do for God, and our souls, and our generation, let us do with all our might, because the night comes, the night of old age, in which no man can work; and, when our strength has gone, it will be a comfort to remember that we used it well. 2. It would have troubled one to see his physicians so weak and unskilful that they knew no other way of relieving him than by outward applications. No cordials, no spirits, but, (1.) They covered him with clothes, which, where there is any inward heat, will keep it in, and so increase it; but, where it is not, they have none to communicate, no, not royal clothing. Elihu makes it a difficulty to understand how our garments are warm upon us (Job 37:17); but, if God deny his blessing, men clothe themselves, and there is none warm (Hag 1:6), David here was not. (2.) They foolishly prescribed nuptials to one that should rather have been preparing for his funeral (Kg1 1:2-4); but they knew what would gratify their own corruptions, and perhaps were too willing to gratify his, under colour of consulting his health. His prophets should have been consulted as well as his physicians in an affair of this nature. However, this might be excused then, when even good men ignorantly allowed themselves to have many wives. We now have not so learned of Christ, but are taught that one man must have but one wife (Mat 19:5), and further that it is good for a man not to touch a woman, Co1 7:1. That Abishag was married to David before she lay with him, and was his secondary wife, appears from its being imputed as a great crime to Adonijah that he desired to marry her (Kg1 2:22) after his father's death.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Now King David was old, and stricken in years,....…
Now King David was old, and stricken in years,.... Was seventy years of age; for he was thirty years of age when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years, Sa2 5:4; this was just the age of man, Psa 90:10;
and they covered him with clothes; not wearing apparel, but bed clothes; he seems to have been bedridden and paralytic:
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but he got no heat; by them; having no natural heat in him, clothes could not communicate any to him, only keep the cold from him, see Hag 1:6; there are many persons at the age he was, that are lively, healthful, and robust, comparatively speaking at least; but David's strength was impaired, and his natural force abated by his many wars, fatigues by night and day in campaigns, and the many sorrows and afflictions he met with from his family and his friends, as well as enemies; which exhausted his natural moisture, weakened his nerves, and drank up his spirits, and brought upon him the infirmities of a decrepit old age very soon.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 David declines in health, ver. 1-4. Adonijah aspires to…
David declines in health, ver. 1-4. Adonijah aspires to the kingdom, ver. 5-10. Nathan and Bathsheba procure an order for the succession of Solomon, ver. 11-31. The anointing of Solomon, and the peoples joy, ver. 32-40. The dispersion of Adonijah's party, ver. 41-49. Solomon dismisses Adonijah, ver. 50-53.
Old - Being in the end of his seventieth year. No heat - Which is not strange in a person who had been exercised with so many hardships in war, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows, for his own sins (as divers of his Psalms witness) and for the sins and miseries of his children and people. Besides, this might be from the nature of his bodily distemper.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 -Year from the Creation, according to the English Bible,…
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE KINGS
-Year from the Creation, according to the English Bible, 2989.
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-Year before the Incarnation, 1015.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 170.
-Year before the first Olympiad, 239.
-Year before the building of Rome, 262.
-Year of the Julian Period, 3699.
-Year of the Dionysian Period, 507.
-Cycle of the Sun, 3.
-Cycle of the Moon, 13.
-Year of Acastus, the second perpetual archon of the Athenians, 31.
-Pyritiades was king over the Assyrians about this time, according to Scaliger, Langius, and Strauchius. He was the thirty-seventh monarch, (including Belus,) according to Africanus, and the thirty-third according to Eusebius.
-Year of Alba Silvius, the sixth king of the Latins, 15.
-Year of David, king of the Hebrews, 40.
CHAPTER I
David, grown old, is, by the advice of his physicians,
cherished by Abishag the Shunummite, 1-4.
Adonijah conspires with Joab and Abiathar to seize on the
government, 5-10.
Nathan and Bathsheba communicate these tidings to the aged king,
11-27.
David immediately pronounces Solomon his successor, and causes
Zadok and Nathan to proclaim and anoint him king, 28-40.
Adonijah and his friends hear of it, are afraid, and flee away,
Adonijah laying hold on the horns of the altar, from which he
refuses to go till Solomon shall promise him his life; this he
does, and banishes him to his own house, 41-53.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. Now King David was old] He was probably now about sixty-nine years of age. He was thirty years old when he began to reign, reigned forty, and died in the seventieth year of his age, 2Sa 5:4, and 1Kg 2:11; and the transactions mentioned here are supposed to have taken place about a year before his death.
But he gat no heat.] Sixty-nine was not an advanced age; but David had been exhausted with various fatigues, and especially by family afflictions, so that he was much older in constitution than he was in years. Besides he seems to have laboured under some wasting maladies, to which there is frequent reference in the Psalms.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 1Ki 1:1. Now King David was old — Being…
1Ki 1:1. Now King David was old — Being in the end of his seventieth year. They covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat — Which is not strange, considering he was a person who had been exercised with so many hardships in war, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows for his own sins, (as divers of his psalms witness,) and for the sins and miseries of his children and people. Besides, this might be from the nature of his bodily distemper, which Dr. Lightfoot thinks was a dead palsy. [David now began to feel the effects of old age, and probably remembered with lively interest the words of his faithful friend Barzillai, spoken some time before: “Can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink?”]
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Now - Rather, “and.” The conjunction has here, probably,…
Now - Rather, “and.” The conjunction has here, probably, the same sort of connecting force which it has at the opening of Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, etc., and implies that the historian regards his work as a continuation of a preceding history.
King David - The expression “king David,” instead of the simpler “David,” is characteristic of the writer of Kings. (See the introduction to the Book of Kings) The phrase is comparatively rare in Chronicles and Samuel.
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Stricken in, years - David was perhaps now in his first year. He was thirty years old when he was made king in Hebron 2Sa 5:4; he reigned in Hebron seven years and six months 2Sa 2:11; 1Ch 3:4; and he reigned thirty-three years at Jerusalem 2Sa 5:5. The expression had here been used only of persons above eighty Gen 18:11; Gen 24:1; Jos 13:1; Jos 23:1 : but the Jews at this time were not long-lived. No Jewish monarch after David, excepting Solomon and Manasseh, exceeded sixty years.
Clothes - Probably “bed-clothes.” The king was evidently bed-ridden 1Ki 1:47.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Years; sixty-nine, as he died when he was seventy…
Years; sixty-nine, as he died when he was seventy years old. (Calmet) (2 Kings v. 4.) --- Warm. Though David was of a strong constitution, he had been so much exposed to fatigue, and so harassed with domestic broils, that his vigour was nearly decayed. (Calmet) --- The Rabbins say, that the sight of the angel had greatly contributed to weaken him. Lyranus, and others, suppose that he was affected with the palsy. (Abulensis; Salien, the year of the world 3019.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
THE
FIRST BOOK OF THE KINGS
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FIRST PERIOD, (1015 TO 975 B. C.)
THE KINGDOM UNDER SOLOMON.1
(Chapters 1–2)
FIRST SECTION
solomon’s accession to the throne
1 Kings 1, 2
A.—Adonijah’s attempt to seize the kingdom for himself; Solomon’s elevation to the throne
1Ki_1:1-53
1Now king David was old and stricken in years;2 and they covered him with clothes,3 but he gat no heat. 2Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin [virgin damsel];4 and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy5 bosom, that my6 lord the king may get heat. 3So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a [the7] Shunammite, and brought her to the king. 4And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.
5Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 6And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? and he also was a very goodly man; and his mother bare him after Absalom. 7And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest: and they following Adonijah helped him. 8But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David, were not with Adonijah. 9And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel [the well of Rogel], and called all his brethren the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah the king’s servants: 10but Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother, he called not.
11Wherefore Nathan spake unto Bath-sheba the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith doth reign, and David our lord knoweth it not? 12Now therefore come, let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel, that thou mayest save thine own life, and the life of thy son Solomon. 13Go and get thee in unto king David, and say unto him, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly [That8] Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? why then doth Adonijah reign?9 14Behold, while thou yet talkest therewith the king, I also will come in after thee, and confirm10 thy words.
15And Bath-sheba went in unto the king into the chamber: and the king was 16very old; and Abishag the Shunammite ministered unto the king. And Bath-sheba bowed, and did obeisance unto the king. And the king said, What wouldest thou? 17And she said unto him, My lord, thou swarest by the Lord [Jehovah] thy God unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne. 18And now, behold, Adonijah reigneth; and now [thou11], my lord the king, thou knowest it not: 19And he hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain of the host: but Solomon 20thy servant hath he not called. And thou,12 my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne of my 21lord the king after him. Otherwise [But] it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon shall be counted13 offenders. 22And, lo, while she yet talked with the king, Nathan the prophet also came in. 23And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan the prophet [has come]. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. 24And Nathan said, My lord, O king, hast thou said,14 Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? 25For he is gone down this day, and hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the king’s sons, and the captains of the host, and Abiathar the priest; and, behold, they eat and drink before him, and say, God 26save king Adonijah [let king Adonijah live]. But me, even me thy servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and thy servant Solomon, hath he not called. 27Is this thing done by my lord the king, and thou hast not shewed it15 unto thy servant16 who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?
28Then king David answered and said, Call me Bath-sheba. And she came into the king’s presence, and stood before the king. 29And the king sware, and said, As the Lord [Jehovah] liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress, 30even as I sware unto thee by the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, saying, Assuredly [That17] Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon 31my throne in my stead; even so will I certainly18 do this day. Then Bath-sheba bowed with her face to the earth, and did reverence to the king, and said, Let my lord king David live for ever.
32And king David said, Call me Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king. 33The king also said unto them, Take with you the servants of your lord,19 and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, and bring him down to Gihon;20 34And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel: and blow ye with the trumpet, and say, God save king Solomon [let king Solomon live]. 35Then ye shall come up after him, that he may [and he shall] come and sit upon my throne; for [and] he shall be king in my stead: and I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah. 36And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king, and said, Amen: the Lord [Jehovah] God of my lord the king say so too [so spake21]. 37As the Lord [Jehovah] hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David.
38So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, went down, and caused Solomon to ride upon king David’s mule, and brought him to Gihon.22 39And Zadok the priest took a horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon 40[Let king Solomon live]. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them.
41And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it, as they had made an end of eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar? 42And while he yet spake, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came: and Adonijah said unto him,23 Come in; for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings. 43And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king. 44And the king hath sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have caused him to ride upon the king’s mule: 45and Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon:24 and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that ye have heard. 46And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom. 47And moreover the king’s servants came to bless our lord king David, saying, [Thy25] God make the name of Solomon better than thy name, and make his throne greater than thy throne. And the king bowed himself upon the bed. 48And also thus said the king, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, which hath given one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it.
49And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up,26 and went every man his way. 50And Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. 51And it was told Solomon, saying, Behold, Adonijah feareth king Solomon: for, lo, he hath caught hold on the horns of the altar, saying, Let king27 Solomon swear unto me to [this28] day that he will not slay his servant with the sword. 52And Solomon said, If he will shew himself a worthy man, there shall not a hair of him fall to the earth: but if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die. 53So king Solomon sent, and they brought him down from the altar. And he came and bowed himself to king Solomon: and Solomon said unto him, Go to thine house.
Exegetical and Critical
1Ki_1:1. Now king David was old, &c. 1Ki_1:1-4 introduce the entire narration following, the central point and chief object of which is Solomon’s ascension to the throne. Adonijah’s endeavor to usurp the throne was the reason why this event took place before the death of David. Adonijah proceeded to carry out his purpose when David was old and infirm, and apparently near his end. The author begins, consequently, with the description of David’s condition, and is reminded particularly of Abishag, his waiting-maid, because Adonijah, after the misadventure of his enterprise, sought her for a wife in order to gain the throne by means of her, and so wrought his destruction (1Ki_2:13 sq.). The וְ at the beginning has no connection with anything preceding; least of all does it connect our books with the books of Samuel (see Introduction, § 3). Nor is it mechanically retained from a passage of the life of David inserted-here (Keil); but it stands, as elsewhere so often at the beginning of a book (Jos_1:1; Jdg_1:1; 2Sa_1:1; Rth_1:1; Est_1:1; Ezr_1:1; Eze_1:1; Jon_1:1), where the first verse forms the antecedent to the second.—When David was old and infirm, his servants said unto him. David was then seventy years of age (comp. 1Ki_2:11, with 2Sa_5:4-5): that his natural warmth then failed him, was not ex nimio mulierum usu (Le Clerc), but was the result of the “extraordinary cares and conflicts of his earlier life” (Ewald).
1Ki_1:2-4. Wherefore his servants said unto him, &c. Josephus expressly names them physicians (Ant vii. 14, 3), comp. Gen_50:2. The remedy which one of them, in the name of the rest, advised when the “clothes” (בְּגָדִים as in 1Sa_19:13; Num_4:6) were of no use, was known in ancient times. Without skill in infernal remedies, men sought to warm, by means of living vigorous bodies, those whose vital powers were chilled and enfeebled. Galen (Method. Medic. 8, 7) says: “Ex iis vero, quœ extrinsecus applicantur, boni habitus puellus una sit accumbans, ut semper abdomen ejus contingat. Bacon (Hist. Vit. et Nec.): Neque negligenda sunt fomenta ex corporibus vivis. According to Bartholinus (De Morb. Bibl. 9), a Jewish physician advised the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa to allow young and strong boys to lie upon his breast (comp. Trusen, Sitten, Gebr, and Krankh. der Hebrœer, s. 257 sq.). This was not designed hero for the gratification of bodily passion, by means of a “concubine,” as Winer calls Abishag, but before all, for service and assistance, such as was deemed most effective after the unavailing application of the usual remedies to the aged man confined to his bed. The physicians expressly state this, and it agrees with the words: and let her stand before the king, i.e., let her servo him (Gen_41:46; Deu_1:38), and be his attendant, i.e., let her wait upon, help him: let her lie in his bosom [not thy, see textual note] that ho may become warm. If by these last words they may have presupposed that he would “know” her, they do not state it as the design, as, moreover, שָׁכַב בְּחֵיק must not be understood necessarily only of cohabitation (comp. 1Ki_3:20; Rth_4:16). They sought a beautiful maiden “because she was destined for the king” (Thenius), and they found such at Shunem, a city of the tribe Is-sachar, in the plain of Jezreel, at the foot of the so-called little Hermon (Jos_19:18; 1Sa_28:4). The text states expressly that the king did not know her: she was, therefore, not his concubine, but his waiting-maid and attendant. In a wholly perverse way Josephus, and after him J. D. Michaelis, adduces impotency, in consequence of old ago and weakness, as the reason why he did not know her. In that case the remark would be superfluous (Thenius). It serves, however, “to make it clear how it was that Adonijah could seek Abishag for his wife,” 1Ki_2:17 (Keil), and go to Bath-sheba for her intercession with Solomon. Older interpreters have maintained that she was the actual wife of David, or at least his concubine, and that the relation also, according to the morality of the time, was unobjectionable. Bat neither hero nor in the second chapter is she so named. Amongst the people she may have well passed for such, since Adonijah, through alliance with her, wished to facilitate his way to the throne (see on 1Ki_2:13).29
1Ki_1:5-6. Then Adonijah the son of Haggith, &c. Of the sons of David born at Hebron, Adonijah was the fourth (2Sa_3:2-4). The first, Amnon, and the third, Absalom, were already dead, and the second also, Chileab, of whom nothing more is said, had doubtless died much earlier. As the eldest living son, Adonijah believed that he had claims to the throne. Besides this, his beautiful person came into the account, as with Absalom, by which, because it was valued in a ruler (1Sa_9:2; 2Sa_14:25; 2Sa_16:7; Eze_28:12), he hoped for the favorable regard of the people, יָלְדָּח 1Ki_1:6 cannot, with some, be translated: “and ho was born unto him after Absalom,” but only, as in Gen_16:1 : “and she had borne him after Absalom,” i.e., after the latter had been borne of Maacah. The alteration of the text into יָלַד—“he had begotten him after Absalom” (Thenius), is wholly unnecessary. The succession to the throne in Israel was certainly hereditary; but no law required that the eldest son, at the time, should be the heir-apparent. From 1Ki_1:17; 1Ki_1:20, as also from 2Ch_11:22, it is clear that it was regarded as the right of the reigning king to determine who amongst his sons should succeed him. He could transmit the kingdom to his first-born or to his eldest son, but he was not obliged (2Ch_21:3) thereto. Adonijah was not at all first-born, but only the fourth son. He himself does not take his age into the account, and appeals, in 1Ki_2:13 sq., not to this, but to the voice of the people who had shown themselves favorably disposed towards him. David’s designation of Solomon as his successor, has its reason in the promise in 2Sa_7:12-16; 2Sa_12:24 sq.;1Ch_22:9-10; he regarded him as the one who, according to the prescript touching a king in Deu_17:15, was chosen by Jehovah. Of a formal “right” to the throne, possessed by Adonijah, which he thought to “assure “ himself of (Thenius), there can be no discussion. That he knew well the will of his father, by virtue of which Solomon was to be his successor, is clear from the circumstance that he invited all his brothers, and the men who were employed in the royal service, to a feast prepared by him. Solomon only, and the more confidential friends of David, were not invited. His design was to render null the purpose of his father, and to possess himself of the throne, by conspiracy and force, in opposition to his wish. His undertaking was a formal usurpation, and like that of Absalom, to which the whole narrative manifestly points. Upon this account also the text says: ”he exalted himself,” i.e., he over-exalted himself—made himself somewhat that did not become him (נָשָׂא used here as in Pro_30:32; Num_16:3), with this result, that his father left him to his will (מִיָּמָיו means from his, Adonijah’s days, and is not, with Seb. Schmidt, to be understood first of his attempt at royal sovereignty). The moral infirmity of the royal father, coupled now with bodily weakness, induced Adonijah to enter upon his guilty enterprise. Just as Absalom had done (2Sa_15:1), he provided himself with what, according to 1Sa_8:11, is designated as the first “royal prerogative,” chariots, riders, and body-guardsmen, i.e., a brilliant court, in order thereby to impose upon the multitude.
1Ki_1:7-10. And he conferred with Joab, &c. Through the commander-in-chief, Adonijah hopes to win over the army, and through the high-priest, to secure also the priesthood. Not the conviction “that he had right on his side” (Thenius), induced both men to enter into his plans. Joab had observed that he was sunken in the good graces of David (1Ki_2:5), and consequently could not hope for much for himself from Solomon; but from Adonijah he could hope, especially if made king by his assistance. Abiathar seems to have felt himself set aside by David for Zadok, which priest was at the tabernacle with the ark of the covenant at Zion (see on 1Ki_1:33; 1Ki_1:39), and to have feared that the high-priestly family of Eleazar, to which Zadok belonged, would supplant his own, viz.: the family of Ithamar. Upon Benaiah, comp. 2Sa_8:18; 2Sa_23:20 sq.; upon Nathan, see 2 Samuel 7, 12. Shimei is mentioned in 1Ki_4:18 : Josephus names Reiὀ Δαυἶδου φίλος. Doubtless these latter filled high offices. That they were the only surviving brothers of David (Ewald), has nothing probable to rest upon. Upon the heroes of David, comp. 2Sa_23:8 sq., and 1Ch_11:10 sq. Adonijah, like Absalom (2Sa_15:8; 2Sa_15:12), prepared a great feast, which was ostensibly also sacrificial, in order to impart to the transaction a religious coloring. The well, i.e., the sources of Rogel (Jos_15:7; Jos_18:16), lay, according to 2Sa_17:17, southeasterly from Jerusalem, in the loveliest, most fruitful plain; according to Josephus, in βασιλικῷ παραδείσῳ; according to Schulz (Jerus., s. 79), “even now a place of recreation for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Thenius derives the name Zoheleth from זחל, to crawl—a rock which one must climb with difficulty. This place was in every respect suited for a public festivity. (Comp. Robinson, Palestine, vol. i. p. 333; Boston, 1868.)
1Ki_1:11-14. Wherefore Nathan spake unto Bath-sheba, &c. According to the custom prevailing anciently in the East, on the occasion of the forcible seizure of the throne, of murdering the dethroned ruler, or the opposing pretenders to the crown, with all their nearest relations (Jdg_9:5; 1Ki_15:29; 2Ki_10:6; 2Ki_10:13; 2Ki_11:1), in the event of the success of Adonijah’s undertaking, there was very much to fear for the life both of Solomon and of his mother. That David knew nothing of the plans of Adonijah, and that Nathan was first informed of them only at the moment of their execution, shows how secretly the affair had been managed. This would have been unnecessary had Adonijah a recognized right to the throne, and had his own conscience been right in the premises. David, moreover, would not have been so very much surprised at his undertaking. The prophet Nathan also deemed it his duty to prevent, as far as possible, a repetition of the history of Absalom. With great wisdom and prudence, he addressed himself to the mother of Solomon, who was especially beloved of David, begging her to apply to the king, with whom rested the right to designate his successor, to represent to him the mortal peril which threatened both her son and herself, and to remind him of his promise to her. When David’s mind should first, by this means, become aroused, than he (the prophet) would, in the name of Jehovah, appear before the king, and place before him his given word (1Ch_28:5), in order to incite him to immediate action. “When David first promised Bath-sheba, upon his oath, that her son Solomon should become king, is not known. Obviously it was after the promise he had received in 2 Samuel 7.” (Keil).
1Ki_1:15-27. And Bath-sheba went in unto the king, &c. The statement that king David Was old, &c, (1Ki_1:1), explains the words: “into the chamber” (1Ki_1:15), and means ho was so feeble that he could not leave his sick-room, and needed constant attention.—From 1Ki_1:20, comp. 27, it is most explicit, once more, that no one entertained the thought that Adonijah, as the eldest surviving son of the king, had a right to the succession; but that the right to decide whether of his sons should be king, remained rather with the king, and that his decision was anxiously waited for.—I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders,i.e., we shall be treated as traitors and offenders guilty of death. After these words Bath-sheba retired, and Nathan, informed in the meanwhile, went unto the king. While the former addressed her statement to the king directly, as a mother, the latter, as prophet, begins with a question in which, upon the one side, a slight reproach was conveyed that David should not have put a stop sooner to the design of Adonijah, and have exposed his own friends to great danger, and on the other side it expressed the confidence that the king would hold to his oath, and carry it out forthwith.—Under “the captains of the host,” 1Ki_1:25, the servants of the king (the mighty men) in 1Ki_1:10 are included. Kings used to be saluted by the people with the salutation, Live the king! (1Sa_10:24; 2Sa_16:16; 2Ki_11:12; 2 Chron. 23:31.) the order of names in 1Ki_1:26 contains a climax in which Solomon, as the highest personage, is named last. Nathan’s words are anything also than the expression of wounded vanity—they simply exhibit Adonijah’s hostile sentiment towards the friends of the king, and also the fate in store for them should Adonijah become sovereign.
1Ki_1:28-38. Then king David answered, &c. The quick and firm resolution of David shows how strong he was yet in mind and will, notwithstanding all his bodily weakness. He repeats his oath, not, however, employing merely the usual formula, as Jehovah liveth! but adding most significantly, who hath redeemed my soul out of all distress. i.e., to the God who has been true to me, and delivered me wonderfully out of so many and great dangers, will I also remain true unto the end. His oath, coming from deep emotion, is likewise a praise and thanksgiving unto Jehovah. Had Adonijah an actual formal right to the throne, such an oath “would have been the greatest sin, in so far as David, while appealing to the divine mercy and grace, would have knowingly trodden under foot the right of his son. the added לְעֹלָם, 1Ki_1:31, exhibits the vivacity of the thought. Amongst the Persian kings it appears to have been customary (Dan_3:9; Dan_5:10; Dan_6:22; Neh_2:3).
1Ki_1:33-37. The king also said unto them, Take with you the servants of your lord, &c. As no one but the king himself dared ride his mule, the command to let Solomon “ride” thereon was an actual declaration that he was king (Est_6:8-9). Gihon is a place near Jerusalem, on the west side, with a spring of water (2Ch_32:30; 2Ch_33:14). the valley hero situated bears still this name (Robinson, Palest. vol. i., p. 346). It was proper for the anointing to take place at a spot where a large assemblage could be gathered, and whence a solemn entrance into the city, which had no open public square, could be made. Gihon, moreover, was considerably distant from the rock Zoheleth, which was on the southeasterly side of Jerusalem, whore Adonijah had gathered together his adherents, so that a collision would be avoided. According to the account of the rabbins, kings were anointed only at places abounding in water, and upon that account also much frequented. But they erroneously identify Gihon with Siloam, which spring lies southeast of Jerusalem. Thenius prefers the reading גִּבְעוֹן to גִּחוֹן, because the tabernacle was there, from which, according to 1Ki_1:39, Zadok took the “horn of oil.” But the three hours’ distance of Gibeon from Jerusalem is conclusive against this. Besides, by אֹהֶל, in 1Ki_1:39, we are not to understand the tabernacle of the covenant, but the tent erected by David upon Zion for the ark of the covenant (2Sa_6:17; 1Ch_15:1; 1Ch_16:1). David expressly gave order for the anointing of Solomon, so that nothing appertaining to the investiture of the king should be wanting. the supposition that anointing took place only with those kings “who were not free from exceptions, or who had no historic right to the throne” (Winer and Grotius, after the rabbins), is unfounded, for David, who here ordered the anointing, regarded Solomon in no respect as an exceptional successor. From the fact that he wished this done not simply by the high-priest, but also by the prophet, we learn the high significance he attributed to the prophetic office in Israel. He says purposely, ruler over Israel and over Judah. He had himself, for some time, been ruler only over Judah: then ho had conquered Ephraim, which named itself Israel, and had united it again with Judah. The old disunion had again exhibited itself on the revolt of Absalom (2Sa_19:40 sq.); hence, with Adonijah’s like undertaking in view, he deemed it necessary to declare expressly that Solomon should be ruler over Israel and Judah. Benaiah, as the person upon whom the execution of the order devolved, answered David, and declared himself ready to carry it out,—not, as Thenius supposes, to flatter the paternal vanity, but, in the conviction that the king’s command was in conformity with the will of Jehovah, he wished that the divine blessing might rest upon the government of Solomon.
1Ki_1:38. So Zadok the priest, &c. By the Cherethites and Pelethites we must understand the royal body-guard (Josephus, σωματοφύλακες). On the other hand, the modern interpreters are not agreed whether both expressions are to be under stood ethnographically or appellatively. They who urge the former, appeal to 1Sa_30:14, and hold בְּרֵתִי for the designation of the parentstem of the Philistines, which had migrated from Crete, and that פְּלֵתִי, too, is the same with פְּלִשְׁתִי. David, who for a long while had remained amongst the Philistines, had collected his body-guard from amongst foreigners and not from his own people, and afterwards the appellative remained (Movers, Hitzig, Bertheau, Ewald). Others derive כרתי from כרת, and פלתי from the Arabic, cognate with פלם, &c., understanding by the former, lictors, the royal executioners of the punishment of death, and by the latter, runners who, like the ἄγγαροι of the Persians, had to carry commands to remote places (2Ch_30:6). we hold to this latter view, along with Gesenius, Keil, and Thenius, for although the plural form ־ִי instead of ־ִים for appellations is certainly unusual, we cannot perceive why two designations should be employed side by side, for one and the same people. (We do not say Britons and Englishmen.) So, then, later the royal body-guard were called הַכָּרִי וְהָרָצִים (comp. 2Ki_11:4 sq.), i.e., executioners and runners. And last of all, it is highly improbable that David, who was perpetually at war with the Philistines, would have selected his body-guards from them.—The horn of oil out of the tabernacle (1Ki_1:39). The “oil of holy ointment” (Exo_30:23 sq.) was preserved in the tabernacle in which the ark of the covenant was kept (1Ch_15:1). The pouring of this oil upon the head symbolized the communication of the Spirit (רוּחַ) of Jehovah (1Sa_16:13). By anointing, the royal office with which Solomon was to be invested was set forth as essentially theocratic. The king of Israel was, upon this account absolutely the anointed of the Lord (1Sa_2:10; 1Sa_2:35; 1Sa_24:7). The taking of the horn from the “tabernacle” does not force us to the conclusion that the act of anointing took place before or at it and at the same time, also at Gibeon, as Thenius maintains. The great joy and jubilation of the whole people shows that they knew nothing of Adonijah’s right to the throne, but that they rather accepted David’s decision, who alone had the right to decide. They saw in Solomon’s elevation a victory over the unauthorized usurper. Flutes were used at festivals, especially at the feast of tabernacles (Isa_5:12; Isa_30:29; Winer, R. - W.- B., ii. s. 123).30
1Ki_1:40. The earth rent. So according to the Chald., which explains תִּבָּקַע by זָעַת. The Sept. has ἥχησε; the Vulg. insonuit. Thenius reads תִּתָּקַע, the earth was struck = quaked, which seems unnecessary.
1Ki_1:41-48. And Adonijah .… heard it, &c. While the assembled guests heard the noise and the cry in the city, the experienced soldier Joab caught the sound of the trumpets especially, and concluded, from this warlike token, nothing good. Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, who here, as in 2Sa_15:36; 2Sa_17:17 appears as the bringer of news, was probably left behind in the city designedly to observe what was going on. Although scarcely himself a witness of what transpired in the royal palace, he could, nevertheless, as Solomon had already made his entrance, be well informed by eye and car witnesses. Joab named him a valiant man, i.e., a person whoso report could be trusted. The וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ at the end of 1Ki_1:47, as David was lying upon his bed, certainly cannot mean that ho fell upon his knees; still less is a thankful bow in return to those who were congratulating him meant (Thenius). The king bowed himself with his body as far as he could, before his Lord and God, and spake: Blessed, &c. The וְגַם at the beginning of 1Ki_1:48 does not indicate a new, different action, but simply states that besides his bowing, he spake also the words which follow.
1Ki_1:49-53. And all the guests .… were afraid, &c. The panic which forthwith seized Adonijah and his followers, shows that their conscience was not upright in their undertaking, i.e., that they themselves were not convinced of the righteousness of Adonijah’s claims, otherwise they would, with Joab at their head, have made a stand, and not scattered at once. To save his life, which he, as a usurper of the throne, believed he had forfeited, Adonijah fled to the altar, which stood before the tabernacle upon Zion (1Ki_3:15; 2Sa_6:17). He laid hold of the horns of the altar, as did Joab afterwards (1Ki_2:28), and appealed thereby to the pardoning power and grace of Jehovah (comp. upon the significance of the act, my Symbolik des Mos. Cult., i. s. 473 sq.). This asylum was ordained originally for unintentional man-slayers (Exo_21:12 sq); but later on it appears to have been made use of by persons who feared punishment by death. Solomon regarded Adonijah’s flight to the horns of the altar as a confession of his guilt and repentance, and he exercised an act of clemency which could only produce the most favorable impression upon the people. Yet ho adds a warning in the words: Go to thine house, i.e., not: Do not come into my presence (2Sa_14:24), but: Keep thyself quiet, live as a private person, then not the least harm shall befall thee.
Historical and Ethical
1. The entire first chapter turns upon the eleven Hon of Solomon to the throne, which is narrated so circumstantially with its immediate occasion and all the attending circumstances, because, as has already been shown in the Introduction, § 3, it constitutes in the highest degree a weighty moment in the development of the history of the Old Testament theocracy. With it begins the period of a blooming of the kingdom of Israel which it never had before, and which never came again. Solomon thereby became elevated to the type of a great, mighty, wise, and prosperous king, which lie passes for even to this day in the Orient. The prophets even depict the glory and happiness of the Messianic kingdom with expressions which are borrowed from the description of the kingdom of Israel under Solomon. (Comp. Mic_4:4, and Zec_3:10, with 1Ki_5:5.) He is, according to his name, the prince of peace, κατ’ ἐξοχήν, and the beloved of God (2Sa_12:25), designations which by the prophets and in the New Testament are applied, in like manner, to the Messiah the son of David in the most eminent sense (Isa_9:5-6; Eph_1:6; Eph_2:14; Col_1:13). The reception of “The Song of Solomon” into the Old Testament canon shows that to the Jewish synagogue the typical relation was not unknown, and in the Christian Church it has always been maintained.
2. The brief introductory narrative, 1Ki_1:1-4, has been found in many respects very scandalous. This has arisen from the wholly false presupposition that it treats of the gratification of the lustfulness of a worn-out old man by means of a concubine. But of this the text declares so little, that it rather states explicitly, David did not know Abishag. The means winch the physicians—not he himself—selected to restore to him his lost natural warmth, were, if not unheard of, at least morally questionable, yea, from a Christian point of view, decidedly objectionable. That they did not hesitate to recommend it, has indeed its ground, not in conscious immorality and frivolity, but in the perverted views prevalent throughout the entire ancient Orient upon the relation of the sexes, or in the deeply-rooted lack of chastity, which even the stern lawgiver Moses was not able to put an end to. Hence polygamy was not only permitted, but it was regarded by kings as somewhat belonging to their royal estate, and it never occurred to any one to object to them upon that account. (Comp. 2Sa_5:13; 1Ki_11:3; 2Ch_11:21; Jdg_8:30.) This explains the reason why David did not reject the medical advice, and why the matter did not cause any scandal among the people, why even Bath-sheba herself did not feel aggrieved (1Ki_1:15). Whatsoever the narrative has which is repulsive to us, does not adhere to a particular person nor to this particular instance, but to the general lack of conjugal chastity in the Old Testament.
3. Adonijah’s undertaking, in which there is so unmistakably a reference to Absalom’s, is to be understood throughout as blameworthy. He knew that the decision upon the succession to the throne depended upon his father, and that he had already selected Solomon. He knew also the tragical end of Absalom’s attempt. Nevertheless, he would not be warned by it, but set himself up in the way of self over-estimation, making boast of his beautiful figure. King will he be at any cost. He makes his preparations without his father’s consent, takes advantage of his infirmity and weakness, and secretly enters into combinations with the most influential men who belonged, more or less, to the class of malcontents. He allows himself to become impatient through his lust for ruling, and to rush into a measure in every respect premature. Upon the first intelligence, nevertheless, of Solomon’s accession, a shameful panic seizes him. All courage to risk the least thing for his cause fails him. The whole crowd of his followers scatters like dust, and he himself, in a cowardly way, seeks to save only his life. He anxiously flies to a place of refuge, clings to it, calls himself Solomon’s “servant,” and salutes him as king. But, scarcely is the danger past, he breaks his pledged word to behave quietly, and starts anew in secret machinations to reach his goal, He flatters the mother of Solomon with hypocritical humility, and seeks to move the heart of the wife (see on 1Ki_2:13 sq.). Rightly does Ewald say of him: “A man who, according to all the known features of our memorial of him, has much that resembles Absalom, fine form, airy, and ambitious of power, yet inwardly scarcely fit for governing; of an obdurate mind, and yet afraid to venture upon open battle. That he was no proper sovereign for such a kingdom as Israel then was, must be obvious to intelligent men.”
4. Nathan hero, as always (2 Samuel 7, 12), appears right genuinely as prophet. When there is an attempt to bring to completion human self-willed beginnings over-against the counsel and will of God, where the safety and well-being of the chosen people were at stake, then it was the calling of the prophet to interfere, counselling and reminding, warning and punishing. It was not so much personal friendship for David, and love for his pupil Solomon, as rather, and before all, the known will of Jehovah, which had determined that the latter should be king, that induced him to take the step which would have had the most disastrous consequences for himself, yea, might have cost him his life, had Adonijah become king. It was not Zadok, nor Benaiah, nor any of the other friends of David, who brought to nought the ill-starred enterprise. But the same prophet, through whom the great promise had been made to David in respect of the succession; by the providence of God, averted also that which interfered with the fulfilment of the promise. And without his prompt, spirited interference there would have been for Israel no Solomon-era, no glorious age of the theocratic house. He proceeded in the matter with great wisdom and circumspection. First he allows the mother of Solomon to prepare the way, conciliating the infirm and feeble king, then he enters before him himself, with all deference indeed, nevertheless at the same time earnestly reminding and slightly reproving him, and calls upon him as a man and servant of God to fulfil the promise ho had given unto the Lord.
5. The conduct of David, when ho learns what is going on, corresponds fully with the divine will and with his great calling as the founder of the theocratic kingdom, and of the new dynasty which is to sit forever upon the throne of Israel. He does not stagger irresolutely hither and thither, like a sick, feeble old man without any will of his own, but, as if ho were still the strong hero, the undismayed, determined, energetic man, such as in his best years he had so often shown himself amid dangers and in critical situations, he raises himself from his sick-bed, swears to observe his word, issues his orders, and puts them into immediate execution. This resolution and firmness could not have proceeded possibly from their opposite, from an inward infirmity, i.e., from compliance with the supplication of a wife, nor from dislike of Adonijah, whom ho had never interfered with (1Ki_1:6), but had heretofore always indulged too much. It is to be explained only by his faith in the promise of Jehovah, by his firm certainty and assurance that Solomon was appointed by Jehovah to be his successor, and that through him as well his own “house,” as the house of Jehovah, which it was permitted himself no longer to take care of, should be built up (2Sa_7:11-13). Upon this account also the Epistle to the Hebrews mentions him expressly in the list of the men who have held the faith, and obtained the promise (1Ki_11:32). How could Ho have sworn by Him who had “redeemed his soul out of all distress,” and then, in deep humility, have praised and glorified Him, had ho been conscious of any injustice towards Adonijah, and had not, in the prosperous issue of his commands, beheld a gracious guidance of the God of Israel? It is clear that under such a man as Adonijah, who was lacking in all the qualities requisite for the head of the theocracy, the kingdom never would have reached the bloom which it reached under Solomon. It would have been the greatest misfortune for Israel had he ascended the throne, while, viewed apart from the promise, the high and extraordinary endowment of Solomon was a clear indication of Providence that he alone of all his brothers was fitted to preserve, indeed to increase, what David had acquired with indescribable toil and great conflict, under the visible assistance of God. David did not deprive Adonijah of what rightly belonged to him, he only did not bestow upon him what he craved in his foolish arrogance and ambition, to the detriment of the kingdom.
6. Of Solomon himself we learn here only this one thing, that he instantly allowed Adonijah to go free, who, by his flight to a place of refuge, was self-convicted of guilt, and, according to the custom in such cases, feared punishment by death. His first act as king was significantly an act of magnanimity and grace, which appears all the more worthy of admiration when we remember “that Adonijah, had ho won, would certainly have destroyed his brother and all his chief supporters” (Ewald), as both Nathan and Bath-sheba undoubtedly expected (1Ki_1:12; 1Ki_1:21).
7. The new historic criticism sees “in our narrative, distinctly, the fully natural machinery of human actions” (Thenius), a “court-cabal,” the “astute manager” of which is Nathan (Köster). “Bath-sheba sought to secure the crown for her son Solomon, although, after Absalom’s death, it devolved upon the fourth son of David, Adonijah, whom Hagith had borne to him. One of the two priests at the ark of the covenant, Zadok, supported Bath-sheba’s designs, just as Nathan the prophet…… Both could expect from the young Solomon a greater complaisance towards priestly influence than from the more independent Adonijah, especially if they helped the young man, against right, to the throne. It was characteristic of Bath-sheba to induce David to swear by Jehovah that Solomon, instead of Adonijah, should be his successor. But Adonijah was resolved not to allow himself to be robbed of his good right through an intrigue of the harem… As David was sinking upon his death-bed, Adonijah believed that he must anticipate his enemies,” &c. (Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums i. s. 385). Nothing is more certain than that the biblical author did not look upon the matter in such light. This whole exposition is a distinct example of the mode of treating biblical history already described in the Introduction, § 5. It abandons the standpoint of the narrator, arranges the history man-fashion, and then, as is the case here, perverts it into its opposite. The divine promise becomes a fine-spun harem intrigue, the “great prophet,” as Ewald also calls him, becomes the intriguing manager of a court-cabal, the true priest is reduced to the level of a self-seeker, the firm believing king, the man after God’s heart, the play-ball of a woman and of a court-party, the greatest and wisest king of Israel is a throne-robber, and on the other hand the airy, incapable, deceitful, and cowardly usurper Adonijah becomes a martyr of the right and the unfortunate victim of impure machinations. This entire perverted interpretation rests upon the presupposition, already sufficiently proved groundless, that Adonijah, was “the rightful heir,” and falls to pieces with it.
8. [“It is true that Adonijah was David’s eldest son now remaining, and therefore might seem to challenge the justest title to the crown; but the kingdom of Israel, in so late an erection, had not yet known the right of succession. God himself, that had ordained the government, was as yet the immediate elector; He fetched Saul from among the stuff, and David from the sheep-fold, and has now appointed Solomon from the ferule to the sceptre.”—Bp. Hall, Contemplations, Bk. xvii., Contemplation i.—E. H.]
Homiletical and Practical
1Ki_1:1-4. Weakness and infirmity in old age are: (a) the universal human lot to which we must all consider ourselves appointed (Psa_90:10); (b) they should loosen the bands which hold us to the temporal and perishable, and ripen us for eternity (2Co_4:17 sq.).—Würt. Summ.: They who, through many a cross, and sorrow, and anxiety, expend their bodily powers, should be all the more patient, and console themselves here with the example of David, and know that among the saints of God, also, feebleness of body is found.—We may, and should, follow advice for the relief of our distress and the preservation of our life, in so far as it does not militate against the commands of God; for the Lord says, “it is better,” &c. (Mat_18:8).—Old and sick people should, and it is expected of them as a work well pleasing to God that they bear this with a willing heart, with patience, self-denial, and sacrificing love.
1Ki_1:5-10. Adonijah’s attempt to obtain the crown: (a) the ground upon which it rests (upon self-assertion, pride, lust of power, 1Ki_1:5, but God resisteth the proud, and a haughty spirit goeth before a fall: upon outward qualities, age, and beautiful person, 1Ki_1:6, but 1Sa_16:7; Psa_147:10-11); (b) the means which he employed (he seeks to impose upon the people by chariots and horsemen, but Psa_20:8; he conspires with false and faithless men, but they forsake him in the hour of danger, 1Ki_1:49; Psa_101:6-7; he prepares for appearance’ sake a religious festival, 1Ki_1:9, but 2 Mos. 1Ki_20:7).
1Ki_1:5. The effort after high things (Rom_12:16).—How many a person thinks: I will become a great personage, a man of authority and influence, and then scruples at nothing in order to attain his goal. But that which is written in 1Co_7:20; 1Co_7:24 applies to the individual as well as to entire classes.—Würt. Summ.: Let no one attempt to take an office against God and His will; “and no man taketh this honor unto himself but he that is called of God” (Heb_5:4).
1Ki_1:6. The father who allows his son to go on in his pride and in worldly or sinful conduct, and shuts his eyes, not to trouble him, must expect that the son will trouble him and embitter the evening of his life. It is the right and duty of every father to speak to his son about his conduct even when he is no longer a child, and to ask, Why dost thou so? A perverted parental love is self-punished, Pro_29:17; Sir_30:9.
1Ki_1:7. High personages always find people for the execution of their sinful plans, who, from subserviency or desire of reward, from ambition or revenge, will act as counsellors and agents; but they have their reward, and for the most part end with terror.
1Ki_1:8. With those who are meditating treason and destruction we should never make common cause (Pro_24:21-22).
1Ki_1:9-10. Seiler: He who will not abide his time until God himself shall elevate him, will fall even when he attempts to rise. He who gives the crowd wherewith to eat and to drink, who prepares for them festivities and pleasures (panem et circenses), makes himself popular and beloved for the moment; but all who allow themselves to be gained in such way, to-day shout Hosanna! and to-morrow, Crucify! By not inviting Solomon, Adonijah betrayed his plans, and himself gave the occasion for their frustration (Psa_69:23; Rom_11:9). It is a rule of the divine world-government that the cause of God, through that whereby its enemies seek to thwart and hinder it, is only so much the more promoted.
1Ki_1:11-27. Nathan, the type of a true prophet: (a) through his watchfulness and fidelity (Eze_33:7), he is not silent when it was his duty to open his mouth (Isa_56:10); (b) through his wisdom and gentleness (Mat_10:16); (c) through his earnestness and courage (Mat_10:28; see Histor. and Ethical). How grand is this Nathan, how reproving to all who sleep when they should be wakeful, who are dumb when they should counsel, who flatter when they should warn.
1Ki_1:11. It is a solemn duty not to conceal what can prove an injury and evil to an individual or to a community, but to expose it at the right time and in the right place, so that the injury may be averted.
1Ki_1:12. What Nathan here says to Bath-sheba, Christ and his apostles, in an infinitely higher sense, say to us all, especially to every father and to every mother. He who has come into the world to deliver and to save our souls, cries, Come unto me, &c. (Mat_11:28-29), and the apostle advises the jailor, who asks in terror and alarm, What shall I do to be saved? i.e., delivered, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, so shall thou and thy house be delivered. How many take kindly the good advice of a wise man, for themselves and for their children, in their earthly and outward affairs, but who wish to hear nothing of the best advice which shall bring blessedness to their souls.
1Ki_1:14. The purity of the counsel is confirmed by the accompanying result.
1Ki_1:15-21. Bath-sheba before the king. She reminds him of his duty (a) towards God, before whom he had sworn (what one has vowed before God, according to God’s will, one must hold to under all circumstances; of this one must remind kings and princes); (b) towards the people whose well-being and whose woe were in his keeping (the great responsibility of him towards whom all eyes are directed); (c) towards the wife and son whose happiness and life were at stake (woe to the father through whose guilt wife and children, after his death, fall into contempt and wretchedness).
1Ki_1:22-27. As Nathan does not hold back from the fulfilment of his holy calling through consideration of the danger threatening his life, and of the illness of the king, so David is deterred in nothing when it was said, Behold the prophet! from listening to the man of God, though his word, like a two-edged sword, may pierce through his soul. To have a Nathan by one’s side, who refers at the right time and in the right way to the will of God, is the choicest blessing for a prince. “He who fears God lays hold of such a friend” (Eccles. 6:16).—The ministers of God and the preachers of His word should not indeed mingle in worldly business and political affairs, but their calling always requires them to testify against uproar and sedition, for he who resisteth the powers, resisteth the ordinance of God (Rom_13:2).—With questions which lead to a knowledge of self, he who has the care of souls often accomplishes more than by direct reproaches and disciplinary speeches.
1Ki_1:28-37. David’s decision: (a) His oath (1Ki_1:29-30) is an evidence of his firm faith in the divine promise; (b) his command is a living proof of the truth of the word, Isa_40:31, and Psa_92:15 sq. (see Histor. and Ethical).
1Ki_1:30 sq. The word of a prince must stand firm and not be broken. Happy for the king who, under all circumstances, observes what he has promised. Fidelity in high places meets with fidelity from those below.
1Ki_1:36. Where the government is in firm hands there is found also a willing, joyous obedience. Upon God’s blessing all is founded. Without God’s Amen our Amen avails nothing. Loyal subjects know that they can wish for nothing greater and better for their prince and ruler than that God, at all times, may be with him.
1Ki_1:38-40. The typical in Solomon’s elevation to the sovereignty: (a) He is established in spite of all machinations against him (Psa_2:2; Heb_5:5); (b) he is anointed with oil from the sanctuary (Isa_61:1; Luk_4:18); (c) he makes his entry as prince of peace amid the jubilee and praise of the people (Zec_9:9; Mat_21:1 sq.).—Starke: My Christian! reflect here upon the trumpet-sounding and the jubilee-shout, when the heavenly Solomon shall take possession of his kingdom (Rev_11:16), and see to it that thou also mayest be amongst those who have part in this joy.
1Ki_1:41-49. The frustration of the schemes of Adonijah (Job_5:12): (a) The intelligence he obtains; (b) the effect produced by this intelligence. To an evil conscience (Joab) the trumpets which announce victory and joy are judgment-trumpets, which sound forth, Thou art weighed and found wanting. The same message in which David expresses himself, Blessed be, &c., 1Ki_1:48, works terror and alarm in Adonijah and his party. So still ever sounds the “good message” that the true Prince of peace, Christ, has won the victory, and is seated at the right hand of God, which to some is for thanksgiving and praise, so that they support themselves upon it, but to others it is a stone of stumbling, so that they fall and are confounded (Isa_8:14; Luk_2:34).—In the intoxication of sinful pleasure and of God-forgetting, frivolous jubilation, the holy God sends, oftentimes, the thunder and lightning of his judgment, so that the besotted and maddened may thereby be rendered sober and made to experience that there is an holy God in heaven who will not allow himself to be mocked. When Adonijah held a great festivity he had plenty of friends; but when the messenger came with evil tidings, no one, not even the bold Joab, stood by him; they all forsook him (Ecc_6:10-12).
1Ki_1:50-53. Adonijah covered himself with shame (Pro_11:2): (a) He was afraid of Solomon (he who does not fear the Lord, must at last become afraid of men). How miserable the contrast between the young, haughty Adonijah and the aged, feeble, but faithful-hearted and humble David; (b) he flies to the horns of the altar and begs for mercy: (he who said, I will be king, calls himself Solomon’s servant. Ostentation and boasting, as a rule, end in cowardice and cringing. He can bring down him who is proud (Dan_4:34). In the old covenant the horns of the altar were the places of refuge for those who had forfeited life and sought grace; in the new covenant God has directed us to a horn of salvation (Luk_1:69), the cross of the Lord, which all must seize and hold fast to who seek forgiveness and grace, and wish to pass from death unto life. That is the only and true asylum; he who flees thither avails himself of the word of the great Prince of peace, Go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee. The most beautiful prerogative of the crown is to do mercy for judgment; but mercy must never be for a covering of iniquity. Hence by the side of the word: Thy sins are forgiven thee! stands the other word: Sin no more! Kings and princes do well when, after Solomon’s example, they begin their reign with an act of grace.
[Bp. Hall. “Outward happiness and friendship are not known until our last act. In the impotency potency of either our revenge or recompense it will easily appear who loved us for ourselves, who for their own ends.” Suitable for 1Ki_1:7.
Bp. Hall, for 1Ki_1:41. “No doubt at this feast there was many a health drunken to Adonijah, many a confident boast of their prospering design, many a scorn of the despised faction of Solomon; and now, for their last dish (1Ki_1:49) is served up astonishment, and fearful expectation of a just revenge.—E. H.]
Footnotes:
[1][I am indebted to my friend, Frederic Gardiner, D. D., Professor in the Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn. for the accompanying textual revision and original grammatical notes.—E. H.]
[2]1Ki_1:1.—[בָּא בַיָּמִים always connected with זָקֵן (Gen_18:11; Gen_24:1; Jos_13:1 bis, Jos_23:1-2) exactly corresponds to the phrase in A. V.
[3]1Ki_1:1.—[בְּגָדִים bed-clothes (cf. 1Sa_19:13), not garments.
[4]1Ki_1:2.—[The translation of נַעֲרָה in 1Ki_1:3-4 may well stand here also.
[5]1Ki_1:2.—In place of the suffix ךָ the Sept. has αὐτοῦ and the Vulg. suo, which Thenius prefers to the reading of the text—Bähr.
[6]1Ki_1:2.—[The Alex. Sept., Syr., and Vulg., read our.
[7]1Ki_1:3.—[The definite article should be expressed as in 1Ki_1:15.
[8]1Ki_1:13.—[The particle כִּי, as is recognized in all the V V., can hardly give the emphasis of the Eng. assuredly.
[9]1Ki_1:14.—[Many MSS. and VV. prefix and.
[10]1Ki_1:14.—[מִלֵּאתִי אֶת־דְּבָרָיִךְ not complete, fill out, but, as in A. V., confirm; Chald. אֲקַיֵּם, Sept., πληρώσω. The phrase is used of the fulfilment of divine utterances. cf. 1Ki_2:27; 1Ki_8:15; 1Ki_8:24.
[11]1Ki_1:18.—All the VV. and 200 MSS. [and the early editions] read וְאַתָּה instead of וְעַתָּה, as the connection requires.—Bähr.
[12]1Ki_1:20.—Instead of וְאַתָּה the Chaldee [Syr. and Vulg.], and some [many] MSS. have וְעַתָּה, which Thenius considers right. On the other hand, Maurer remarks that the pronoun stands hero first, just as in Gen_49:8, with emphasis, instead of the suffix.—Bähr.
[13]1Ki_1:21.—[Counted is implied by the connection, but not expressed in the Hbr.
[14]1Ki_1:24.—[אַתָּה אָמַרְתָּ, the question is indicated only by the tone.
[15]1Ki_1:27.—[The pronoun it is better omitted, as in the Hbr. and all VV.
[16]1Ki_1:27.—The k’ri has עבדך, also nearly all the translations have the singular; but the reading of the text is preferred.—Bähr. [It is that of many MSS.]
[17]1Ki_1:30.—[See note 1Ki_1:13.
[18]1Ki_1:30.—[Hbr. and VV. omit certainly.
[19]1Ki_1:33.—[אֲדֹנֵיכֶם in the pl. is rightly rendered by the sing. as referring to David—not to David and Solomon.
[20]1Ki_1:33.—[The Chaldee and Syr. read Siloa; Arabic, fountain of Siloa.
[21]1Ki_1:36.—[The words say so too at the end of this ver. in the A. V. should be omitted; כֵּן יֹאמַר יְהוָֹה is to be taken historically, not optatively. Three MSS. followed by the Syr. and Arab, read יעשה for יאמר.
[22]1Ki_1:38.—[The Chald., Syr., and Arab., make the same change here as in 1Ki_1:33.
[23]1Ki_1:42.—[The words unto him are unnecessary; not contained in the Hbr. nor the V V.
[24]1Ki_1:45.—[As. in 1Ki_1:33; 1Ki_1:38.
[25]1Ki_1:47.—The k’tib [אלהיך] is plainly preferable to the k’ri אלהים—Bähr [and is followed by the Syriac].
[26]1Ki_1:49.—[The Vatican (not Alex.) Sept. omits and rose up.
[27]1Ki_1:51.—[The Vatican (not Alex.) Sept. omits king.
[28]1Ki_1:51.—[Instead of כיום some MSS. read היום, which has been followed apparently by the A. V.—F. G.]
[29][The allegorical interpretation of Jerome makes the Shunammite damsel the ever-virgin wisdom of God so extolled by Solomon (sapientia quœ numquam senescit, Epist. § 2; ad Nepotianum, chap. 4; Opera, i. p. 288). But in another passage Jerome understands the story literally, and enumerates this relation among the sins and imperfections of David, which would not be allowed under the gospel dispensation (contra Jovin. l. i., chap. xxiv., tom. i. 274).—P. S.]
[30]The translator, after some hesitation, have adopted the above as a caption. It is not a translation of the author’s heading. He has It “heilsgeschichtliche,” which expresses the conception of the historical process of healing or salvation. It is a term for which we have no available equivalent In English, although the thought embodied by the word is clear enough.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v3 a Shunammite--Shunem, in the tribe of Issachar (Jos 19:18),…
a Shunammite--Shunem, in the tribe of Issachar (Jos 19:18), lay on an eminence in the plain of Esdraelon, five miles south of Tabor. It is now called Sulam.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–4 DAVID’S OLD AGE, 1Ki_1:1-4.
DAVID’S OLD AGE, 1Ki_1:1-4.
In these introductory verses the writer prepares the way for the history that follows. The age and infirmity of David account for the ease with which Adonijah seems to usurp royal powers, and our introduction here to the fair Abishag prepares us for subsequent events in Adonijah’s career. 1Ki_2:12-25.
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1. David was old — As he was thirty years old when he began to reign, and reigned forty years, (2Sa_5:4,) he must now have been in his seventieth year.
Stricken in years — Literally, as the margin, entered into days; far gone in days, having reached an advanced period of life.
Clothes — Probably bedclothes are to be understood; coverlets.
He gat no heat — Literally, there was no heat to him. Abundance of clothes could not restore animal heat to a decrepit system. The older expositors assign various causes for this lack of animal heat: as, an attack of some disease of a chilling nature; the loss of much blood by war and other ways; or the result of excessive labours in earlier life. But the loss of animal warmth is a common experience of the old age of persons who have spent a life of vicissitudes and anxious toils.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–4 commonly called,
THE
FIRST BOOK OF THE KINGS,
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commonly called,
THE THIRD BOOK OF THE KINGS
Ch. 1Ki_1:1-4. David’s Feeble Age (Not in Chronicles)
1. Now] The Hebrew has only the conjunction usually rendered And. This sentence is not to be regarded as the commencement of a new history, but a continuation of what has been told in 2 Samuel. In Hebrew MSS. 1 and 2 Kings form but one book, as do also 1 and 2 Samuel , , 1 and 2 Chronicles. The division was first made in the LXX. which Jerome followed, and it was introduced in the printed Hebrew Bibles by Daniel Bomberg. The LXX. however treats these books as so closely connected with Samuel that the four books are all named alike (βασιλείων α. β. γ. δ.). They are so catalogued also in Origen’s list of the Canonical Books (Euseb. H. E. vi. 25), and in Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus. But we shall have occasion to point out some matters (e.g. the worship on the high places) which were viewed in a different light by the compiler of these later books from that in which they are regarded in the books of Samuel.
The two books fall naturally into three sections. (1) The reign of Solomon, 1 Kings 1-11. (2) The history of two kingdoms after their separation, till the overthrow of the northern kingdom, 1 Kings 12 - 2 Kings 17. (3) The history of the kingdom of Judah from the Assyrian to the Babylonish Captivity, 2 Kings 18-25.
king David was old] The circumstances recorded in this passage must have happened when the feeble king had taken to his bed. By comparing 2Sa_5:4-5, with 1Ki_2:11, we arrive very nearly at the age given by Josephus (Ant. vii. 15. 2) who says David was seventy years old when he died.
stricken in years] Rendered literally on the margin ‘entered into days.’
they covered him with clothes] i.e. With bed-clothes; just as in 1Sa_19:13 where A.V. has ‘with a cloth.’ The word is however most frequently used of garments for wear.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 (1) Now king David.—“Now” is the simple illative conjunction…
(1) Now king David.—“Now” is the simple illative conjunction “and,” found at the beginning of all the historical books (Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, &c.). It marks the general conception of the unity of the whole history, but implies nothing of special connection of time or authorship with the books of Samuel. In fact, although these books are in some sense the continuation of the former, yet the narrative is hardly continuous. The history passes at once to the closing scene of David’s life, leaving a comparative blank in the period succeeding the restoration after the defeat of Absalom—a blank which is partly filled up in the later books (1 Chronicles 22-29).
Stricken in years—about seventy years old. Since “clothes” mean “bed-clothes,” the meaning is that the King was now too feeble to rise from his bed. His life began its responsibilities early; it had been hard and trying; and, as the history shows, not wholly free from self-indulgence. Hence, at no excessive age, its complete decrepitude.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–4 THE REVOLT OF ADONIJAH AND THE ACCESSION OF SOLOMON.…
THE REVOLT OF ADONIJAH AND THE ACCESSION OF SOLOMON. The first chapter of this book is occupied with the accession of Solomon and with the circumstances which preceded, marked, and followed that event. The author, or compiler, evidently considered that his work properly began with the reign of Israel"s third king, and David"s illness and death are only introduced into the narrative because they necessitated a hasty and premature coronation of Solomon, and exercised an important influence on the beginning of his reign. (1Ki 2) In the natural order of events, Solomon would not have succeeded until his father"s death, but Adonijah"s attempt to possess himself of the kingdom required the immediate elevation of Solomon to the throne, and this attempt having been suggested by David"s extreme feebleness, the author is compelled to begin his history with an account of David"s decay and death. In the opening verses, consequently, he introduces us into the chamber of sickness. His materials for this part of the history were no doubt derived from the" Book of Nathan the prophet" (1Ch_29:29; 2Ch_9:29) The date of these events is B.C. 1015.
Now Hebrews and, but "now" more nearly expresses the import of the original, for w has here little or no connecting force. It is commonly found at the beginning of a book (as in Exodus, Leviticus, Joshua, Judges, 2 Samuel, Ruth, etc.), and that where there is no connection whatever with any earlier writing (as in Esther, Ezekiel, Jonah, etc.) It can hardly imply, therefore, "that the historian regards his work as a continuation of a preceding history" (Rawlinson), nor is there any need to suppose that it has been taken from a writing containing the earlier history of David." Keil King Hebrews the king. The frequent use of this title, "King David," "King Solomon," "King Asa," etc., is characteristic of our author. The expression is not unknown in 2 Samuel, but it occurs so rarely as to constitute a distinction (not a link, as Wordsworth) between that book and the Kings. David was old yet 2Sa_5:4, 2Sa_5:5, shows that he cannot have been more than seventy. (He was thirty at his accession; his reign at Hebron lasted seven years and a half; at Jerusalem thirty-three years.) Rawlinson says, "the Jews at this time were not long lived." Certainly, the Jewish kings were not. Only David, Solomon, and Manasses exceeded threescore and stricken Hebrews gone, i.e. , advanced in years. A common expression, only found with qez as in Gen_18:11; Jos_13:1, etc. And they covered him with clothes lit. coverings. Dg,b, is used of any covering, whether of the person (Genesis, 1Ki_22:10) or the bed, (1Sa_19:13) or even a table. (Num_4:6) Indeed, the outer garment was used, at least by the poor, for a covering at night. (Exo_22:27) The context (ver. 47) shows that bed clothes are intended here but he gat no heat. A common experience of the aged. David"s early hardships and later sorrows and anxieties appear to have aged him prematurely. Possibly he was also afflicted with disease.
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Ver. 1.
The chamber of sickness.
This opening chapter of 1 Kings introduces us into the privacy of a sick room. Stretched upon a couch, covered with many folds of rich Eastern drapery, we see a feeble, decrepit, attenuated man. At his side stands a fair young girl, assiduously ministering to his wants. From time to time the door opens, and prophet, priest, and warrior enter to receive his instructions; for happily the mind is not a wreck like the body. Its vigour is hardly abated, though the bodily strength is well nigh exhausted. He has but reached the appointed threescore years and ten, and yet such have been the hardships of his life the vital force is spent. They cover him with clothes, but he gets no heat. The flame of life is slowly but surely expiring. But we see at once that this is no ordinary room; that this is no common patient. The gorgeous apparel, the purple and fine linen, the "attendance of ministers, the standing of servants," proclaim it a king"s court. And the insignia, the pomp, the profound homage proclaim that this sick man is a king. Yes, it is David, second king of Israel, but second to none in goodness and true greatness, who lies here. His chequered life, so full of romance, of chivalry, of piety, is drawing near its close. But the hour of death is preceded by a period of feebleness and decay. For sickness is no respecter of persons. It, too, like death, "thunders at the palace gates of kings and the dwellings of the poor." There is no release in that war,
Sceptre and crown must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor common scythe and spade.
The sickness of David, then, may fittingly suggest some thoughts as to sickness in general. What, let us ask, is its purpose, what its uses? Why is it that, as a rule, a period of gradual decay precedes death? For it is worthy of remark that man alone, of all the animals, dies of disease. Among all the myriad forms of life, that is, he alone dies gradually. The lower animals, as a rule, prey upon each other. Beasts, birds, fishes, insects, all die a violent death. No sooner is one of them attacked by sickness, or enfeebled by old age, than it is dispatched and devoured by its fellows. It is thus the balance of the species is preserved. But in the case of men, sudden death is the exception. For them there remains, as a rule, a discipline of pain prior to dissolution. It is well to ask why this is. The general answer is, of course, obvious. It is because of that other life, that future reckoning which awaits men after death. Let us consider, however, in what ways sickness and pain are a preparation for the life and the judgment to come.
I SICKNESS IS GOD"S NOTICE TO QUIT. We should think it hard to be ejected from our home and turned into the street without due notice. We want a little time to make preparations. Especially is this the case when we are leaving our earthly tabernacle leaving not a home, but a world. Now God has given us abundant and repeated notice in the various accidents and occurrences of life. Too often, however, both the lessons of Providence and the warnings of the preacher are unheeded. So the Lover of souls will give men a final warning, and one that they cannot mistake, cannot well disregard. They shall feel it in their own persons. Sickness shall bid them set their house in order and prepare to meet their God. A German fable tells us that once upon a time Death promised a young man that he would not summon him until he had first sent several messengers to apprize him of his coming. So the youth took his fill of pleasure, and wasted health and strength in riotous living. Presently, a fever laid him low. But as no messenger had appeared, he had no apprehensions; and when he recovered, he returned forthwith to his former sins. He then fell a prey to other maladies, but, remembering his covenant with Death, made light of them. "I am not going to die," he cried; "the first messenger has not yet come." But one day some one tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, and saw Death standing at his elbow. "Follow me." said the King of Terrors; "the hour of thy departure is come." "How is this?" exclaimed the youth; "thou art false to thy word! Thou didst promise to send me messengers, and I have seen none." "Silence!" sternly answered the Destroyer. "I have sent thee messenger after messenger. What was the fever? What was the apoplexy? What was each sickness that befel thee? Each was my herald; each was my messenger." Yes, the first use of sickness is to remind men of death. And how much they need that reminder we may learn from the case of David. He had long been familiar with death, lie was no stranger to "th" imminent deadly breach," had known many "hairbreadth "scapes," and often there had been "but a step between his soul and death." Nay, he had once seen the Destroyer himself, seen him standing with his drawn sword ready to smite. And yet the man who had faced death, who had long carried his life in his hand, receives a final warning ere its close. That sickness, perhaps, first brought home to him his mortality, first cried to him, "Thus saith the LORD GOD, Remove the diadem and take off the crown". (Eze_21:26) But
II SICKNESS IS GOD"S WAY OF WEANING MEN FROM THE WORLD. It is natural to cling to life; but it is necessary we should be made willing to leave it. The wrench is felt the less when some of the ties which bind us to earth have been sundered: when life loses its attractions. It is the office of pain and sickness to make life valueless, to make men anxious to depart. How often it happens that men who at the beginning of illness will not hear of death are presently found praying for their release. Such are the "uses of adversity." An old writer compares affliction to the bitter unguent which nursing mothers who would wean their offspring sometimes put upon their breast. A few weeks on the couch of pain, and we soon cry out that life is not worth the living.
III SICKNESS IS GOD"S DISCIPLINE FOR PARADISE. True it is that all "earthly care is a heavenly discipline." All the ills that flesh is heir to are designed to be the instruments of our perfection. Like the Captain of our salvation, we are "made perfect through sufferings." For us, as for Him, "the cross is the ladder to heaven." Those are two suggestive words, which only differ by one letter paqhmata, maqhmata, "afflictions, instructions." But while all affliction is a school, the last illness should be the finishing school. At the last assay the furnace must he heated more than it has been wont to be. "I have learnt more," said Mr. Cecil, "within these curtains in six weeks than I have learnt in all my life before." The chamber of sickness is an enforced Retreat. There, ears "that the preacher could not school" are compelled to listen. There, "lips say "God be pitiful" which ne"er said "God be praised." There, many have learnt for the first time to know themselves. And how necessary is this last discipline David"s sick chamber may teach us; for he had already had his share of troubles. His life had been largely spent in. the school of adversity." In journeyings often, in peril of robbers," etc., (2Co_11:25, 2Co_11:26) these words aptly describe his early career. And even since he ascended the throne, how often has the sword gone through his soul. Amnon, Absalom, Tamer, Abner, Amasa, what tragedies are connected with these names. Few men have experienced such a long and bitter discipline as he; and it would seem, too, to have accomplished its world. If we may judge by some of his later Psalms, full of contrition, of humility, of devout breathings after God, that sweet and sanctified soul had "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." But he is not spared the final chastening. The sweet singer of Israel, the man after God"s own heart, must go awhile into the gloom and the silence of the sick room, there to be made fully "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." Men often pray to be spared a long sickness, often commiserate those who experience one. But we have learned that it has its uses. We see that it is a last chance given to men: a last solemn warning, a final chastening to prepare them for the beatific vision. The Neapolitans call one of the wards of their hospital L"Antecamera della Motre the ante chamber of death. It is thus that we should regard every "chamber of sickness.
THE BEGINNING OF SOLOMON"S REIGN. In the preceding chapter we have seen the establishment of Solomon"s rule (ver. 46) by the removal of internal foes, i.e. , of disaffected and rebellious subjects. In this we see him strengthening his position by an external alliance, by a marriage with an Egyptian princess. This event, however, is related hero, not because the historian had this connexion of ideas in his mind, but probably because the marriage came next in order of time.
And Solomon made affinity (Not "alliance" (as some have supposed) but relationship. Lit., made himself son-in-law) with Pharaoh king of Egypt which of the Pharaohs this was, it is impossible to say with certainty. As, however, Shishak (1Ki_11:40 1Ki_14:25) is undoubtedly the Sheshonk who succeeded to the throne of Egypt in the 26th year of Solomon (Poole), and who was the first king of the 22nd dynasty of Manetho, we may safely identify this Pharaoh with "a late king of the 21st (or Janite) dynasty." It has been assumed (Bunsen, Ewald, Brugsch, al. ) that it was Psusennes II, the last king of that house, on the supposition that he reigned 35 years, (as stated by Eusebius), but according to Africanus, his reign was limited to 14 years. It is wiser to say, therefore, with Mr. Poole (Dict. Bib., "Pharaoh") that this Pharaoh "cannot yet be identified on Manetho"s list." It is also impossible to decide whether the alliance was first sought by Solomon with a view to win over a powerful and dangerous neighbour (Thenius), to whose inroads his northern border was exposed, and especially to counteract the influence (1Ki_11:21) of Hadad (Plumptre), or whether the marriage was proposed by Pharaoh because the 21st dynasty "had then become very weak" (Rawlinson) and its head desired "friendly relations with the kingdom of Israel, which had grown into a power to be dreaded" (Keil). But we may reasonably suppose that the alliance "must have been to most Israelites a very startling one" (Plumptre.) Egypt (Rahab, Psa_89:10; Isa_51:9) was to every Israelite a name both of triumph and dread. The Pharaohs were their ancestral foes, and took Pharaoh"s daughter A marriage such as this was not without precedent (Gen_41:45; Exo_2:21; Num_12:1; Mat_1:5; Rth_4:13) nor was it condemned by the Law, which only forbade intermarriage with the nations of Canaan (Exo_34:16; Deu_7:3) and sanctioned the union of an Israelite with a captive taken in war (Deu_21:13; cf. 20:14). "At the same time, it was only when the foreign wives renounced idolatry, that such marriages were in accordance with the spirit of the law" (Keil). As Solomon at this period of his life faithfully observed the law, as he is never blamed for this marriage, and as there is no trace whatever of the introduction of Egyptian rites into Israel, it is a fair presumption that the Egyptian princess conformed to the religion of her adopted country, and brought her into the city of David 2Ch_8:11 speaks of her dwelling in "the house of David," i.e., it would seem, the palace which David had occupied until he had made an end this hardly shows that he had begun to build, as Keil infers. He did not begin building the Temple until the fourth, (1Ki_6:1) nor his own house until the eleventh year (1Ki_7:1) after his accession, and the marriage, though not at the very commencement of his reign, can hardly have been delayed to the eleventh year, and may have taken place before the death of Shimei of building his own house cf. 1Ki_7:7 and the house of the Lord cf. 1Ki_6:7:51 and the wall of Jerusalem round about. Probably, he both strengthened and extended the city walls, as Josephus (Ant. 8:6. 1) affirms. Acc. to the LXX addition to ch. 12., it was on this task that Jeroboam was employed (1Ki_11:27; cf. 9:15). David had fortified a part of the city. (2Sa_5:9)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Now King David was old and stricken in years.
1Ki_1:1-4
Now King David was old and stricken in years.
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The Winter of Life
I. Overtakes men in the highest rank.
II. Chills the vital sources of the naturally robust. And they covered him with clothes, and he gat no heat.
III. Is but temporarily alleviated by the best considered human devices. The cherishing of Abishag was--
1. Advised by the court physicians. An expedient not unusual in similar cases, when internal cordials failed, and with the limited skill of the faculty in the use of warmth-creating potions.
2. Was innocent. Suggested for no other than purely medical reasons. Sophocles lauded old age as a deliverance from the tyranny of the passions, as an escape from some furious and savage master.
3. Suspended only for a brief season the inevitable progress of decay. Medical skill is no more efficacious for the monarch than for the humblest subject. David died within the year. A moment comes in the winter of life when the warm pulse is stilled, and the once stalwart frame is locked in the icy embrace of death. (J. Barlow.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 "Praise a fair day at night."
DAVIDS DECREPITUDE
1Ki_1:1-4.
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"Praise a fair day at night."
THE old age of good men is often a beautiful spectacle. They show us the example of a mellower wisdom, a larger tolerance, a sweeter temper, a more unselfish sympathy, a clearer faith.
The setting sun of their bright day tinges even the clouds which gather round it with softer and more lovely hues.
We cannot say this of Davids age. After the oppressive splendor of his heroic youth and manhood there was no dewy twilight of honored peace. We see him in a somewhat pitiable decrepitude. He was not really old; the expression of our Authorized Version, "stricken in years," is literally "entered into days," but the Book of Chronicles calls him "old and full of days." {1Ch_23:1} Josephus says that when he died he was only seventy years old. He had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. {2Sa_5:5} At the age of seventy many men are still in full vigor of strength and intellect, but the conditions of that day were not favorable to longevity. Solomon does not seem to have survived his sixtieth year; and it is doubtful whether any one of the kings of Israel or Judah-excepting, strange to say, the wicked Manasseh-attained even that moderate age. Threescore years and ten have alwaysbeen the allotted space of human life, and few who long survive that age find that their strength then is anything but labor and sorrow.
But the decrepitude of David was exceptional. He was drained of all his vital force. He took to his bed, but though they heaped clothes upon him he could get no warmth. "He remained cold amid the torrid heat of Jerusalem." Then his physicians recommended the only remedy they knew, to give heat to his chilled and withered frame. It was the primitive and not ineffectual remedy-which was suggested twenty-two centuries later to the great Frederic Barbarossa-of contact with the warmth of a youthful frame. So they sought out the fairest virgin in all the coasts of Israel to act as the kings nurse, and their choice fell on Abishag, a maiden of Shunem in Issachar. There was no question of his taking another wife. He had already many wives and concubines, and what the bed-ridden invalid required was a strong and youthful nurse to cherish him. We are surprised at such total failure of lifes forces. But David had lived through a youth of toil and exposure, of fight and hardship, in the days when his only home had been the dark and dripping limestone caves, and he had been hunted like a partridge on the mountains by the furious jealousy of Saul. The sun had smitten him by day and the moon by night, and the chill dews had fallen on him in the midnight bivouacs among the crags of Engedi. Then had followed the burdens and cares of royalty with guilty anxieties and deeds which shook his pulses with wrath and fear. Coincident with these were the demoralizing luxuries and domestic sensualism of a polygamous palace. Worst of all he had sinned against God, and against light, and against his own conscience. For a time his moral sense had slumbered, and retribution had been delayed. But when he awoke from his sensual dream, the belated punishment burst over him in thunder and his conscience with outstretched finger and tones of menace must often have repeated to the murderous adulterer the doom of Nathan and the stern sentence, "Thou art the man!" Many a vulgar Eastern tyrant would hardly have regarded Davids sin as a sin at all; but when such a man as David sins, the fact that he has been admitted into a holier sanctuary adds deadliness to the guilt of his sacrilege. True he was forgiven, but he must have found it terribly hard to forgive himself. God gave back to him the clean heart, and renewed a right spirit within him; but the sense of forgiveness differs from the sweetness of innocence, and the remission of his sins did not bring with it the remission of their consequences. From that disastrous day David was a changed man. It might be said of him as of the Fallen Spirit:-
"His face Deep scars of thunder had entrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek."
The Nemesis of sins normal consequences pursued him to the end. Dark spirits walked in his house. Joab knew his guilty secrets, and Joab became the tyrannous master of his destiny. Those guilty secrets leaked out, and he lost his charm, his influence, his popularity among his subjects. He was haunted by an ever-present sense of shame and humiliation. Joab was a murderer, and went unpunished; but was not he too an unpunished murderer? If his enemies cursed him, he sometimes felt with a sense of despair, "Let them curse. God hath said unto them, Curse David." His past carried with it the inevitable deterioration of his present. In the overwhelming shame and horror which rent his heart during the rebellion of Absalom, he must often have felt tempted to the fatalism of desperation, like that guilty king of Greek tragedy who, burdened with the curse of his race, was forced to exclaim, -Curses in his family, a curse upon his daughter, a curse upon his sons, a curse upon himself, a curse upon his people, -there was scarcely one ingredient in the cup of human woe which, in consequence of his own crimes, this unhappy king had not been forced to taste. Scourges of war, famine, and pestilence-of a three years famine, of a three years flight before his enemies, of a three days pestilence-he had known them all. He had suffered with the sufferings of his subjects, whose trials had been aggravated by his own transgressions. He had seen his sons following his own fatal example, and he had felt the worst of all sufferings in the serpents tooth of filial ingratitude agonizing a troubled heart and a weakened will. It is no wonder that David became decrepit before his time.
Yet what a picture does it present of the vanity of human wishes, of the emptiness of all that men desire, of the truth which Solon impressed on the Lydian king that we can call no man happy before his death! Davids youth had been a pastoral idyll; his manhood an epic of war and chivalry; his premature age becomes the chronicle of a nursery. What different pictures are presented to us by David in his sweet youth and glowing bloom, and David in his unloved and disgraced decline! We have seen him a beautiful ruddy boy, summoned from his sheepfolds, with the wind of the desert on his cheek and its sunlight in his hair, to kneel before the aged prophet and feel the hands of consecration laid upon his head. Swift and strong, his feet like harts feet, his arms able to bend a bow of steel, he fights like a good shepherd for his flock, and single-handed smites the lion and the bear. His harp and song drive the evil spirit from the tortured soul of the demoniac king. With a sling and a stone the boy slays the giant champion, and the maidens of Israel praise their deliverer with songs and dances. He becomes the armor-bearer of the king, the beloved comrade of the kings son, the husband of the kings daughter. Then indeed he is driven into imperiled outlawry by the kings envy, and becomes the captain of a band of freebooters; but his influence over them, as in our English legends of Robin Hood, gives something of beneficence to his lawlessness, and even these wandering years of brigandage are brightened by tales of his splendid magnanimity. The young chieftain who had mingled a loyal tenderness and genial humor with all his wild adventures-who had so generously and almost playfully spared the life of Saul his enemy-who had protected the flocks and fields of the churlish Nabal-who, with the chivalry of a Sydney, had poured on the ground the bright drops of water from the well of Bethlehem for which he had thirsted, because they had been won by imperiled lives-sprang naturally into the idolized hero and poet of his people. Then God had taken him from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young ones, that he might lead Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance. Generous to the sad memories of Saul and Jonathan, generous to the princely Abner, generous to the weak Ishbosheth, generous to poor lame Mephibosheth, he had knit all hearts like the heart of one man to himself, and in successful war had carried all before him, north and south, and east and west. He enlarged the borders of his kingdom, captured the City of Waters, and placed the Moloch crown of Rabbah on his head. Then in the mid-flush of his prosperity, in his pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, "the tempting opportunity met the susceptible disposition," and David forgot God who had done so great things for him.
The people must have felt how deep was the debt of gratitude which they owed to him. He had given them a consciousness of power yet undeveloped; a sense of the unity of their national life perpetuated by the possession of a capital which has been famous to all succeeding ages. To David the nation owed the conquest of the stronghold of Jebus, and they would feel that "as the hills stand about Jerusalem, so standeth the Lord round about them that fear Him." {Psa_122:3-5} The king who associates his name with a national capital-as Nebuchadnezzar built great Babylon, or Constantine chose Byzantium-secures the strongest claim to immortality. But the choice made by David for his capital showed an intuition as keen as that which had immortalized the fame of the Macedonian conqueror in the name of Alexandria. Jerusalem is a city which belongs to all time, and even under the curse of Turkish rule it has not lost its undying interest. But David had rendered a still higher service in giving stability to the national religion. The prestige of the Ark had been destroyed in the overwhelming defeat of Israel by the Philistines at Aphek, when it fell into the hands of the uncircumcised. After that it had been neglected and half forgotten until David brought it with songs and dances to Gods holy hill of Zion. Since then every pious Israelite might rejoice that, as in the Tabernacle of old, God was once more in the midst of His people. The merely superstitious might only regard the Ark as a fetish-the fated Palladium of the national existence. But to all thoughtful men the presence of the Ark had a deeper meaning, for it enshrined the Tables of the Moral Law; and those broken Tables, and the bending Cherubim which gazed down upon them, and the blood-sprinkled gold of the Mercy-Seat were a vivid emblem that Gods Will is the Rule of Righteousness, and that if it be broken the soul must be reconciled to Him by repentance and forgiveness. That meaning is beautifully brought out in the Psalm which says, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall rise up into the holy place? Even he that hath clean bands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his mind into vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor."
To David more than to any man that conviction of the supremacy of righteousness must have been keenly present, and for this reason his sin was the less pardonable. It "tore down the altar of confidence" in many hearts. It caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, and was therefore worthy of a sorer punishment. And God in His mercy smote, and did not spare.
He sinned: then came earthquake and eclipse. His earthly life was shipwrecked in that place where two seas meet-where the sea of calamity meets the sea of crime. Then followed the death of his infant child; the outrage of Amnon; the blood of the brutal ravisher shed by his brothers hands; the flight of Absalom; his insolence, his rebellion, his deadly insult to his fathers household; the long day of flight and shame and weeping and curses, as David ascended the slope of Olivet and went down into the Valley of Jordan; the sanguinary battle; the cruel murder of the beloved rebel; the insolence of Joab; the heartrending cry. "O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom; would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"
Not even then had Davids trials ended. He had to endure the fierce quarrel between Israel and Judah; the rebellion of Sheba; the murder of Amasa, which he dared not punish. He had to sink into the further sin of pride in numbering the people, and to see the Angel of the Plague standing with drawn sword over the threshing-floor of Araunah, while his people-those sheep who had not offended-died around him by thousands. After such a life he was made to feel that it was not for blood-stained hands like his to rear the Temple, though he had said, "I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep nor mine eyelids to slumber, neither the temples of my head to take any rest tilt I find a place for the tabernacle of the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob." And now we see him surrounded by intrigues; alienated from the friends and advisers of his youth; shivering in his sickroom; attended by his nurse; feeble, apathetic, the ghost and wreck of all that he had been, with little left of his life but its "glimmerings and decays."
It is an oft-repeated story. Even so we see great Darius
"Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare ground exposed he lies
Without a friend to close his eyes."
So we see glorious Alexander the Great, dying as a fool dieth, remorseful, drunken, disappointed, at Babylon. So we see our great Plantagenet:-
"Mighty victor, mighty lord,
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye afford
A tear to grace his obsequies."
So we see Louis XIV, le grand monarque, peevish, ennuye, fortunate no longer, an old man of seventy, seven left in his vast lonely palace with his great-grandson, a frivolous child of five, and saying to him, "Jai trop aime la guerre; ne mimitez point. "So we see the last great conqueror of modern times, embittering his dishonored island-exile by miserable disputes with Sir Hudson Lowe about etiquette and champagne. But among all the "sad stories of the deaths of kings" none ends a purer glory with a more pitiful decline than the poet-king of Israel, whose songs have been to so many thousands their delight in the house of their pilgrimage. Truly Davids experience no less than his own may have added bitterness to the traditional epitaph of his son on all human glory: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
AN EASTERN COURT AND HOME
1 Kings 1
"Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness."
Eze_16:49
A MAN does not choose his own destiny; it is ordained for higher ends than his own personal happiness. If David could have made his choice, he might, indeed, have been dazzled by the glittering lure of royalty; yet he would have been in all probability happier and nobler had he never risen above the simple life of his forefathers. Our saintly king in Shakespeares tragedy says:-
"My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen. My crown is called Content; And crown it is which seldom kings enjoy."
David assuredly did not enjoy that crown. After his establishment at Jerusalem it is doubtful whether he could count more happy days than Abderrahman the Magnificent, who recorded that amid a life honored in peace and victorious in war he could not number more than fourteen.
We admire the generous freebooter more than we admire the powerful king. As time went on he showed a certain deterioration of character, the inevitable result of the unnatural conditions to which he had succumbed. Saul was a king of a very simple type. No pompous ceremonials separated him from the simple intercourse of natural kindliness. He did not tower over the friends of his youth like a Colossus, and look down on his superiors from the artificial elevation of his inch-high dignity. "In himself was all his state," and there was something kinglier in his simple majesty when he stood under his pomegranate at Migron, with his huge javelin in his hand, than in
"The tedious pomp which waits On princes, when their rich retinue long Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold Dazzles the crowd and sets them all agape."
We should not have presumed beforehand that there was anything in Davids character which rendered external pomp and ceremony attractive to him. But the inherent flunkeyism of Eastern servility made his courtiers feed him with adulation, and approach him with genuflections. Apparently he could not rise superior to the slowly corrupting influences of autocracy which gradually assimilated the court of the once simple warrior to that of his vulgar compeers on the neighboring thrones. There is something startling to see what a chasm royalty has cleft between him and the comrades of his adversity, and even the partner of his guilt who had become his favorite queen. We see it throughout the story of the last scenes in which he plays a part. He can only be addressed with periphrases and in the third person. "Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the king, and let her lie in thy bosom that my lord the king may get heat. Bathsheba can only speak to him in such terms as, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thy handmaid?" and even she, when she enters the sick-chamber of his decrepitude, prostrates herself and does obeisance. Every other word of her speech is interlarded with "my lord the king," and "my lord, O king"; and when she leaves "the presence" she again bows herself with her face to the earth, and does reverence to the king with the words, "May my lord, King David, live forever." The anointed dignity of the prophet who had once so boldly rebuked Davids worst crime does not exempt him from the same ceremonial, and he too goes into the inner chamber bowing his face before the king to the earth.
Insensibly David must have come to require it all, and to like it. Yet the unsophisticated instincts of his more natural youth would surely have revolted from it. He would have deprecated it as sternly as the Greek conqueror in the mighty tragedy who hates to walk to his throne on purple tapestries, and says to his queen:-
"Open not the mouth to me, nor cry amain
As at the footstool of a man of the East,
Prone on the ground: so stoop not thou to me";
or, as another has more literally rendered it:-
"Nor like some barbarous man
Gape thou upon me an earth-groveling howl."
But the royal position of David brought with it a surer curse than that which follows the extreme exaltation of a man above his fellows. It brought with it the permitted luxury or imaginary necessity for polygamy, and the man-enervating, woman-degrading paraphernalia of an Eastern harem. Jesse and Boaz, in their paternal fields at Bethlehem, had been content with one wife, and had known the true joys of love and home. But monogamy was thought unsuitable to the new grandeur of a despot, and under the curse of polygamy the joy of love, the peace of home, are inevitably blighted. In that condition man gives up the sweetest sources of earthly blessing for the meanest gratifications of animal sensuousness. Love, when it is pure and true, gilds the life of man with a joy of heaven, and fills it with a breath of Paradise. It renders life more perfect and more noble by the union of two souls, and fulfills the original purpose of creation. A home, blessed by lifes most natural sanctities, becomes a saving ark in days of storm, -
"Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels."
But in a polygamous household a home is exchanged for a troubled establishment, and love is carnalized into a jaded appetite, The Eastern king becomes the slave of every wandering fancy, and can hardly fail to be a despiser of womanhood, which he sees only on its ignoblest side. His home is liable to be torn by mutual jealousies and subterranean intrigues, and many a foul and midnight murder has marked, and still marks, the secret history of Eastern seraglios. The women-idle, ignorant, uneducated, degraded, intriguing-with nothing to think of but gossip, scandal, spite, and animal passion; hating each other worst of all, and each engaged in the fierce attempt to reign supreme in the affection which she cannot monopolize-spend wasted lives of ennui and slavish degradation. Eunuchs, the vilest products of the most corrupted civilization, soon make their loathly appearance in such courts, and add the element of morbid and rancorous effeminacy to the general ferment of corruption. Polygamy, as it is a contravention of Gods original design, enfeebles the man, degrades the woman, corrupts the slave, and destroys the home. David introduced it into the Southern Kingdom, and Ahab into the Northern; -both with the most calamitous effects.
Polygamy produces results worse than all the others upon the children born in such families. Murderous rivalry often reigns between them, and fraternal affection is almost unknown. The children inherit the blood of deteriorated mothers, and the sons of different wives burn with the mutual animosities of the harem, under whose shadowing influence they have been brought up. When Napoleon was asked the greatest need of France, he answered in the one laconic word, "Mothers"; and when he was asked the best training ground for recruits, he said, "The nurseries, of course." Much of the manhood of the East shows the taint and blight which it has inherited from such mothers and such nurseries as seraglios alone can form.
The darkest elements of a polygamous household showed themselves in the unhappy family of David. The children of the various wives and concubines saw but little of their father during their childish years. David could only give them a scanty and much-divided attention when they were brought to him to display their beauty. They grew up as children, the spoiled and petted playthings of women and debased attendants, with nothing to curb their rebellious passions or check their imperious wills. The little influence over them which David exercised was unhappily not for good. He was a man of tender affections. He repeated the errors of which he might have been warned by the effects of foolish indulgence on Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, and even on the sons of the guide of his youth, the prophet Samuel. The wild careers of Davids elder sons show that they had inherited his strong passion, and eager ambition, and that in their case, as well as Adonijahs he had not displeased them at a time in saying, "Why hast thou done so?"
The consequences which followed had been frightful beyond precedent. David must have learnt by experience the truth of the exhortation "Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children neither delight in ungodly sons Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, except the fear of the Lord be with them: for one that is just is better than a thousand; and better it is to die without children, than to have those that are ungodly."
Davids eldest son was Amnon, the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel; his second Daniel or Chileab, son of Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel; the third Absalom, son of Maacah, daughter of Talmal, King of Geshur; the fourth Adonijah, the son of Haggith. Shephatiah and Ithream were the sons of two other wives, and these six sons were born to David in Hebron. When he became king in Jerusalem he had four sons by Bathsheba, born after the one that died in his infancy, and at least nine other sons by various wives, besides his daughter Tamar, sister of Absalom. He had other sons by his concubines. Most of these sons are unknown to fame. Some of them probably died in childhood. He provided for others by making them priests. His line down to the days of Jeconiah, was continued in the descendants of Solomon, and afterwards in those of the otherwise unknown Nathan. The elder sons, born to him in the days of his more fervent youth, became the authors of the tragedies which laid waste his house. "They were youths of splendid beauty, and as they bore the proud title of the kings sons," they were from their earliest years encircled by luxury and adulation.
Amnon regarded himself as the heir to the throne and his fierce passions brought the first infamy into the family of David. By the aid of his cousin Jonadab, the wily son of Shimmeah, the kings brother, he brutally dishonored his half sister Tamar and then as brutally drove the unhappy princess from his presence. It was Davids duty to inflict punishment on his shameless heir, but he weakly condoned the crime. Absalom dissembled his vengeance for two whole years, and spoke to his brother neither good nor evil. At the end of that time he invited David and all the princes to a joyous sheep-shearing festival at Baal Hazor. David, as he anticipated, declined the invitation, on the plea that his presence would burden his son with needless expense. Then Absalom asked that, as the king could not honor his festival, at least his brother Amnon, as the heir to the throne, might be present. Davids heart misgave him, but he could refuse nothing to the youth whose magnificent and faultless beauty filled him with an almost doting pride, and Amnon and all the princes went to the feast. No sooner was Amnons heart inflamed with wine, than, at a preconcerted signal, Absaloms servants fell on him and murdered him. The feast broke up in tumultuous horror, and in the wild cry and rumor which arose the heart of David was torn with the intelligence that Absalom had murdered all his brothers. He rent his clothes, and lay weeping in the dust surrounded by his weeping servants. But Jonadab assured him that only Amnon had been murdered in revenge for his unpunished outrage, and a rush of people along the road, among whom the princes were visible riding on their mules, confirmed his words. But the deed was still black enough. Bathed in tears, and raising the wild cries of Eastern grief, the band of youthful princes stood round the father whose incestuous firstborn had thus fallen by a brothers hand, and the king also and all his servants "wept greatly with a great weeping."
Absalom fled to his grandfather the King of Geshur; but his purpose had been doubly accomplished. He had avenged the shame of his sister, and he was now himself the eldest son and heir to the throne. His claim was strengthened by the superb physique and beautiful hair of which he was so proud, and which won the hearts both of king and people. Capable, ambitious, secure of ultimate pardon, the son and the grandson of a king he lived for three years at the court of his grandfather. Then Joab, perceiving that David was consoled for the death of Amnon, and that his heart was yearning for his favorite son, obtained the intercession of the wise woman of Tekoah, and got permission for Absalom to return. But his offence had been terrible, and to his extreme mortification the king refused to admit him. Joab, though he had maneuvered for his return, did not come near him, and twice refused to visit him when summoned to do so. With characteristic insolence the young man obtained an interview by ordering his servants to set fire to Joabs field of barley. By Joabs request the king once more saw Absalom, and, as the youth felt sure would be the case, raised him from the ground, kissed, forgave, and restored him to favor.
For the favor of his weakly-fond father he cared little; what he wanted was the throne. His proud beauty, his royal descent on both sides, fired his ambition. Eastern peoples are always ready to concede pre-eminence to splendid men. This had helped to win the kingdom for stately Saul and ruddy David; for the Jews, like the Greeks, thought that "loveliness of person involves the blossoming promises of future excellence, and is, as it were, a prelude of riper beauty." It seemed intolerable to this prince in the zenith of glorious life that he should be kept out of his royal inheritance by one whom he described as a useless dotard. By his personal fascination, and by base intrigues against David, founded on the kings imperfect fulfillment of his duties as judge, "he stole the hearts of the children of Israel." After four years, everything was ripe for revolt. He found that for some unexplained reason the tribe of Judah and the old capital of Hebron were disaffected to Davids rule. He got leave to visit Hebron in pretended fulfillment of a vow, and so successfully raised the standard of revolt that David, his family, and his followers had to fly hurriedly from Jerusalem with bare feet and cheeks bathed in tears along the road of the Perfumers. Of that long day of misery-to the description of which more space is given in Scripture than to that of any other day except that of the Crucifixion-we need not speak, nor of the defeat of the rebellion. David was saved by the adhesion of his warrior-corps (the Gibborim) and his mercenaries (the Krethi and Plethi). Absaloms host was routed. He was in some strange way entangled in the branches of a tree as he fled on his mule through the forest of Rephaim. As he hung helpless there, Joab, with needless cruelty, drove three wooden staves through his body in revenge for his past insolence, leaving his armor-bearer to dispatch the miserable fugitive. To this day every Jewish child flings a contumelious stone at the pillar in the Kings Dale, which bears the traditional name of Davids Son, the beautiful and bad.
The days which followed were thickly strewn with calamities for the rapidly ageing and heartbroken king. His helpless decline was yet to be shaken by the attempted usurpation of another bad son.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 The opening word, “now,” is and, the cop. ו…
SCENES IN THE CLOSING CAREER OF A GREAT KING
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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The opening word, “now,” is and, the cop. ו indicating the unbroken connexion of this book with a prior record. Originally the books of “Kings” were a continuation of those of “Samuel,” and constituted one whole narrative, styled respectively the First, Second, Third and Fourth Books of Kings; and the four books bear a common heading in the LXX. and Vulgate.—
1Ki_1:1. David was old—In his seventieth year (compare 1Ki_2:11 with 2Sa_5:4; 2Sa_5:6).
1Ki_1:2. Get heat—An established medical fact that the aged and sickly may thus derive vital warmth from the young and healthy. Josephus calls these “servants” who advised this course physicians (Ant. vii. 14, § 3).
1Ki_1:3. Shunemite—Shunem, five miles south of Tabor, on the table-land of Esdraelon.
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_1:1-4
THE WINTER OF LIFE
I. Overtakes men in the highest rank. “Now King David was old and stricken in years.” Even the monarch is not exempt from the paralysing influence of life’s winter. David had just escaped from the terrible plague which had smitten fatally 70,000 of his subjects, only to waste away more gradually under the remorseless ravages of time, from which there is no escape but in death. If men escape one peril it is only to meet another. The holiest soul dwells not in an impregnable fort. The aged king had projected a great work—the building of the temple—and made vast preparations for it. He was not permitted to finish it. As the frosts of winter arrest the growth and development of the most magnificent tree, so the progress of life’s bleak winter interrupts the work of the most gifted.
II. Chills the vital sources of the naturally robust. “And they covered him with clothes, and he gat no heat.” As a youth, David was noted for beauty and physical strength—“was ruddy and of a fair countenance.” He scarcely knew the limit of his power. He hesitated not to attack and slay a lion and a bear—was the victor of Goliath—the terror of the Philistines—the hero of a hundred fights. But, as the shadows of the grave creep into the midst of the gayest scenes of our mortal life, so, in the mid-career of those exploits which raised him into fame, there were admonitory blasts of the coming of that winter which must ere long freeze the vital energies at their source. Exposure, hardship, suffering and sorrow, wore down a constitution naturally robust; and now, in his 0th year—a period when many are still vigorous—David was greatly enfeebled. He was also suffering from a wasting disease to which frequent allusion is made in the Psalms. Coverings and garments can only preserve and accumulate the heat actually existing in the body, but cannot supply that which is gone. An affecting picture of the pitiable weakness of a once powerful and victorious monarch! Let not the mighty man glory in his might.
III. Is but temporarily alleviated by the best considered human devices. The cherishing of Abishag was—
1. Advised by the court physicians. An expedient not unusual in similar cases, when internal cordials failed, and with the limited skill of the faculty in the use of warmth-creating potions.
2. Was innocent. Suggested for no other than purely medical reasons. In those days, when polygamy was not forbidden by the Jewish law, and when perverted views as to the relation of the sexes were so prevalent, Abishag was recognized as David’s wife. She ministered to him also as a nurse. Sophocles lauded old age as a deliverance from the tyranny of the passions, as an escape from some furious and savage master.
3. Suspended only for a brief season the inevitable progress of decay. Medical skill is no more efficacious for the monarch than for the humblest subject. David died within the year. A moment comes in the winter of life when the warm pulse is stilled, and the once stalwart frame is locked in the icy embrace of death.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 An Intrigue for the Succession
An Intrigue for the Succession
This chapter relates Adonijah's attempt to obtain the succession, its defeat through the agency of Nathan, and the enthronement of Solomon. The history contained in it is omitted in 1 Ch, where, however, mention is made of Solomon's having been crowned not once only but twice (1Ch_29:22). Probably the second occasion corresponds to what is related in 1Ki_1:39 (cp. 1Ch_29:24 with 1Ki_1:53).
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1. Now] better, 'and,' connecting this book with the history contained in the preceding.
5. Adonijah] The fourth son of David (2Sa_3:4). Of his three elder brothers, two, Amnon and Absalom, were certainly by this time dead; and the indulgence with which Adonijah was treated by his father (1Ki_1:6) makes it probable that he was the eldest surviving son.
6. His mother bare him after Absalom] RV 'he was born after Absalom'; Adonijah and Absalom were sons of different mothers (2Sa_3:3-4).
7. Joab] David's nephew, and at this time captain of the host or national militia (2Sa_8:16). His support of Adonijah was probably due to the latter's being the eldest surviving son of David, and to his active character. Abiathar] son of Ahimelech the priest of Nob, who had been put to death by Saul (1Sa_22:20). He was a descendant of Aaron's son Ithamar.
8. Zadok] a descendant of Aaron's son Eleazar (1Ch_6:4-8). It is not clear what were the relative positions of Abiathar and Zadok to one another. In 1Ch_16:39; Zadok is stated to have ministered at the sanctuary at Gibeon, but in 2Sa_15:24 both Abiathar and Zadok are represented as being at Jerusalem. In the LXX of 1Ki_2:35 it is implied that Abiathar was the first, or principal, priest, and Zadok presumably the second. Benaiah] son of Jehoiada (1Ki_1:36) and commander of the bodyguard of Cherethites, Pelethites and Gittites (see further on 1Ki_1:38). For his early exploits see 2Sa_23:20-23. Nathan] For other notices of Nathan see 2Sa_7:2.; 2Sa_12:1.; The mighty men] This was a body of distinguished warriors, nominally 30 in number, who were perhaps officers either of the bodyguard or of the host, and whose names are given in 2Sa_23:24-39; 1Ch_11:26-47.
9. Slew sheep and oxen] probably a sacrificial feast is meant, whereby Adonijah intended to solemnise his succession: cp. 2Sa_15:12. The stone of Zoheleth.. Enrogel] Enrogel is probably to be identified with the modern Bîr-eyûb, a well (not a spring) situated at the junction of the valley of Hinnom and the gorge of the Kidron, S. of Jerusalem (cp. Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16).
13. Didst not thou.. swear?] That this was true is acknowledged by David in 1Ki_1:29, 1Ki_1:30.
20. The eyes of all Israel are upon thee] Though the right of the firstborn to succeed was beginning to be recognised, the sovereign still possessed the power of nominating his successor.
33. Gihon] probably the modern Virgin's Fountain, in the ravine of the Kidron, about half-a-miie from Enrogel (Bîr-eyûb).
36. Amen] an expression of assent or concurrence: cp. Num_5:22; Jer_28:6.
38. Cherethites] a bodyguard of foreign extraction, like the Swiss guards of the French kings or the Varangians of the Byzantine sovereigns. The Cherethites came from the S. of Philistia (1Sa_30:14), the name being generally supposed to be connected with Crete, and the Pelethites were perhaps likewise Philistines. David may have enrolled this force after the conclusion of his Philistine wars.
39. The tabernacle] RV 'the Tent'; probably the tent erected by David to shelter the ark (2Sa_6:17). According to 1Ch_16:39 the Tabernacle made by Moses was at Gibeon. For the anointing oil see Exo_30:22-33.
42. Valiant] RV 'worthy.'
46. Solomon sitteth on the throne] similarly Jotham ruled during the lifetime of his father (2Ki_15:5).
47. Bowed himself] i.e. in worship: cp. Gen_47:31.
50. The horns of the altar] The altar intended was probably one erected in or before the tent that sheltered the ark: see on 1Ki_1:39 and cp. 1Ki_2:29; 1Ki_3:15. The horns were projections at the four corners (Exo_27:2), to which the victim to be sacrificed may have been attached (Psa_118:27), and which were sometimes smeared with its blood (Exo_29:12). It was customary for homicides to seek refuge at the altar of the Lord from the avengers of blood, but deliberate murderers might be dragged from it (Exo_21:14). A similar right of asylum belonged to heathen temples in classical times and to Christian churches in the middle ages.
51. To day] RM 'first of all.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. DAVID’S LAST DAYS AND THE CROWNING OF SOLOMON
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1. Adonijah’s Exaltation to be King
CHAPTER 1:1-27
1. David’s decrepitude (1Ki 1:1-4)
2. Adonijah’s self-exaltation (1Ki 1:5-9)
3. The plot of Nathan and Bath-sheba (1Ki 1:10-14)
4. Bath-sheba and Nathan before the king (1Ki 1:15-27)
David was about 70 years old and extremely feeble. The strenuous life he had led, the exposures and hardships of his youth, the cares and anxieties of his reign, and the chastenings through which he passed on account of his great sin, and much else were responsible for this enfeebled condition. It is but another illustration of that rigid law, What a man soweth that shall he reap. It was a premature decay with the complete loss of natural heat. While the king was in this helpless condition Adonijah (My Lord is Jehovah) exalted himself to be king and like his unhappy brother Absalom he prepared chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. Like Absalom he also was of great physical beauty. There is a significant sentence which reveals the weakness of David towards his favorite children, a weakness which has borne its sad fruits in many families. “And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” There had been no discipline in David’s family; he had spared the rod. By right of primogeniture he thought of claiming the throne. However, he must have known that his younger brother Solomon had been selected by David to fill the throne after him. But Adonijah knew not the Lord nor was he subject to His will. In his selfish ambition he was upheld by Joab and Abiathar, the priest. No doubt but both of these men sought their own interests; Joab to continue in his position he held with David; Abiathar to get supremacy over Zadok his rival in the priesthood. But Zadok the priest, who ministered at Gibeon (1Ch 16:39), Benaiah, who had charge of the Cherethites and Pelethites (2Sa 8:18), Nathan, the faithful prophet, Shimei (not the one who cursed David), Rei and David’s mighty men kept aloof from the revolt. They remained true to Jehovah and to His anointed. Then Adonijah made a sacrificial feast to give his self-exaltation a religious air. He invited all the king’s sons, his brethren, and the men of Judah; but Nathan, Benaiah, David’s mighty men and his brother Solomon were not called. It was meant to be his coronation. In this revolt, preceding the enthronement of God’s king, Solomon, the king of peace, we have another foreshadowing of what will precede the reign of the Prince of Peace, our Lord. It seemed as if Adonijah might succeed. But Nathan, the prophet, begins to act. In agreement with the mother of Solomon the plan is made to discover what Adonijah had done to the aged King. Bath-sheba goes in first and after a while Nathan appeared to tell the King the same story he had heard from the lips of his wife. She reminded David of his oath, that Solomon her son was to be the successor to the throne, and after telling him of Adonijah’s act, she appealed to him to proclaim now who was to sit upon the throne. She speaks to him repeatedly as “My lord the King.” And when Nathan appeared before David he also said, “My lord O King.” Some have gathered from this that aged David had become filled with the pride of life. However, the honour done to him may have been true reverence for the Lord’s anointed King.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Adonijah Attempts to Seize the Kingdom
Adonijah Attempts to Seize the Kingdom
v. 1. Now, King David was old and stricken in years, advanced in days, being about seventy years old at that time; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. The extraordinary cares and overexertions of his earlier years had sapped his strength and weakened his resistance, so that his blood no longer had the power to warm him; his vital powers were so chilled and enfeebled that the thickest of covers did not give him warmth.
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v. 2. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin, literally, "a young woman, a virgin," and let her stand before the king, as a servant and nurse, and let her cherish him, be his constant attendant, and let her lie in thy bosom, this manner of warming chilled and enfeebled bodies by contact with young, vigorous, full-blooded bodies being advocated in ancient times, that my lord the king may get heat. This was the only object of this arrangement, which must be looked upon from the standpoint of the time, when polygamy, especially in the case of kings, was altogether in order.
v. 3. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag, a Shunammite, of Shunem, a city in the Plain of Jezreel, near the foot of the Little Hermon, and brought her to the king, her relation to him being looked upon as that of a wife.
v. 4. And the damsel was very fair, exceedingly beautiful, and cherished the king, she was his nurse and attendant, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not, did not enter into the usual marital relations with her. This remark serves to make clear how it was possible afterwards for Adonijah to seek Abishag for his wife.
v. 5. Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, exalted himself, saying, I will be king. Amnon having been murdered, Chileab, or Daniel, having apparently died in childhood, and Absalom having perished in the insurrection begun by him, Adonijah believed himself to be the rightful claimant to the throne. And he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him, to be his body-guard, all in an overexaltation which did not become him. Cf 2Sa 16:1.
v. 6. And his father had not displeased him at any time, had never rebuked him for this show of ambition during his whole life, this being another indication of David’s weakness toward his children, in saying, Why hast thou done so? This indulgence had encouraged Adonijah very considerably. And he also was a very goodly man, very handsome in appearance and bearing; and his mother bare him after Absalom, after the latter had been born of Maachah.
v. 7. And he conferred with Joab, the son of Zeruiah, in order to win over the army through its commander-in-chief, and with Abiathar, the priest, the high priest who was stationed at Jerusalem; and they, following Adonijah, helped him, the latter probably out of jealousy on account of Zadok’s position.
v. 8. But Zadok, the priest, the high priest, stationed at Gibeon, 1Ch 16:39, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, the captain of the king’s body-guard, and Nathan, the prophet, and Shimei, 1Ki 4:18, and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David, the corps of David’s heroes, 2Sa 23:8-9, were not with Adonijah.
v. 9. And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle, in preparing a great sacrificial feast, by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En-rogel, a well southeast of Jerusalem, at the junction of the Valley of Hinnom with that of Jehoshaphat, and called all his brethren, the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants, all those who had positions at court;
v. 10. but Nathan, the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, whom he had not been able to interest, and Solomon, his brother, he called not, he purposely omitted him from the invitation, since he was informed of David’s plans for his successor, and his design was to render null the purpose of his father and to possess himself of the throne.
v. 11. Wherefore Nathan, who wanted to prevent a repetition of the history of Absalom, spake unto Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, doth reign, that he had practically usurped the royal power, and David, our lord, knoweth it not? David was, for obvious reasons, ignorant of the plans of Adonijah.
v. 12. Now, therefore, come, let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel, that thou mayest save thine own life and the life of thy son Solomon, for according to Oriental custom the opposing pretenders to the crown, together with their nearest relatives, were put to death by him who forcibly seized the throne.
v. 13. Go and get thee in unto King David, with whom she, his favorite wife, still had great influence, and say unto him, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon, thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? Why, then, doth Adonijah reign? The plan was to arouse David’s mind to the danger of the situation.
v. 14. Behold, while thou yet talkest there with the king, I also will come in after thee, to follow up the effect of the first announcement, and confirm thy words, by making the same statements and thus inciting the king to action.
v. 15. And Bathsheba went in unto the king, into the chamber, for the aged king could no longer leave his apartments; and the king was very old; and Abishag the Shunammite ministered unto the king, who needed constant nursing and attention.
v. 16. And Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance unto the king. And the king said, What wouldest thou? literally, "What to thee?" What bothers or worries thee?
v. 17. And she said unto him, My lord, thou swarest by the Lord, thy God, unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon, thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne.
v. 18. And now, behold, Adonijah reigneth, he was even now usurping the royal authority; and now, my lord the king, thou knowest it not. Note the vividness of Bathsheba’s speech.
v. 19. And he hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the sons of the king, invited them to a sacrificial meal, and Abiathar, the priest, and Joab, the captain of the host; but Solomon, thy servant, hath he not called.
v. 20. And thou, my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, the decision rested with David alone, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him, they were all anxiously awaiting an official declaration.
v. 21. Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, in the sleep awaiting the great day of resurrection, that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders, treated as traitors and offenders guilty of death for having aspired to the throne unlawfully.
v. 22. And, lo, while she yet talked with the king, Nathan, the prophet, who had carefully watched his opportunity, also came in.
v. 23. And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan, the prophet; his name was announced to the king. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground, while Bathsheba retired from the king’s presence.
v. 24. And Nathan said, My lord, O king, hast thou said, Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? It was a direct challenge, which conveyed a slight reproach to David.
v. 25. For he is gone down this day and hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the king’s sons, and the captains of the host, of the regular army, and Abiathar, the priest; and, behold, they eat and drink before him and say, God save King Adonijah! literally, "May King Adonijah live!"
v. 26. But me, even me, thy servant, and Zadok, the priest, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and thy servant Solomon hath he not called. Every movement of Adonijah showed his hostile sentiment toward the friends of the king.
v. 27. Is this thing done by my lord the king, and thou hast not showed it unto thy servant who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him? It was not wounded vanity which was here speaking, but honest doubt, which was sure that the king would not have sanctioned such a move in secret. Note: In the kingdom of Christ also men arise who would usurp the rule of Christ, false Christs, false prophets; and it is a sad fact that so many who call themselves Christians yield to their blandishments and forsake the truth of the Gospel.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 covered him with blankets
covered him with blankets
They put many blankets on King David to try to keep him warm.
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old and advanced in years
"very old." The two phrases are similar in meaning and are combined for emphasis. (See: Doublet.)
translationWords
king
David
servant
virgin
lord
servant
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v1 1:1–2:12 The book of 1 Kings opens by emphasizing…
1:1–2:12 The book of 1 Kings opens by emphasizing the continuity of the Lord’s covenant with David (see 2 Sam 7:11-16). Solomon was the legitimate and divinely chosen heir to what God had granted his father David. The challenges to Solomon’s succession to the throne (1 Kgs 1:1–2:46) foreshadowed challenges to his kingship at the end of his reign (11:1-43) and the continuing struggles between Israel and Judah thereafter.
1:1-3 At seventy years of age (2 Sam 5:4-5), David was feeble, perhaps because of years of warfare and stress. He needed a young person to impart warmth, a medical remedy also described in Josephus’s Antiquities and by the Greek physician Galen. David’s diminishing powers encouraged Adonijah’s attempts to take the throne.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.