1Ki 1:2 . A young virgin. This raised Abishag to the rank of a betrothed wife. No doubt there were precedents for this conduct, but history is silent on the subject.
1Ki 1:5 . Then Adonijah, the younger brother of Absalom, aspired to the throne. These youths being sons of a princess of Geshur, assumed a sovereignty over their brothers, whose mothers were daughters of Hebrew families.
1Ki 1:6 . His father had not displeased him. Vulgate, nec corripuit, had not corrected him. When the Spanish robbers were amusing the feast with tales, one said that he had been delicately brought up, never corrected, but always indulged in what he wanted. Another replied, that his lot had been just the reverse. He had been beaten, starved, kicked about, and left altogether without instruction. Both these modes of education lay the sure foundation of ruin to a boy.
1Ki 1:11 . Nathan spake to Bathsheba. This holy man was tutor to Solomon.
1Ki 1:21 . I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders: I an adulteress, and he a son of spurious birth. Bathsheba was a woman of a strong and penetrating mind.
1Ki 1:33 . Bring him down to Gihon, the great fount above Jerusalem, described in 2Ch 32:30 . Adonijah had been inaugurated at the opposite fount of Rogel.
1Ki 1:39 . Zadok the priest anointed Solomon. He was not as yet the highpriest, nor was it requisite. Samuel anointed David, and a prophet anointed Jehu. The Lord can send by whom he pleases to do his own work.
1Ki 1:50 . Adonijah—caught hold on the horns of the altar. He fled to Gibeon, for the altar and tabernacle were there, though the ark was in Zion. 2Ch 1:3 . The altar of the Hebrews was a refuge, till a man’s case was heard. Exo 21:14 . Isaiah likewise distinguishes Christ the true refuge, from the refuge of lies. The pagan altars were also places of refuge. So Virgil: Talibus orabat dictis, arásque tenebat. In such words he prayed, holding the altar: Æneid. lib. 6. line 12:4 . Christian churches, after the age of Constantine, were long regarded as places of refuge.
REFLECTIONS.
While David, though seventy years of age, was fully employed in the civil and military establishments, requisite for the peace and the defence of his vast empire, he was suddenly seized with a chilling cold, or palsy in all his limbs: nor had he, being an absolute monarch, nominated the successor to his throne, farther than an almost private oath to Bathsheba, that Solomon her son should reign. While aged men are busy in their affairs, and as much so as in youth, it would be well for them to recollect, that their advanced age renders them peculiarly subject to afflictions and the approach of death. Their temporal and eternal affairs should therefore be every moment so arranged that they may have nothing to do but to die. The neglect of the former may produce family feuds, and the neglect of the latter may occasion the loss of their souls.
We have to lament that this great and holy man was surrounded in his last moments by foolish and profane physicians, or by generals instead of seers, who provided him with a bride instead of a shroud. It was a most unreasonable imposition on the king, and calculated to disturb the pious ejaculations of his soul. The idea of conveying natural warmth to his body was not altogether reprehensible; but he had wives not so aged as to be incapable of the duty; and we have still to lament the potions which some physicians administer to dying men. On visiting some good men in their affliction in the afternoon, I have found their conversation to correspond with the piety of their former lives; but on calling in a morning I have found them stupid and amazed. The laudanum forced upon them as a night drought, had produced a most stupifying effect on all their senses. It does indeed make a patient quiet and composed; but it totally fails in procuring natural sleep. I would rather see dying saints in the hands of skilful nurses, than profane physicians.
The king had scarcely recovered the use of his limbs, or was able to issue his commands, before he was apprized of the preparations Adonijah had made to ascend the throne; that Joab his general, and Abiathar his priest, had joined the conspiracy, being piqued at the loss of their places. This was the more afflictive as Adonijah well knew the king’s pleasure concerning Solomon. But though David had now to reproach himself with excess of indulgence, and with not executing judgment on Joab for the assassination of Abner and Amasa; yet for once, the wisdom of Nathan was greater than the valour of Joab. His wise counsel frustrated the plot; and conformably to the pleasure of God and the king, for the happiness of Israel, he placed the young Solomon on the throne of his father. There being always something extraordinary in the strong and predominant passions of men, children should be taught to obey, that in the issue they may know how to command. Joab’s strong passions had hurried him into many crimes during the long and splendid career of life. Now, in hopes of regaining his place and honour under Adonijah, he was regardless of allegiance, of conscience, and of every duty. Abiathar, seeing Zadok wear the mitre, was actuated by the same narrow and selfish views. Thus they drew nearly all the nobility of Jerusalem into the plot. Oh what crimes will some men commit, to gratify their pride and private interest, and mask their wicked views under the garb of a patriotic spirit.
But oh how terrified was this faction when they heard the heavens rend with shouts, and the vales and hills re-echo the joy; when they learned by Jonathan that Solomon was anointed, and riding on the royal beast, followed by the guards and all the good inhabitants of Jerusalem. Appalled and confounded in their hopes they shrunk away from their half-finished feast, to hide in holes, or in the inner chambers of their houses. Yea, even mighty Joab, who never before fled from the proudest of his foes, now had no courage left. So when Christ the anointed of the Father shall take to him his great power and reign, all his enemies shall be disconcerted at his presence, and shall flee before him. Let them triumph; in a little while the company of the Lord shall be greater than theirs, and it shall strike them through with a thousand fears, and with terrors ominous of eternal woe. In a little time the trumpet of the Lord’s anointed shall sound, and the shouts of his company shall rend the skies; and all his enemies, fainting with fear, shall be speechless at his bar.
Let the wicked, the rebels against heaven, learn, from the delusion and ruin of Adonijah, that the day of the Lord will come upon them in an hour when they are not aware. It was while this prince was seated on his temporary throne, while the two grey-headed rebels who ought to have had wiser heads and better hearts, were arranging his plans, and while the accumulating crowd, attracted more by the feast than the cause, were devouring a thousand oxen, sheep and lambs, and shouting congratulations, or rather, treasons in the prince’s ears; it was in this moment of festivity and joy that they heard the trumpets and shouts from the city. Hence let the giddy crowd at the ball, let the brilliant circles at the grand fète, let the motley group at the theatre, and the infidel in the narrower circle of his club, be reminded, that as in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of man be. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Sinners, to avert the impending blow, run with this prince to the horns of the altar. Refuge and propitiation there are no other. Read, with Adonijah, in that fire, the punishments due to sin; read in the burning limbs of the innocent lamb the death which Jesus died for you. Read in all this transfer of guilt to innocence, the glory of the atonement, the nature of justification, and the foundation of all our hope. Stay there; stay firmly, grasping the prominent horns of hope, till the king’s pleasure shall be declared. Leave not hold of this hope for a moment, for the ministers of justice surround you with their swords unsheathed, to inflict the strokes of death. No, never leave your hold, till your offended king shall swear that you shall live and not die.
Learn lastly, that the wary Solomon would give his brother but a conditional pardon. If he show himself a quiet and worthy man, said the generous king, and for the future avoid all revolts and factions, then not a hair of his head shall fall to the ground. Thus also a greater prince than Solomon, forgiving ten thousand talents to his steward, enforced the punishment anew, when the object of so much clemency afterwards would not forgive fifty pense to his fellow servant. Matthew 1:8 . Thus he still keeps the sins of the justified, as the good Baxter teaches, in the book of his remembrance, that in case of dire apostasy he may enforce the penalty in full proportion to the greatness of the guilt.
1Ki 1:1-4. Now King David was old, &c.- It appears from 2Sa 5:4-5 that he was seventy years old. The strength of nature was so far abated in him, that clothes could not keep him warm in his bed. His physicians therefore advised, that a fair and youthful virgin should be sought for, who might cherish his vital heat; the natural warmth of a young healthful human body being, as the physicians observe, best fitted for that end, both in kind and degree. If it be asked, how the beauty of the person to be employed for this purpose was concerned in David's health; I answer, that the beauty here required, is evidently beauty of complexion, which, as it indicates the health and temperament of the body, might be of importance in this case. Possibly too, as David was very beautiful himself, they sought for some person of complexion and constitution likest to his own, and, of consequence, best suited, and most congenial to it. Scheuchzer, on the place, has entered philosophically into the subject; to him, therefore, we refer. We should remark, however, that concubinage was not at that time deemed criminal; and it will I hope, says Dr. Delaney, be thought no wild paradox, to venture to surmise, that a man can with less reluctance suffer his infirmities to be relieved by a wife, than by any other mortal.
Note; (1.) They who come to old age, must expect the burden of infirmities which attend it. (2.) Though the candle of life escape the furious blasts of disease or accident, it must shortly burn out of itself. (3.) The view of approaching old age and death should enliven our diligence to work for God, whilst life and strength are with us.
1Ki 1:6. And his father had not displeased him at any time- Strange weakness in parents and cruelty to their children, to suffer them to become incorrigible in error, or inveterate in vice, rather than restrain and correct them while correction is kindness! An extreme indulgence to his children, seems to have been one of David's greatest failings. Houbigant renders the last clause of the verse, and he was born to, or begotten by David after Absalom: for not Haggith, but Maacah, was the mother of Absalom. 2Sa 3:3.
1Ki 1:12. That thou mayest save thine own life, &c.- Both Solomon and Bath-sheba would have been an immediate sacrifice, if Adonijah had succeeded in his treasonable usurpation, that he might have rid himself of a dangerous rival to the throne. Bath-sheba herself foresaw this, as appears from her address to the king, 1Ki 1:21. There is not any other mention of the oath of David which Bath-sheba speaks of in the 13th verse. But there can be no reason to doubt that he had given her such an oath, as he well knew of God's immediate appointment of Solomon to the throne. See 2Sa 7:12.
1Ki 1:33. Cause Solomon-to ride upon mine own mule- See 1Ki 1:44. Maimonides tells us, that it was a capital offence to ride upon the king's ass of mule, to sit upon his throne, or to handle his sceptre, without his order; and, on the contrary, to have the honour to ride on the king's beast by his appointment, was accounted the highest dignity among the Persians, as appears from the history of Mordecai, in the 6th chapter of Esther. Gihon was a little river or brook near Jerusalem, which discharged itself into the brook Kidron, and in the Chaldee is called by its modern name Siloa; it was afterwards rendered famous by the noble work of Hezekiah, 2Ch 32:30. Maimonides and other rabbis assert, that the kings of the house of David were all obliged to be anointed by the side of a fountain or river; which, they say, was the reason why David commanded his servants to bring his son down to Gihon, and anoint him there. At this place, without the walls of Jerusalem, not in the city, Zadok and Nathan anointed Solomon; that is, one of them poured out the oil, and the other anointed his head; drawing a circle round about it with oil, according to the maxim, that their kings were anointed in the form of a crown, to denote their delegation to the royal dignity. We shall add another reason, assigned by the Jews, for choosing such a situation for anointing their kings; namely, to shew the perpetuity of their kingdom, because rivers run always, though the cities which they wash are continually decaying, and liable to destruction. Probably Gihon was more particularly chosen on this occasion, as being near Jerusalem, the most public place of resort in the whole kingdom. Hence, from the principles of the Jews themselves, we are able to draw the reason why our blessed Saviour was anointed by the Holy Ghost as he came out of the waters of Jordan; and we may hence infer, that Jordan was preferred to any other place, to shew that HE was not only the king of Israel, who should sit on the throne of his father David, but likewise, as the angel adds, should sit upon it for ever; Luk 1:33. See Bishop Patrick's Witnesses, and Schickhard Jus Regium, cap. 1: theor. 4. Concerning the anointing of Solomon, the oil, &c. the reader who may be curious in these matters will find full satisfaction in the Mirothec. of Schacchus.
Note; (1.) The King of Peace, whom Solomon represented, was anointed (not with the oil of the Jewish sanctuary, but) with the oil of gladness above his fellows, and appointed and qualified for the administration of that kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom, by the Spirit, which the Father gave not by measure unto him. (2.) They are kings indeed, who reign in the affections of their subjects. (3.) When the believer shall ascend to his throne of glory, it shall be amidst the joyful acclamations of angels, and with the trump of God.
1Ki 1:42. For thou art a valiant man- His being a valiant man was no great argument of recommendation in the present case. The original word is rendered virtuous in Pro 12:4 and would be so rendered with much greater propriety here. The Targum has it, thou art a man who fearest to sin. The marginal reference confirms this interpretation.
1Ki 1:50. And Adonijah-went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar- Conscious that he had committed a crime worthy of death, in usurping the kingdom without his father's consent, and against the known design of God, (chap. 1Ki 2:15.) he fled for safety and protection to the altar, which was a privileged place, not by the appointment of the law, but in conformity to the custom of all nations. It is a question, to what altar Adonijah fled: but, as the horns of the altar are mentioned, it was probably the same with that in the tabernacle, to which Joab fled also. See the next chapter, 1Ki 1:28.
REFLECTIONS.-When sin spreads the table of riotous feasting, the end of that mirth will be heaviness.
1. Tidings are brought to Adonijah and his guests, in the midst of their entertainment, of what had passed in Jerusalem. At first he promises himself good news for his party; but he is quickly undeceived. They who do ill, must not expect messages of peace. Jonathan, who had been present at what had passed, relates the coronation of Solomon, the persons employed in it, the zeal of the king's servants for him, the universal satisfaction of the people, and especially David's own great joy and thankfulness at seeing his son on his throne, and his hearty consent and approbation of the loyal wishes of his servants, that Solomon's throne might be greater than his own. Note; The greatest satisfaction that an aged Christian knows, is to see the peace of God's Israel established, and his own children happily settled, and walking in the fear of God.
2. Adonijah and his company are thunderstruck with the news: every man instantly shifts for himself, afraid to be caught in so treasonable an assembly; and Adonijah, who just now sat as a king, flies to the horns of the altar to secure his life, which was forfeited by his treason. Note; (1.) There is yet hope for the sinner, even after his deepest provocation, if he flies to Jesus Christ for refuge, who is the true altar, on the horns of which that atoning blood is sprinkled, which cleanseth from all sin. (2.) Traitors are generally cowards, from the consciousness of a bad cause.
3. He humbly sues to Solomon, as his king, for pardon, which he as graciously grants; and, requiring an oath for his security, Solomon assures him, if he approves himself for the future a loyal subject, his past attempt shall not be his death; but if he should be found turbulent or seditious, then he must no longer expect the clemency that he had abused. Note; (1.) They who cry earnestly to the Prince of Peace for pardon, may hope to find an answer of peace. (2.) We are, by our loyalty to our king, to prove the reality of our subjection to him. If we still retain the love of sin in our hearts, or indulge it in our practice, it is not saying Lord, Lord, that will secure us from eternal death.
