1 Kings 1:1-10--Adonijah Sets Himself Up as King

1 Kings 1:1-10
English Standard Version

David in His Old Age
1 Now King David was old and advanced in years. And although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. 2 Therefore his servants said to him, “Let a young woman be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be in his service. Let her lie in your arms, that my lord the king may be warm.” 3 So they sought for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. 4 The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not.

Adonijah Sets Himself Up as King
5 Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, “I will be king.” And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 6 His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom. 7 He conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest. And they followed Adonijah and helped him. 8 But Zadok the priest and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and Nathan the prophet and Shimei and Rei and David's mighty men were not with Adonijah.

​9 Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fattened cattle by the Serpent's Stone, which is beside En-rogel, and he invited all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the royal officials of Judah, 10 but he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the mighty men or Solomon his brother.

---

Some time after the end of 2 Samuel, maybe not that long after, David was now elderly and it seemed he had circulatory issues where his body was cold all the time.  Even when they covered him with clothes and blankets, he could not stay warm.  The only way they could think of to save his life is that he needed someone to lay next to him so that his body could warm up from their shared body heat (this is done in extreme cases of hypothermia even today where two people will get into a sleeping bag together so that warm person can help warm up the cold person).  The servants of David assumed that the best way for the king to get warmed up was for him to have a beautiful young woman laying next to him (this might also invoke physiological responses that would help him warm up) and it would be "only natural" in their minds if he would then have sex with that woman and "know" here in a biblical sense.  However, David did not "know" her this way.  Maybe it was because he was too old now to be interested in such things, but I want to think that it was his desire to be obedient to the Law of the LORD and to not have sexual relations with a woman who he was not married to (even though his life seems to have been filled with instances where he did just that, since he had many wives and concubines and we know that even with all of them he had relations with Bathsheba when she was neither his wife nor his concubine).

David's sons are looking on all this, especially his oldest living son, Adonijah, and they are seeing that it looks like David is supposed to die.  David had not taken care to have a plan of succession in place so that there was a "crown prince" that everyone knew was the one who would take over should anything happen to David.  So, the general assumption among the people who think that kingship is something that is simply inherited by the oldest living son is that that Adonijah is the heir-apparent.  However, it was not the desire of the LORD for the kingdom to pass to the oldest, for the LORD knew the heart of Adonijah, but instead He wanted it to go to Solomon.  We'll see what kind of heart the LORD has given Solomon in order to help him lead the LORD's people shortly, for the book of 1 Kings is mostly about the reign of Solomon.

Many of the people that we might call "influencers" were persuaded by the argument made by Adonijah that someone needed to step up and reign in the place of David since he was not well and looked like he was on his deathbed, and that Adonijah as the oldest wanted to be the one to take responsibility for this.  He amassed weapons of war so that the nations around them would not try to seize this opportunity of perceived weakness to try to invade Israel, and he sought the help of his father's military advisors like Joab, and the advice of Abiathar the priest (I believe he was serving as high priest at the time).  It seemed he was getting all the support of all the right people and the general population for the most part was behind him, but there were a few notable people that didn't support him.  The first was Nathan the prophet.  That should have been a big sign to everyone involved that something was up.  Second, there were many of David's Mighty Men who knew him the best that likely knew that Solomon was supposed to be the next king who did not support Adonijah.  David's head of his protection detail who was always at David's side did not support Adonijah's move, and Shemei and Rei.  Solomon himself also did not support Adonijah and in fact neither Nathan nor Solomon were invited to the feast that Adonijah prepared for the royal family when he wanted to proclaim himself as king in front of all his brothers.  This tells me that although it seems most of the nation was not aware that Solomon was to be king after David, Adonijah knew, but just like his older brothers, he wanted to make a power-grab when he saw an opening and try to claim the kingdom and the promises that he thought came with it (for they did not truly understand the Davidic Covenant) for himself for his own reasons.

It will become necessary next time for Nathan to be a "king maker" like Samuel was and to show everyone else that the LORD desired for Solomon to be the one anointed as the next king.  David had many years where he could have been working to prepare Solomon to take the throne and teach him many things and let everyone know that when the time came they were to support Solomon, but it seems that didn't happen and it is once again going to fracture David's family and the nation as a whole.  Instead of having many years to mentor Solomon, David instead will be left leaving Solomon knowing next-to-nothing about how to be a king and having to entrust the LORD to take care of him and teach him (that will be how we will start chapter 2 when we get there).  In all this though, the LORD will continue to be faithful to carry out his covenant with David and his house as well as the covenants he made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.  The LORD has a plan that is bigger than just the continuation of royal family or the nation they lead, but instead is planning the way of salvation available to all of humanity that has been pointed to since Genesis 3 when it was promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.  We are left wondering now if Solomon might be the one since David was not.  We already know the answer to that, but this is probably what's on the minds of the people originally reading the Old Testament.  As they "turned the pages" of these books of History, they were full of anticipation that the Deliverer's entrance into the story was immanent.  Solomon, though not the Christ, was one of the people in the Old Testament that was a "sign post" along the way that pointed people to Christ and gave them a tiny glimpse of what the coming king, Messiah, would be like.  So, as we study the story of Solomon together, let's see how the LORD uses Solomon to accomplish His larger goals and point us towards Christ, even as we have this longing and expectation that we have the advantage of knowing was satisfied by Jesus, but those originally living through these times did not have such knowledge, but only the certainty that the LORD was faithful to bring about everything that He had promised and that He had set His mind and hand to.