1 Kingschapter 1
53 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 1 Kings Overview.
The writer of Kings is unnamed, and he worked from the court records of Judah and Israel for a people who had lost both kingdoms. This chapter opens his history at a sickbed in the palace in Jerusalem. The first hearers knew how a throne usually changed hands in their world, by force and by the quickest son. Listen for one promise passed from speaker to speaker until the king himself says it. Watch who is invited to each gathering and who is left out. The chapter asks what makes a king in Israel, and its answer governs every reign that follows.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had already watched one royal son try to take the throne by force
- What
- An account of Adonijah's bid for the throne and of Solomon's anointing at Gihon on the order of the dying David.
- Where
- Jerusalem, with rival gatherings at the springs of En-rogel south of the city and Gihon on its eastern slope.
- When
- The last days of David, about 971 BC on the reconstruction of the regnal years.
- Why
- To show that the throne passed to Solomon by the king's oath and the prophet's word, as the promise to David required.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to the court of David in his last days. David is a king who can no longer govern, Adonijah is his oldest surviving son, and Solomon is a son whose claim rests on an oath the book has not yet recorded.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is the close of David's forty years, about 971 BC on the reconstruction of the regnal years this site follows. The place is Jerusalem, and the two feasts are staged at two springs within earshot of one another, En-rogel below the city to the south and Gihon on the eastern slope.
The occasion is Adonijah's move to take the throne while his father is still alive, made with chariots, horsemen and fifty runners, the same preparation Absalom made at 2 Samuel 15:1.
A first hearer knew what a reader today has to be told. A sacrificial feast with invited guests was how a claimant was acclaimed, and the shout that closed such a meal made the claim public.
The king's own mule was ridden by the king alone, so a man on it carried the king's choice with him. The oil came from a horn kept in the tent David had pitched for the ark inside the city, and the priest and the prophet anointed together. The horns projecting from the four corners of the altar were a recognized place of asylum, and the law of Exodus 21:14 took a deliberate killer away even from there.
Significance
The first hearers knew how successions usually ran in that world, where the strongest son moved first and the losers died with him.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
Here an oath sworn to a mother and the word of a prophet decide it, and the man with the chariots ends the day holding the altar and asking for his life.
The chapter also settles which son the promise of a lasting house was running through, which is the question the rest of Kings keeps asking of every reign.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard once a year. It stands in the reading from the Prophets that follows the Torah portion of the death of Sarah and the taking of a wife for Isaac, the portion called Chayei Sarah. Both rites read it. A congregation hears an aged Abraham settling a burial place and sending for a wife for the son of the promise, and then hears an aged David settling which son will sit on his throne. That the pairing sets one old man ordering his succession beside another is the writer's reading of src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts. It is marked as the writer's reading until a source for the pairing is filed. This book has no weekly portion of its own. A reader should picture the chapter as a passage heard on one Sabbath rather than as part of a run through the book.
How it is read
Rashi is quoted here from the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He opens the book on the cold that would not leave David, and he gives three reasons for it in turn. The first he takes from the Rabbis: "He who disgraces clothing will ultimately be deprived of their pleasures" (Rashi on I Kings 1:1:1). The clothing in view is the corner of Saul's robe that David cut away. The third reason Rashi reports in the name of Rabbi Shmuel son of Nachmeni. David's blood ran cold when he saw the angel standing over Jerusalem with a drawn sword, and the terror never left him. The plain reading of the remedy follows at the next verse, where Rashi writes of the girl brought to warm him, "Her virginity warms her flesh" (Rashi on I Kings 1:2:1).
Where the text says David was not intimate with her, Rashi sets two answers side by side and keeps both. The plain one is that a virgin warms better, so he left her as she was. Against it he places what the Rabbis said, that the king had reached the eighteen wives the law allowed him and could take no more (Rashi on I Kings 1:4:1). This is the shape the classical reading takes throughout the chapter, a plain sense and a received sense held together rather than one driving out the other.
On Adonijah's rising, Rashi reads the father's silence as the cause. David had never once crossed his son or punished him, and the son drew his own conclusion from it. Rashi ends the note with a rule: "This teaches you that he who refrains from rebuking his child causes his death" (Rashi on I Kings 1:6:1). Joab's part he reads as self-defence. Joab knew David held the killings of Abner, Amasa and Absalom against him. He knew the charge would pass to whoever reigned next, so he backed the son who would owe him (Rashi on I Kings 1:7:1). Nathan stands on the other side because he had already prophesied that Solomon would reign, and Rashi points to the promise of a son named Solomon in Chronicles for it (Rashi on I Kings 1:8:1). The guest list follows from that. Adonijah left his brother out "for he knew that the prophet had prophesied about him that he would reign" (Rashi on I Kings 1:10:1). Bathsheba's danger is read as plainly. Nathan tells her to save her own life, because the rivalry after the king's death will reach her and her son (Rashi on I Kings 1:12:1).
The corpus carries twelve more notes on this chapter without an English text, and they stand cited and unquoted. Radak is the fullest of them, at Radak on I Kings 1:11:1, 1:13:1, 1:15:1, 1:16:1, 1:18:1, 1:19:1, 1:20:1 and 1:22:1. Metzudat David stands at 1:3:1, 1:14:1 and 1:23:1, and Malbim at Malbim on I Kings 1:17:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The first verse draws three passages of Aggadat Bereshit, at 35:1, 38:1 and 38:3. The second, on Abishag, holds Avodah Zarah 4b:3 with Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 1:42 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 1:22. On the third verse the corpus holds Bava Batra 15b:6 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 1:31. On the fourth, where Rashi set the count of wives, it holds Bereshit Rabbah 40:5 and Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 3:7.
Adonijah's rising carries its own run. On the fifth verse the corpus holds Avodah Zarah 44a:18 and 44a:19. On the sixth, the verse about the father who never crossed his son, it holds Bava Batra 109b:10 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 8:1. On the ninth, the feast at the stone of Zoheleth, it holds Sanhedrin 110a:8 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:125.
Nathan's approach to Bathsheba draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:19 on the thirteenth verse. A second locator stands with it there, a chapter of the anthology Learning to Read Midrash on David's heart after his sin, and its full title is given in the sources beside this card. On the fourteenth the corpus holds Jerusalem Talmud Peah 1:1:43 and Kohelet Rabbah 4:9:1. On the fifteenth the corpus holds Sanhedrin 22a:14, and on the twenty-first, where Bathsheba says she and her son will be counted offenders, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 6:18.
The anointing at Gihon draws the heaviest weight. On the twenty-sixth verse the corpus holds Bava Kamma 92b:8 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 25:2:1. On the thirty-first it holds Berakhot 34b:3 and Megillah 22b:16, and on the thirty-third Aggadat Bereshit 37:2 and Bamidbar Rabbah 6:1. On the thirty-fourth, the anointing itself, it holds Horayot 13a:12, and on the thirty-fifth Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:24. On the thirty-sixth it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 9:35 and Bereshit Rabbah 76:2, and on the thirty-seventh Tractate Soferim 7:2. The shout that followed draws Chullin 90b:12 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Chullin 7:1 on the fortieth verse. The news reaching Adonijah's feast draws Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 17:15:5 on the forty-third verse, with a passage of the Introductions to Tanaitic Literature at 199. On the forty-seventh the corpus holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:95 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 27:23:1, and on the forty-eighth a second passage of the same Introductions, at 128. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and this site reports it as theirs. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Kings 1:1:1 to 1:12:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Kings 1:11:1 to 1:22:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Kings 1:3:1, 1:14:1 and 1:23:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; Malbim, Malbim on I Kings 1:17:1, cited by ref because Sefaria holds no English version; Learning to Read Midrash, Learning to Read Midrash, Chapter 15; Portrait of a Biblical Personality; Exploring David's Heart in the Aftermath of Sin 238, the second locator the corpus holds on the thirteenth verse; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-kings/1.json, fetched 2026-09-19, the forty Midrash and Talmud locators cited above, 2026; MannaFest, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Haftarah use and its rite, printed in this lane, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A cold king and the Shunammite who warmed him
1 Kings 1:1-2
old and stricken in years: David is old and stricken in years, cannot get warm under his own clothes, and his servants propose the era's answer to a failing king's chill: a young virgin to stand before him and lie in his bosom for heat. The older commentators read this as medical care rather than courtship, the household's attempt to keep a very old king functioning. The book opens by measuring the king's strength in the most physical terms available, and the throne question that follows in verse five reads against that weakness.
1 Kings 1:1
“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. Stricken in, years - David was perhaps now in his first year.”
The servants ask for a virgin to lie by the king’s side, the place Scripture gives a wife, and John Wesley and Matthew Henry held that Abishag became a secondary wife of David. Albert Barnes called the plan a physician’s advice. Her standing makes Adonijah’s later request for her so grave.
1 Kings 1:2
“Secondly, it appears from this phrase of lying in his bosom, which is everywhere in scripture mentioned as the privilege of a wife. Thirdly, this made Adonijah's crime in desiring her to wife, so heinous in Solomon's account, because he saw, that by marrying the king's wife he designed to revive his pretense to the kingdom.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 1:3-4
found Abishag a Shunammite: The search runs the whole coasts of Israel and settles on Abishag, a Shunammite, brought to cherish and minister to the king. The text is careful to add that the king knew her not, ruling out marriage before the fact and leaving her role plainly a nurse's. Her place at David's side becomes political property later, when Adonijah asks for her hand at 2:17 and Solomon reads the request as a claim on the throne itself.
1 Kings 1:3
“Once David had been a man of war, but at seventy, age had chilled him so that nothing would make him warm. A girl is accordingly sought from the coasts of Israel—Abishag the Shunammite—to sleep with the king and warm his aged frame. Does it not seem to you—if you keep to the letter that kills—like some farcical story or some broad jest from an Atellan play? A chilly old man is wrapped up in blankets and only grows warm in a girl's embrace.”
Jerome · written before 420 · LETTER 52 (TO NEPOTIAN) 2-3patristic
The girl's beauty is stated, and so is David's restraint. Ishodad of Merv held that David still felt desire and held it back, wary of what might be said of a king who already had many women. Adam Clarke read the clause as sound medicine for an old man's failing strength.
1 Kings 1:4
“The king knew her not - The maxim of Bacon in his enigmatical cure is, “Take all you can from the medicine, but give nothing to it; if you give any thing, it increases the disease and hastens death.” I have seen this abundantly verified; but it is a subject on which it would be improper to dilate except in a medical work. An extract from Friar Bacon’s Cure of Old Age may be found at the end of the chapter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adonijah crowns himself beside En-rogel
1 Kings 1:5-6
I will be king: Adonijah exalts himself, and the narrator hands the reader the cause before he hands the verdict: his father had not displeased him at any time, one of Scripture's few explicit judgments on a parent's failure. The chariots, horsemen and fifty men who run before him repeat David's son Absalom's own self-coronation almost word for word from 2 Sam 15:1, so Adonijah stages the same rebellion his half brother staged, this time without a war. Verse six adds that his mother bare him after Absalom, placing him next in birth order and next in the pattern.
1 Kings 1:5
“The narrative concerning - Abishag, the Shunammite (see the margin reference “a”), is introduced as necessary for a proper understanding of Adonijah’s later history (see 1Ki 2:13-25.) But even as it stands, it heightens considerably the picture drawn of the poor king’s weak and helpless condition, of which Adonijah was not ashamed to take advantage for his own aggrandizement. Adonijah was born while David reigned at Hebron, and was therefore now between thirty-three and forty years of age. He was David’s fourth son, but had probably become the eldest by the death of his three older brothers.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:5
“This entail Adonijah attempted by force to cut off, in contempt both of God and his father. Thus is the kingdom of Christ opposed, and there are those that say, "We will not have him to reign over us." 2.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry observed that the verse speaks of David never crossing his son, and he judged that Adonijah had often grieved his father, who lamented it before God in private. Albert Barnes adds that Israel, like its neighbours, prized a king's stature and looks, as with Saul at 1 Samuel 9:2. His looks won him a following.
1 Kings 1:6
“Displeased him - This is noted as David's great error, and the occasion of Adonijah's presumption. Saying - He neither restrained him from, nor reproved him for his miscarriages: which David well knew was a great sin. Goodly man - This was a second ground of his confidence, because his great comeliness made him amiable in the peoples eyes.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 1:7-8
Joab the son of Zeruiah: Two camps form around the old king while he is still breathing. Joab, David's own general, and Abiathar, priest since the days at Nob, side with Adonijah, while Zadok the priest, Benaiah, Nathan the prophet and David's mighty men do not. The split sets up the close of the next chapter, where Solomon puts Joab to death and expels Abiathar from the priesthood, discharging the sentence spoken against Eli's house at 1 Sam 2:27-36.
1 Kings 1:7
“Joab’s defection on this occasion, after his faithful adherence to David during the troubles caused by Absalom 2 Sam. 18:2-17, may be accounted for by his fear that Solomon would be a “man of rest” 1Ch 22:9 and by his preference for the character of Adonijah. He may also have thought that Adonijah, as the eldest son 1Ki 1:5, had almost a right to succeed. Abiathar’s defection is still more surprising than Joab’s. For his history, see 1Sa 22:20 note. Hereto, David and he had been the firmest of friends.”
But Zadok the priest: Two high priests serve at once in this chapter. Albert Barnes explains the pair by placing Abiathar at the ark on Zion and Zadok at the tabernacle at Gibeon, as 1 Chronicles 16:39 records. Matthew Henry notes that Adonijah never dared put his plan to men of such proven loyalty.
1 Kings 1:9-10
by the stone of Zoheleth: Adonijah slaughters sheep, oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth near En-rogel and invites all his brethren the king's sons and all the men of Judah, a coronation feast staged outside the city gates. The guest list is also a verdict: Nathan, Benaiah and Solomon are pointedly not called, the same three names left off Adonijah's side in verse eight. A feast this size announces a king already crowned in his own mind, before Zadok's horn of oil ever touches Solomon.
1 Kings 1:9
“Adonijah’s feast was probably of a sacrificial character, and intended to inaugurate him as king. Compare the “sacrifices” of Absalom 2Sa 15:12. Zoheleth - No satisfactory explanation has been given of this name. Large blocks of stone always attract attention in the East, and receive names which are often drawn from some trivial circumstance. Sinai and Palestine are full of such “Hajars,” which correspond to the “Ebens” or “stones” of Holy Scripture. (Compare Gen 28:22; Jos 4:9; 1Sa 6:14.) For En-Rogel, see the margin reference.”
John Gill gives a reason for each omission. Nathan had prophesied Solomon's succession, Benaiah commanded David's bodyguard, and Solomon was the rival himself. Matthew Henry recalls that it was through Nathan that God had given the child Solomon the name Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12.
1 Kings 1:10
“But Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother, he called not. Did not invite them to this feast; not Nathan, who he might know had prophesied of Solomon's succession in the throne, and therefore it could not be thought he would be drawn over to him; nor "Benaiah and the mighty men"; David's bodyguards, over whom this officer was; and still less Solomon, his competitor and rival.”
Nathan and Bathsheba come to the king's bedside
1 Kings 1:11-12
the son of Haggith doth reign: Nathan learns of the feast and moves first, going to Bathsheba rather than to David directly. This is the same Nathan who carried the dynastic promise of 2 Sam 7 and who confronted David over Bathsheba herself in 2 Sam 12, now acting a third time to secure the son that promise named. His warning is blunt: without action now, both her life and Solomon's are at risk.
1 Kings 1:11
The son of Haggith - Compare the margin reference. This expression was well chosen to touch the pride of Bath-sheba. “Adonijah; not thy son, but the son of thy rival, Haggith.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:11
“Adonijah, in common with the people generally, expected that this natural arrangement should be followed in the Hebrew kingdom as in all others. Nathan, who was aware of the old king's solemn promise to Solomon, and, moreover, that this promise was sanctioned by the divine will, saw that no time was to be lost.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Albert Barnes notes that a losing rival in the ancient East usually died, and his mother sometimes died with him. Cassander put to death Roxana, the widow of Alexander the Great, together with her young son. Adam Clarke adds that Israel's succession was still unsettled.
1 Kings 1:12
“Save thine own life, and the life of thy son - Nathan took for granted that Adonijah would put both Bath-sheba and Solomon to death as state criminals, if he got established on the throne. O cursed lust of rule! a father will destroy his son, a son depose his father, and a brother murder a brother, in order to obtain a crown! At this time the monarchy of Israel was unsettled; no man knew who was to succeed to the crown, and the minds of the people were as unsettled as the succession.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:12
“Such as this is the counsel that Christ's ministers give us in his name, to give all diligence, not only that no man take our crown ( Rev. iii. 11 ), but that we save our lives, even the lives of our souls.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 1:13-14
Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign: Nathan writes Bathsheba's script for her nearly word for word, down to David's own oath that Solomon shall reign after him and sit on his throne. He promises to follow her into the chamber and confirm her words, a second witness by design, matching the two-mouth standard Deut 19:15 set for establishing a matter. The plan works because it stands on David's own prior promise, not on a new claim.
1 Kings 1:13
“Go and get thee in unto King David - He knew that this woman had a sovereign influence over the king. If Bath-sheba was a source of pleasure to David, must she not also have been a source of pain to him? For could he ever forget the guilty manner in which he acquired her? Didst not thou - swear - It is very likely that David made such an oath, and that was known only to Bath-sheba and Nathan. It is nowhere else mentioned.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes reads the order of entry as design. Bathsheba moves David's affections first as wife and mother, and Nathan follows to treat the succession as a matter of state and take the king's orders on it.
1 Kings 1:14
“Confirm thy words - “Establish” them, by giving a second testimony. Nathan thinks it best to move David’s affections first through Bath-sheba, before he comes in to discuss the matter as one of state policy, and to take the king’s orders upon it.”
1 Kings 1:15-16
the king was very old: Bathsheba goes in to a king so old that Abishag is still ministering to him in the room, and she bows before she speaks a word. The king's opening question, what wouldest thou, is the first thing he says in the whole chapter, a man who has said nothing while his kingdom decided itself without him. His silence to this point is part of the crisis Bathsheba has come to end.
1 Kings 1:15
“Into the chamber - The “bed-chamber” or “inner chamber.” Abishag was a disinterested witness present, who heard all that Bath-sheba said to David.”
Albert Barnes compares the bow to that of the woman of Tekoa at 2 Samuel 14:4, the prostration of someone bringing a petition. David reads it that way. John Gill notes that she bowed to her sovereign as well as her husband, and the posture told him she had come to ask something.
1 Kings 1:16
Bath-sheba bowed, like the woman of Tekoah 2Sa 14:4, with the humble prostration of a suppliant. Hence, the king’s question, “What wouldest thou?”
1 Kings 1:17-18
swarest by the Lord thy God: Bathsheba reminds David of an oath the text has not recorded until now, that he swore by the Lord his God that Solomon would reign after him. She reports Adonijah already reigning as settled fact and adds the detail that cuts deepest, that David does not even know it. An old king shut in his own chamber has lost the kingdom to rumor before he has said a word.
1 Kings 1:17
“And she said unto him, my lord, thou swarest by the Lord thy God unto thine handmaid,.... Which was a very solemn oath, and binding, and which she puts David in mind of, knowing that so conscientious a man as he was would religiously observe it: saying, assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and shall sit upon my throne; be his successor in it, and established on it.”
Matthew Henry hears tact in Bathsheba’s words. The king’s ignorance of Adonijah’s reign clears David of blame, and now that he knows, his own oath binds him to act. The usurpation becomes his to answer.
1 Kings 1:19-21
Solomon thy servant hath he not called: Bathsheba repeats the guest list from Adonijah's feast, oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, Abiathar the priest and Joab the captain of the host, and repeats that Solomon was not called. She frames the danger in language David cannot ignore, the eyes of all Israel are upon him to name a successor, and warns that she and Solomon will be counted offenders the moment David dies. That word is her own estimate of what a losing claimant becomes under a new king, and 2:13-25 will show the estimate held.
1 Kings 1:19
“Thus fathers often call their sons their servants, yet without denying the genuineness of their nature. In fact, they often affectionately call their own servants children, yet without losing sight of the fact they did purchase them originally. For they use the one appellation from their authority as fathers, but in the other they speak from affection. Thus Sara called Abraham lord, although she was not a servant but a wife.”
Athanasius of Alexandria · written before 373 · Discourses Against the Arians 2.3-4patristic
Israel waits on David, for the king alone names who will sit on the throne after him. Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes describe this as the ancient right of a king to choose among his sons. Silence would leave the throne to the eldest son.
1 Kings 1:20
“That thou shouldest tell - who shall sit on the throne - This was a monarchy neither hereditary nor elective; the king simply named his successor. This obtained less or more, anciently, in most countries.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
To rest with the fathers is death spoken of as sleep. Albert Barnes notes that the phrase is rare before Kings, found once in the Pentateuch and at 2 Samuel 7:12, and becomes the usual formula in Kings and Chronicles. It returns at David's own death in 2:10.
1 Kings 1:21
“Shall sleep - This euphemism for death, rare in the early Scriptures - being found only once in the Pentateuch (margin reference.), and once also in the historical books before Kings 2Sa 7:12 - becomes in Kings and Chronicles the ordinary mode of speech (see 1Ki 2:10; 1Ki 11:43, etc.; 2Ch 9:31; 2Ch 12:16, etc.). David uses the metaphor in one psalm Psa 13:3. In the later Scriptures it is, of course, common. (Jer 51:39; Dan 12:2; Mat 9:24; Joh 11:11; 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:51; 1Th 4:14, etc.)”
1 Kings 1:22-23
while she yet talked with the king: While Bathsheba is still speaking, Nathan arrives exactly as he promised, the second witness taking his place while the first is still in the room. He bows himself to the ground before the king, the same posture of full submission David alone commands in this chapter. Two independent witnesses now stand before David within minutes of each other, both reporting the same feast.
1 Kings 1:22
“Nathan came into the palace, not into the chamber, where he might not enter unannounced. Bath-sheba retired before Nathan entered, in accordance with Oriental ideas of propriety. So, when Bath-sheba was again sent for 1Ki 1:28, Nathan retired (compare 1Ki 1:32).”
The prophet is announced before he enters. John Gill suggests the servants spoke up so that the failing king would know Nathan had come into the room. Nathan bows to a man lying in bed with the reverence due to a king on his throne.
1 Kings 1:23
“And they told the king,.... Some that attended at the door, or were in the chamber: saying, behold, Nathan the prophet; or he is in the room, which the king through his infirmities might not be sensible of: and when he was come in before the king; nearer to him, and as to be properly in his presence: he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground; showing him the same reverence, though in bed, as if on his throne.”
1 Kings 1:24-27
Adonijah shall reign after me: Nathan's report matches Bathsheba's in every detail and adds one line she did not use, that the guests are eating and drinking before Adonijah and crying God save king Adonijah, the same acclamation formula that will greet Solomon at Gihon within the hour. He frames his own exclusion, with Zadok's, Benaiah's and Solomon's, as a question rather than an accusation, asking whether this was done by David's own order. The question forces David to either own the coronation or disown it, and he answers in the next verse.
1 Kings 1:24
“Hast thou said - Thou hast said. In the original no question is asked. Nathan assumes, as far as words go, that the king has made this declaration. He wishes to draw forth a disclaimer.”
Where Bathsheba named Joab, Nathan names the commanders of the army. Matthew Henry gives the reasoning Adonijah acted on. David was too old to rule and Solomon too young, so Adonijah took the government into his own hands.
1 Kings 1:25
“His father is not fit to govern, for he is old and past ruling, nor Solomon, for he is young, and not yet able to rule; and therefore Adonijah will take the government upon him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nathan names Zadok and Benaiah, whom Bathsheba had left out, and John Gill reads this as the filling up of her words promised in verse 14. John Wesley draws the inference Nathan wants David to draw. Adonijah shut out the prophet who knew the king's mind, so the feast went ahead without the king's knowledge.
1 Kings 1:26
“But me - Whom he knew to be acquainted with thy mind, and with the mind of God in this matter: and therefore his neglect of me herein gives me cause to suspect that this is done without thy privity.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nathan asks as a prophet. John Wesley notes that he had carried God's message about David's successor, and he would expect to hear first if the king had changed his mind. Matthew Henry adds that a yes would make David unfaithful to God's word and to his own.
1 Kings 1:27
“Shewed thy servant - Who, having been an instrument in delivering God's message to thee concerning thy successor, might reasonably expect that if the king had changed his mind, thou wouldest have acquainted me with it, as being both a prophet os the Lord, and one whom thou hast always found faithful to thee.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Solomon on the king's mule, anointed at Gihon
1 Kings 1:28-29
into the king’s presence: David calls for Bathsheba a second time and swears an oath opened on the LORD's own name as its guarantee, as the LORD liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress. The formula recalls a lifetime of deliverances, from Saul's spear to Absalom's revolt, and stakes them all on this one decision. A king too weak to warm himself is not too weak to swear a binding oath before witnesses.
1 Kings 1:28
“Then king David answered and said, Call me Bath-sheba--He renews to her the solemn pledge he had given, in terms of solemnity and impressiveness which show that the aged monarch had roused himself to the duty the emergency called for. SOLOMON, BY DAVID'S APPOINTMENT, IS ANOINTED KING.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:28
“Call me Bath-sheba - She had gone out when Nathan came in, and he retired when she was re-admitted. Each had a separate audience, but to Nathan the king did not express any will.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
As surely as the LORD lives was Israel's most common oath, found at Judges 8:19 and 1 Samuel 14:39. Albert Barnes notes that David alone attached a clause of thanks to it, as here and at 2 Samuel 4:9. John Wesley hears the dying Jacob in the words.
1 Kings 1:29
“Out of all distress - The words contain a grateful acknowledgement of the goodness of God to him, in bringing him safe through the many difficulties, which had lain in his way, and which he now mentions to the glory of God, (as Jacob when he lay a dying) thus setting to his seal, from his own experience that the Lord redeemeth the souls of his servants.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:29
“As the Lord liveth” was the most common form of oath among the Israelites (e. g. Jdg 8:19; 1Sa 14:39; 1Sa 19:6). It was unique to David to attach a further clause to this oath - a clause of thankfulness for some special mercy 1Sa 25:34, or for God’s constant protection of him (here and in 2Sa 4:9).
1 Kings 1:30-31
I certainly do this day: David repeats the earlier promise nearly word for word, that Solomon shall reign and sit on his throne in his stead, and closes it, even so will I certainly do this day, turning a private oath into a public act. Bathsheba's answer is not thanks but a subject's blessing on the king who still reigns, let my lord king David live for ever, the standard court formula. The moment the promise is renewed is also the moment the throne visibly still belongs to David and to no one else.
Bathsheba bowed lower than she did at verse 16. Albert Barnes points to Assyrian sculptures in which ambassadors bowed facedown before the king, their faces touching the earth at his feet.
1 Kings 1:31
“A lower and humbler obeisance than before 1Ki 1:16. In the Assyrian sculptures ambassadors are represented with their faces actually touching the earth before the feet of the monarch.”
1 Kings 1:32-33
Call me Zadok the priest: David summons the same three men Adonijah's guest list had excluded, Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah, and gives the order himself rather than leaving it to Bathsheba or Nathan alone. Solomon is to ride the king's own mule, a mount reserved to the reigning king and never shared with a rival claimant. Riding it to Gihon is itself a public claim before a word of ceremony is spoken.
1 Kings 1:32
“And King David said, call me Zadok the priest,.... Not Abiathar the high priest, for he had joined Adonijah; and besides Zadok was David's favourite priest, and for him the high priesthood was designed, as it was in a little time translated to him: and Nathan the prophet; who very probably went out of the room when Bathsheba was called in: and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; the captain of his guards: and they came before the king; who it is very likely sat up in his bed, and they stood around him.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:32
“The combination of the high priest, the prophet, and the captain of the bodyguard (the Cherethites and Pelethites, 1Ki 1:38), would show the people that the proceedings had the king’s sanction. The order of the names marks the position of the persons with respect to the matter in hand.”
Adam Clarke and John Gill take the servants to be the royal guard, the Cherethites and Pelethites under Benaiah. John Wesley offers three possible reasons for Gihon. It lay apart from Adonijah's party, it made a public answer to his claim, and it was a gathering place large enough for the crowd.
1 Kings 1:33
“And the king said unto them, take ye the servants of your lord,.... Meaning his own servants, his bodyguards, the Cherethites and Pelethites, as appears from 1Ki 1:38; the Jews (a) from hence gather, that a king is superior to an high priest, since David calls himself the lord of Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet: and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule; for it seems on such a creature David used to ride, as did his sons; horses not being so common in Judea as they were afterwards.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 1:33
“Mules and horses seem to have been first employed by the Israelites in the reign of David, and the use of the former was at first confined to great personages 2Sa 13:29; 2Sa 18:9. The rabbis tell us that it was death to ride on the king’s mule without his permission; and thus it would be the more evident to all that the proceedings with respect to Solomon had David’s sanction.”
1 Kings 1:33
“This place David chose, either, as remote from Adonijah and his company, that so the people might be there without fear of tumults or bloodshed; or, to shew that Solomon was chosen king in opposition to Adonijah: or, because this was a place of great resort, and fit to receive and display that numerous company, which he knew would follow Solomon thither.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 1:34-35
blow ye with the trumpet: Zadok and Nathan are to anoint Solomon king at Gihon and sound the trumpet with the cry God save king Solomon, the same acclamation formula that entered Scripture at Saul's anointing, God save the king, in 1 Sam 10:24. David's closing clause names Solomon ruler over Israel and over Judah both, closing off any later claim that the appointment was partial. The formula that crowned the first king now crowns the third.
1 Kings 1:34
“Anoint him - Inauguration into each of the three offices (those of prophet, priest, and king) typical of the Messiah or Anointed One, was by anointing with oil. Divine appointment had already instituted the rite in connection with the kingly office 2Sa 2:4; but after Solomon we have no express mention of the anointing of kings, except in the three cases of Jehu, Joash, and Jehoahaz 2Ki 9:6; 2Ki 11:12; 2Ki 23:30, who were all appointed irregularly.”
Solomon reigns while his father lives. Augustine of Hippo called that succession unique among the kings of the Jews, and he drew from it that the promise of 2 Samuel 7, a son raised after David sleeps with his fathers, reaches beyond Solomon. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that naming an heir publicly in the old king's lifetime was an Eastern custom.
1 Kings 1:35
“Sit upon my throne - The matter of conducting a business of this kind seems to have been this: 1. The king elect was placed on the mule of his predecessor, and caused to ride abroad to one of the public wells, or to a river where there was the greatest concourse of people, that they might see who he was that was appointed. Solomon was here taken to the river Gihon, in order to be anointed; the continual stream or constantly running fountain, denoting the perpetuity of the kingdom.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Kings 1:35
“Then ye shall come up after him, that he may come and sit upon my throne--The public recognition of the successor to the throne, during the old king's lifetime, is accordant with the customs of the East.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 1:35
“Over Israel and over Judah - There is no anticipation here of the subsequent division of the kingdom; the antithesis between Judah and Israel already existed in the reign of David 2Sa 2:9; 2Sa 19:11.”
1 Kings 1:36-37
the Lord God of my lord the king: Benaiah answers for all three with Amen, and asks that the Lord God of David confirm the appointment David has just made, binding heaven's yes to the king's own word. His closing line, make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David, is the chapter's only voice wishing Solomon's reign to exceed his father's rather than merely match it. It is, without either man knowing it, the shape 2 Sam 7:12-13 already promised David's son.
1 Kings 1:36
“And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king,.... In the name of the rest: and said, Amen; they all assented to it, and expressed their satisfaction in it: the Lord God of my lord the king say so too; let it appear, by the prosperity and success that shall by divine Providence attend the new king, that this is according to the will of God.”
Albert Barnes traces the wish that the LORD be with a man to God's promises to Isaac at Genesis 26:3 and to Jacob. Adam Clarke notes that wishing a son greater than his father usually offends the father. Matthew Henry answers that David had no envy of his son.
1 Kings 1:37
“As the Lord hath been with my lord - This phrase expresses a very high degree of divine favor. It occurs first in the promises of God to Isaac Gen 26:3, Gen 26:24 and Jacob Gen 28:13. See further margin reference.”
1 Kings 1:38-39
the Cherethites, and the Pelethites: The order is carried out exactly as given: Zadok, Nathan, Benaiah, the Cherethites and the Pelethites, David's own bodyguard, escort Solomon to Gihon on the king's mule. Zadok anoints him with oil out of the tabernacle itself, and the trumpet sounds the same cry ordered in verse thirty-four. Every element of David's command from the prior unit is now executed in the order it was spoken.
1 Kings 1:38
“So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada,.... The three men that David sent for on this occasion: and the Cherethites and the Pelethites; not the sanhedrim, as Ben Gersom, but David's guards, over whom Benaiah was: these went down; from Jerusalem; and caused Solomon to ride upon King David's mule; as he had ordered: and brought him to Gihon; or Siloah, as the Targum; hence the Jews say (e), they do not anoint a king but at a fountain; but this is the only instance of it. (e) T. Bab. Ceritot, fol.”
Albert Barnes takes the tabernacle to be the tent David pitched for the ark on Zion, where the holy oil for anointing priest and king was kept. Cyril of Jerusalem read Zadok anointing Solomon after he washed at Gihon as a figure of the Christian anointed by the Holy Spirit. Christ means anointed.
1 Kings 1:39
“Moreover, you should know that in the old Scripture there lies the symbol of this Chrism. For what time Moses imparted to his brother the command of God, and made him High-priest, after bathing in water, he anointed him; and Aaron was called Christ or Anointed, evidently from the typical Chrism. So also the High-priest, in advancing Solomon to the kingdom, anointed him after he had bathed in Gihon. To them however these things happened in a figure, but to you not in a figure, but in truth; because ye were truly anointed by the Holy Ghost.”
Cyril of Jerusalem · written before 386 · Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 21 (Mystagogical Lecture 3)patristic
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1 Kings 1:39
“The tabernacle - Probably that which David had made for the ark of the covenant on Mount Zion 2Sa 6:17. For the holy oil, see the margin reference. That it was part of the regular furniture of the tabernacle appears from Exo 31:11; Exo 39:38.”
1 Kings 1:40-41
rejoiced with great joy: The people follow Solomon up from Gihon with pipes and such joy that the ground seems to split with the noise, a coronation the size of a nation rather than a faction's feast. Adonijah's guests hear it from En-rogel, close enough to Gihon that Joab recognizes a trumpet the moment it sounds and asks why the city is in an uproar. The two feasts sit near enough that one crowd's celebration reaches the other crowd's ears before any messenger arrives.
1 Kings 1:40
“The people piped with pipes - They danced, sang, and played on what instruments of music they possessed. The earth rent - We use a similar expression in precisely the same sense: They rent the air with their cries.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The feast that heard trumpets; Adonijah clings to the altar
The feast is ending when the horn sounds. Matthew Henry sets the two men at the table side by side. Joab, an old soldier, hears danger in the noise, while Adonijah still expects good news from the next man through the door.
1 Kings 1:41
“The arrival of a trusty messenger, who gave a full detail of the coronation ceremony [1Ki 1:43-48], spread dismay in their camp. The wicked and ambitious plot they had assembled to execute was dissipated, and every one of the conspirators consulted his safety by flight. ADONIJAH, FLEEING TO THE HORNS OF THE ALTAR, IS DISMISSED BY SOLOMON.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 1:42-43
thou art a valiant man: Adonijah welcomes Jonathan, son of Abiathar the priest, as a bringer of good tidings, the same Jonathan who carried word to David during Absalom's revolt in 2 Sam 17:17-21. The welcome is the last calm moment in the chapter for Adonijah's party. Jonathan answers with a verdict before he gives a single detail, our lord king David hath made Solomon king, and everything that follows in his report only supports it.
1 Kings 1:42
“Jonathan had acted in a similar capacity, as a carrier of intelligence, in the time of Absalom’s attempt 2Sa 15:36; 2Sa 17:17; but at that time, like his father, he was faithful to David, and “a valiant man,” “a virtuous man,” or “a man of worth.” (See 1Ki 1:52; Pro 12:4.)”
Jonathan's first word answers Adonijah's hope of good news. John Gill gives the Hebrew as aval, which the Latin versions render by no means. Matthew Henry hears irony in it, for the best tidings Jonathan has for the party are that Solomon is king.
1 Kings 1:43
“And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, verily,.... Or, "nay, but" (k) it is not so as you imagine; it is not good tidings, but bad tidings to thee I bring: our lord King David hath made Solomon king; of which he gives the following account in proof of it. (k) אבל "nequaquam", V. L. Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.”
1 Kings 1:44-46
ride upon the king’s mule: Jonathan's account matches the narrator's own report of verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine point for point, Zadok, Nathan, Benaiah, the king's mule, the anointing at Gihon. He adds that Solomon already sitteth on the throne of the kingdom, present tense, the crisis resolved before Adonijah's feast has finished its meal. A single eyewitness report ends a rebellion that speeches and oaths alone could not have stopped in time.
1 Kings 1:44
“And the king hath sent with him,.... To the fountain of Gihon: Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites; over whom the latter was captain: and they have caused him to ride upon the king's mule; by his order and direction.”
Jonathan ends on the noise itself. The uproar Joab asked about in verse 41 is the crowd coming up from Gihon with the new king. Adam Clarke counts the anointing as the third step in a report set down in the order the events happened.
Matthew Henry notes that Adonijah had meant to reach the throne first and Solomon was quicker. John Gill reads the seat itself as the token of a real reign. The people's joy made the act hard to undo.
1 Kings 1:46
“And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom. Where he was placed to exercise his regal power when returned to Jerusalem, as a further token and confirmation of his being really and actually king.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:46
“Adonijah thought to have stepped into the throne before him, but Solomon was too quick for him. With what general satisfaction Solomon was made king, so that that which was done was not likely to be undone again.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 1:47-48
the king’s servants came to bless: David's own servants come to bless him even as another man's guests are still at table nearby, and their blessing asks that Solomon's name and throne exceed David's own, an echo of Benaiah's wish at verse thirty-seven. David bows himself on the bed and blesses the Lord God of Israel for letting his own eyes see a successor seated while he still lives. No other king in either book of Kings gets to watch his heir crowned and lives to bless it.
1 Kings 1:47
“The king bowed himself - The king worshipped God and prayed that it might be so. Compare Gen 47:31, with margin reference, Heb 11:21.”
David credits the heir to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has provided him. John Wesley reads the gladness of a man near death who sees his son rise to serve God and his generation. Peace on Israel was part of that gladness.
1 Kings 1:49-50
were afraid, and rose up: Adonijah's guests scatter in fear the moment the news reaches them, and Adonijah himself runs to the tabernacle and catches hold of the horns of the altar. The altar's horns were read as sanctuary ground under the law for one who killed without intent, Ex 21:14, and Adonijah claims that protection for a political crime the law never covered. Joab will try the same refuge in the next chapter for an actual killing and lose it, the law's own distinction working itself out in the chapter that follows.
the horns of the altar: Adonijah took hold of the horns, which stood at the four corners of the altar and were tipped with the blood of each sacrifice, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe. Matthew Henry reads his grip as a plea for mercy. Albert Barnes places this altar at the tabernacle where Zadok took the oil.
1 Kings 1:50
“Adonijah feared - He knew he had usurped the kingdom, and had not his father’s consent; and, as he finds now that Solomon is appointed by David, he knows well that the people will immediately respect that appointment, and that his case is hopeless; he therefore took sanctuary, and, fleeing to the tabernacle, laid hold on one of the horns of the altar, as if appealing to the protection of God against the violence of men. The altar was a privileged place, and it was deemed sacrilege to molest a man who had taken refuge there. See 1Ki 2:28.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Kings 1:50
“The horns or projections at the four corners of the altar, to which the sacrifices were bound, and which were tipped with the blood of the victim, were symbols of grace and salvation to the sinner. Hence the altar was regarded as a sanctuary (Ex 21:14), but not to murderers, rebels, or deliberate perpetrators.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 1:51-53
caught hold on the horns of the altar: Adonijah's message asks Solomon to swear he will not kill his servant with the sword, and Solomon's answer is conditional rather than a blanket pardon, if he will shew himself a worthy man not a hair of him shall fall, but if wickedness be found in him he shall die. The mercy is real and it is also provisional, and Solomon states both halves in the same sentence rather than only the gracious one. Solomon sends for Adonijah, receives his bow, and dismisses him to his own house, closing the chapter on a throne secured but a rivalry only postponed to chapter two.
1 Kings 1:51
“He owns Solomon for his prince, and himself his servant, dares not justify himself, but makes supplication to his judge. It was a great change with him. He that in the morning was grasping at a crown is before night begging for his life.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A hair that falls to the ground is a proverb for harm, as Albert Barnes explains, and Solomon’s word spares Adonijah any harm at all. Barnes finds the mercy remarkable in an age when a new king often put his brothers to death. Ephrem the Syrian reads the evil as conspiracy against the king.
1 Kings 1:52
“Adonijah is sent for, and told upon what terms he stands, which he signifies his grateful submission to, and then is told to go to his house and live retired there. Solomon not only gave him his life, but his estate, thus establishing his throne by mercy.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture Adonijah standing on the ledge around the altar until he is brought down. His bow is homage to Solomon as king. Adam Clarke reads the dismissal home as exclusion from the court, a man kept on his good behaviour.
1 Kings 1:53
“Go to thine house - Intimating that he should have no place about the king’s person, nor under the government. Adonijah must have seen that he stood continually on his good behavior. Friar Bacon’s method of restoring and strengthening the Natural Heat “I have read many volumes of the wise: I find few things in physic which restore the natural heat, weakened by dissolution of the innate moisture, or increase of a foreign one. “But certain wise men have tacitly made mention of some medicine, which is likened to that which goes out of the mine of the noble animal.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, a succession crisis opened and settled inside a single day, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| He will sit on my throne | The promise is repeated eight times in the chapter, counted in the Berean text in the store, at verses 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, 30, 35 and 48. Nathan puts the words in Bathsheba's mouth, she says them to David, Nathan says them again as a question, and David finally says them as his own oath and then as an order to Zadok and Benaiah. Matthew Henry reads the repetition at verse 30 as David turning a private promise into a public act.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 1:30. | 1 Kings 1:13, 1 Kings 1:17, 1 Kings 1:20, 1 Kings 1:24, 1 Kings 1:27, 1 Kings 1:30, 1 Kings 1:35, 1 Kings 1:48 |
| The guest list, given three times | Adonijah's feast at the stone of Zoheleth is reported three times over, first by the narrator at verses 9 and 10, then by Bathsheba at verse 19, then by Nathan at verses 25 and 26. Each telling names who was invited and then names the same three men who were left out, Nathan, Benaiah and Solomon. John Gill reads the feast as a coronation staged outside the city before any horn of oil was carried.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 1 Kings 1:9. | 1 Kings 1:9, 1 Kings 1:10, 1 Kings 1:19, 1 Kings 1:25, 1 Kings 1:26 |
| My lord the king | The full court address stands eight times in the chapter across six verses, counted in the Berean text in the store, at verses 18, 20, 21, 27, 36 and 37, with verses 20 and 27 carrying it twice each. Bathsheba and Nathan both open with it, and Benaiah closes his answer with it twice in two verses. The chapter gives David no other title while he lies in a bed he cannot get warm in, so the honour of the address runs against the weakness of the man it is spoken to.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Kings 1:16. | 1 Kings 1:18, 1 Kings 1:20, 1 Kings 1:21, 1 Kings 1:27, 1 Kings 1:36, 1 Kings 1:37 |
| Two coronations, step for step | The chapter stages the same ceremony twice and lets the second cancel the first. Adonijah sacrifices at En-rogel, gathers guests and is hailed as king at verses 9 and 25. Solomon rides the king's mule to Gihon, is anointed by Zadok with oil carried from the tent, and is hailed in the same words at verses 33 to 39. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the king's own mule as the mark no rival claimant was allowed to take.Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 1 Kings 1:33. | 1 Kings 1:9, 1 Kings 1:25, 1 Kings 1:33, 1 Kings 1:34, 1 Kings 1:39, 1 Kings 1:41 |
| Long live the king, said of two men | The acclamation stands three times in the chapter, at verse 25 over Adonijah and at verses 34 and 39 over Solomon, counted in the Berean text in the store. The same formula entered the record at Saul's anointing in 1 Samuel 10:24, so the cry itself settles nothing and the horn of oil and the king's order behind it settle everything. John Gill notes that the sound of it at Gihon carried as far as the feast at En-rogel.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 1 Kings 1:34. | 1 Kings 1:25, 1 Kings 1:34, 1 Kings 1:39 |
Where the chapter stands in the book
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
The book page reads 1 Kings as an arc that climbs to the dedication of the temple and falls from chapter 11. Chapter 1 opens the first era of that arc, which the guide titles David's Throne, Secured, running from 1:1 to 2:46. The chapter's business is the throne alone, and the wisdom, the wealth and the house for the Name all wait on it.
The historical value
The places in the chapter are real and locatable. En-rogel and Gihon are two springs outside the old city of Jerusalem, and the chapter turns on the fact that one party could hear the other. Gihon is the spring that fed the city's water system, and the anointing is staged at the water rather than at the tabernacle at Gibeon. The oil is taken from the tent, which means the tent David pitched for the ark in the city of David at 2 Samuel 6:17 rather than the tabernacle of Moses.
The debated concept
Why David had made no public arrangement is the chapter's open question, and the text states the oath without reporting when it was sworn. Matthew Henry treats the oath as genuine and long standing, and reads David's silence as the weakness of a dying man rather than a change of mind. Albert Barnes notes that the historian assumes a history already known to his readers, which leaves room for an oath recorded nowhere else. The chapter itself offers no date for it, and neither reading is settled by the text.
Abishag's place is a second question. The chapter says plainly at verse 4 that the king had no relations with her, and Ishodad of Merv treats the restraint as deliberate on David's part. The narrator gives no comment beyond the fact, and the importance of the fact is held back until Adonijah asks for her in the next chapter.
The New Testament and the later record
The chapter's anointing is the one the church's teachers reached for when they explained anointing itself. Cyril of Jerusalem sets the oil poured on Solomon beside the oil poured on Aaron and reads both as the sign behind the church's own chrism. Augustine reads the whole succession in City of God 17.8 as evidence that the promise of 2 Samuel 7 reaches past Solomon, because a king who dies cannot hold a throne forever.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 1 Kings 1:1; Augustine of Hippo, City of God 17.8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 21, the third mystagogical lecture; Ishodad of Merv, Books of Sessions, on 1 Kings 1:30 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Kings 1:5.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Augustine of Hippo, City of God 17.8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 21 (Mystagogical Lecture 3); Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary (church-history corpus); F. W. Farrar, The First Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Ishodad of Merv, BOOKS OF SESSIONS 1 KINGS 1:4; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.