Solomon Takes the Throne

They looked through all Israel for a beautiful young woman. They found Abishag the Shunammite and took her to the king. She was very beautiful. She looked after the king and served him, but the king did not sleep with her.

Then Adonijah the son of Haggith grew proud. “I will be king,” he said, and he got chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run in front of him. His father had never once upset him by asking, “Why have you done that?” Adonijah was very handsome, and he was born after Absalom.

Adonijah talked with Joab the son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the priest, and they took his side and helped him. But Zadok the priest, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei and the mighty men who belonged to David were not with Adonijah.

Adonijah slaughtered sheep, cattle and fattened animals by the stone of Zoheleth, beside En Rogel. He sent for all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah who served the king, but not Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, the mighty men or his brother Solomon.

“Go to King David and ask him, ‘My lord the king, didn’t you swear to me that Solomon my son would reign after you and sit on your throne? Then why is Adonijah king?’ While you are still talking, I will come in and back up your words.”

So Bathsheba went to the king in his room. He was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was waiting on him. Bathsheba bowed low. “What do you want?” the king asked.

“My lord,” she said, “you swore to me by the Lord your God that Solomon my son would reign after you and sit on your throne. But now Adonijah is king, and you, my lord the king, don’t know it. He has slaughtered cattle and sheep in great numbers and sent for all the sons of the king, Abiathar the priest and Joab the captain of the army, but not your servant Solomon.

“My lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, waiting for you to say who will sit on your throne after you. Otherwise, when my lord the king has died, Solomon my son and I will be treated as criminals.”

She was still speaking when Nathan the prophet arrived. The king was told, “Nathan the prophet is here,” and Nathan came in and bowed low to the king, his face to the ground.

“My lord the king,” Nathan said, “have you said that Adonijah will reign after you? Today he has slaughtered cattle and sheep in great numbers. He has sent for all the king’s sons, the army commanders and Abiathar the priest. They are eating and drinking in front of him and saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’ But he hasn’t invited me, Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada or your servant Solomon. Has my lord the king done this without telling us who will sit on his throne after him?”

“Call Bathsheba in to me,” King David answered. She came in and stood before the king.

Then the king made a solemn promise. “I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, that Solomon your son would reign after me and sit on my throne in my place. As surely as the Lord lives, who has saved me from every trouble, I will do it today.”

Bathsheba bowed low before the king, her face to the ground. “May my lord King David live forever!” she said.

“Amen,” said Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. “May the Lord, the God of my lord the king, say so. As the Lord has been with my lord the king, may he be with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.”

So Zadok, Nathan, Benaiah and the Cherethites and the Pelethites took Solomon down to Gihon on King David’s mule. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the Tent and anointed Solomon. They blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” Then they all came up after him, playing pipes and rejoicing so loudly that the ground shook.

Adonijah and all his guests heard it as they finished eating. When Joab heard the trumpet, he said, “What is all this noise? Why is the city in an uproar?”

He was still speaking when Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came. “Come in,” said Adonijah. “You are a worthy man, and you bring good news.”

“Our lord King David really has made Solomon king,” Jonathan answered. “Zadok and Nathan have anointed him in Gihon, and he rode there on the king’s own mule. They came back up rejoicing so loudly that the city echoed. That’s the noise you heard. Solomon is sitting on the royal throne now. The king’s servants have come to bless our lord King David. They said, ‘May your God make Solomon’s name and throne greater than yours!’ And the king bowed low on his bed. ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,’ he said, ‘who has let me see someone sit on my throne today.’”

All of Adonijah’s guests were afraid, and they got up and went their own ways. Adonijah, afraid of Solomon, went and held on to the horns of the altar, the points that stood up at its corners.

Someone told Solomon, “Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon. He is holding on to the horns of the altar and saying, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me first that he won’t kill me with the sword.’”

Solomon said, “If he shows himself a worthy man, not one hair of his will fall to the ground. But he will die if any wickedness is found in him.”

So King Solomon sent for him, and he was brought down from the altar. He came and bowed down before King Solomon, and Solomon told him, “Go home.”

Then David called for his son Solomon and told him to build the Lord’s house. He had wanted to build it himself, he said, but the Lord had told him, “You have shed much blood and fought great wars, so you must not build a house for my name. You will have a son, a man of peace. I will give him rest from all his enemies around him. His name will be Solomon, and while he lives I will give Israel peace and quiet. He will build a house for my name, and he will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will make the throne of his kingdom over Israel stand firm forever.”

“Now, my son, may the Lord be with you,” David said. “Keep the laws he gave Moses for Israel, and you will succeed. Be strong and brave, and don’t be afraid.” He had set aside a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver. (A talent is about 66 pounds.) He had also stored up more bronze and iron than could be weighed, and timber and stone, and there were plenty of workmen. “Now get to work,” he said. Then he ordered Israel’s leaders to help Solomon. The Lord had given them peace on every side, he said. They were to follow the Lord with heart and soul, build the sanctuary, and bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant and God’s holy things into it.

With the help of Zadok and Ahimelech son of Abiathar, David divided Aaron’s descendants, the priests, into twenty-four groups by drawing lots: sixteen from Eleazar’s family and eight from Ithamar’s. Aaron’s other sons, Nadab and Abihu, had died before their father did, and they had no children. The groups took turns serving in the Lord’s house in the order of the lots, from Jehoiarib to Maaziah. The rest of the Levites drew lots too.

David and the army commanders set apart sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun to prophesy with harps, stringed instruments and cymbals. God had given Heman, the king’s seer, fourteen sons and three daughters. With their relatives, all skilled singers, there were two hundred eighty-eight of them. Young and old alike, they drew lots for their turns, in twenty-four groups of twelve.

Gatekeepers from the families of Meshelemiah, Hosah and Obed-Edom drew lots for the gates. God had blessed Obed-Edom with eight sons. Other Levites took care of the treasures of God’s house and the gifts set apart for God, including what Samuel the seer, Saul, Abner and Joab had dedicated. Others served as officials and judges across Israel.

The army had twelve divisions of twenty-four thousand men. Each division served the king one month a year, under commanders such as Benaiah son of Jehoiada. Each tribe had its own leader. David did not count those twenty and under, because the Lord had said he would make Israel as many as the stars in the sky. Joab began a census but did not finish it, and wrath came on Israel for it. Officials ran the king’s farms, vineyards, herds and treasures. Ahithophel was the king’s counselor. Hushai the Archite was the king’s friend, and Joab commanded the army.

“Solomon, my son, know the God of your father and serve him with all your heart and a willing mind, because the Lord searches all hearts and understands every thought. If you seek him, he will let you find him; if you turn your back on him, he will cast you off forever. The Lord has chosen you to build his sanctuary. Be strong, and do it.”

Then David gave Solomon the plans of all that he had by the Spirit: the temple’s porch and rooms, the place of the mercy seat, the courtyards, and the weight of gold and silver for everything to be made, from the lamp stands to the altar of incense and the cherubim that spread out and cover the ark. “The Lord made me understand all this in writing from his hand,” he said. “Be strong and brave, and do it. Don’t be afraid, because my God, the Lord God, is with you. He won’t fail you or abandon you until the work is finished. The priests, the Levites and all the people will be at your command.”

Then David praised the Lord before the whole assembly. “Blessed are you, Lord, God of our father Israel, forever and ever,” he said. “Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory and the majesty, for everything in heaven and on earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand is power and might. It is in your hand to make anyone great and to give strength to all. Now, our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name.

“But who am I, and what are my people, that we can offer so willingly? All things come from you, and we have only given you what is already yours. We are strangers and foreigners before you, as all our ancestors were, and our days on earth are like a shadow. Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in your people’s hearts forever, and give my son Solomon a whole heart to keep your commands and to build the palace I have prepared all this for.”

“Now bless the Lord your God!” David told the assembly, and they blessed the Lord, the God of their ancestors, bowing low before the Lord and the king. The day after, they offered one thousand bulls, one thousand rams and one thousand lambs as burnt offerings, and they ate and drank in the Lord’s presence with great gladness. They made Solomon king a second time. In the Lord’s presence they anointed him as ruler, and they anointed Zadok as priest. Solomon sat on the Lord’s throne in place of David his father and prospered. All Israel obeyed him, all King David’s sons submitted to him, and the Lord gave him royal majesty like no king of Israel before him.

“Do what the Lord your God has given you to do: walk in his ways and keep his laws and commands, as they are written in the law of Moses, and you will succeed in all you do. Then the Lord may keep his promise that if my children walk before him in truth with all their heart and soul, I will always have a man on the throne of Israel.

“You know too what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me. He killed the two captains of Israel’s armies, Abner the son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He shed the blood of war in peacetime, and he put the blood of war on the sash around his waist and in the sandals on his feet. Act as your wisdom tells you, but don’t let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace.

“But be kind to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite. Have them eat at your table, because they came to me with the same kindness when I fled from your brother Absalom.

“And there is Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, here with you. He called down a terrible curse on me on the day when I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the Lord that I would not put him to death with the sword. Now don’t treat him as guiltless. You are a wise man; you will know what to do to him, and you will bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood.”

David son of Jesse had been king over all Israel for forty years, seven years in Hebron and thirty-three in Jerusalem. Then he died at a good old age, after a long life full of riches and honor, and he was buried in David’s city. Everything he did, from first to last, is written in the histories of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer.

His son Solomon reigned in his place. Solomon sat on his father David’s throne, and his kingdom was firmly established.

“In peace,” he said. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“You know that the kingdom was mine,” he said, “and all Israel was looking to me to be king. But things turned around, and the kingdom went to my brother, because it was his from the Lord. Now I have one request. Don’t turn me down.”

“Go on,” she said.

“Please ask King Solomon to let me marry Abishag the Shunammite,” he said. “He won’t say no to you.”

“All right,” said Bathsheba. “I’ll speak to the king for you.”

So Bathsheba went to see King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her and bowed to her, and then he sat down on his throne. He had a throne set out for the king’s mother, and she sat at his right hand.

“I have one small request to ask of you,” she said. “Don’t turn me down.”

“Ask, my mother,” the king said. “I won’t turn you down.”

“Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother to be his wife,” she said.

King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you ask for Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for the kingdom for him too, since he is my older brother. Yes, ask for it for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah!”

Then King Solomon swore by the Lord: “May God punish me severely if this request doesn’t cost Adonijah his life! As surely as the Lord lives, who has set me firmly on my father David’s throne and built me a royal house, as he promised, Adonijah will be put to death today.”

King Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and Benaiah struck Adonijah down and killed him.

The king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields. You deserve to die, but I won’t put you to death now, because you carried the Lord God’s ark before David my father and suffered all that my father suffered.”

So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, and what the Lord had said about the family of Eli at Shiloh came true.

The news reached Joab. He had sided with Adonijah, though he had not sided with Absalom. He fled to the Lord’s Tent and held on to the horns of the altar.

When King Solomon heard that Joab had fled to the Lord’s Tent and was there by the altar, he sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. “Go,” he said. “Strike him down.”

Benaiah came to the Lord’s Tent and said to Joab, “The king says, ‘Come out!’”

“No,” said Joab. “I will die here.”

Benaiah went back and told the king what Joab had answered.

“Do as he said,” the king answered. “Strike him down and bury him. That way, the blood Joab shed for no reason will no longer be on me and my father’s family. The Lord will make the blood he shed come back on him. Without my father David knowing it, he killed two men more righteous and better than he was: Abner and Amasa, the captains of Israel’s and Judah’s armies. Their blood will be on Joab and his descendants forever. But David, his descendants, his house and his throne will have peace from the Lord forever.”

So Benaiah went up and struck Joab down and killed him, and Joab was buried at his home in the wilderness. The king put Benaiah in Joab’s place over the army, and he put Zadok the priest in Abiathar’s place.

Then the king sent for Shimei. “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there,” he told him. “Don’t go anywhere else. The day you go out and cross the Kidron brook, you will surely die, and your death will be your own fault.”

“That is good,” Shimei answered the king. “I will do as my lord the king says.” And Shimei lived in Jerusalem a long time.

Three years went by, and two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath. When Shimei was told they were in Gath, he saddled his donkey, went to Achish in Gath to look for them, and brought them back.

Solomon was told that Shimei had gone to Gath and back, so he sent for him. “Didn’t I put you under oath by the Lord and warn you that the day you went anywhere else you would surely die?” he said. “You said, ‘That is good.’ So why didn’t you keep the oath you swore by the Lord, or obey my command?”

“You know in your heart all the wickedness you did to my father David,” the king told Shimei. “The Lord will make your wickedness come back on you. But King Solomon will be blessed, and David’s throne will stand firm in the Lord’s presence forever.”

So the king gave Benaiah son of Jehoiada his orders. Benaiah went out and struck Shimei down, and Shimei died. And the kingdom was firmly in Solomon’s hands.