Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 1.

When King David was old and no longer able to actually rule, the eldest of his remaining sons, Adonijah, decided to make himself king.  Unlike when Absalom rebelled, it does not appear that Adonijah intended to take the throne from his father.  He appears to have merely intended to consolidate his position on the throne the moment King David died.  The passage makes it clear that while Adonijah had the support of some of King David’s most loyal retainers, he did not have the support of all of them.  I find the people listed as supporting Adonijah’s claim and those listed as not supporting it interesting.  Joab and Abiathar supported Adonijah, while Benaiah and Zadok opposed him.  So, a military leader and a religious leader on either side. I find it more interesting that Shimei is listed here as one of those who opposed Adonijah.  This is the same Shimei who cursed King David when he fled Jerusalem ahead of Absalom’s army.  I interpret this division of support to mean that Joab and Abiathar thought that Adonijah should become king because he was King David’s eldest living son, while the others thought he would make a bad king

When Nathan realizes that Adonijah has begun his move to take the throne he goes to Bathsheba and tells her to go to David.  Nathan instructs her to ask King David about a promise he supposedly had made to make Solomon king after himself.  This is the first place in the Bible where this promise is mentioned.  I have always wondered if Nathan was making the promise up, figuring that King David would not remember that he had not made it.  However, today when I read the passage I realized something I never thought about before.  Previously, whenever Joab thought that David needed to take an action (as in this case he appears to think that David should make Adonijah his heir apparent), he was able to convince David to take that action.  In this case, Joab did not even try.  This suggests to me that even if King David had never made the promise to which Nathan refers, everyone in his court knew that David intended for Solomon to succeed him on the throne.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.