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

Whenever I read this passage I cannot help but wonder how Joab made the miscalculation to not discourage Adonijah from trying to seek the throne without the support of Benaiah, Nathan, or Zadok.  Up until this point, every time Joab weighed in on a political issue, he showed a clear understanding of way the situation would play out.  Yet here, he did not try to talk Adonijah out of seeking to crown himself without enough support.  Although now that I think about it I realize that what Joab did was read the way public opinion would go, not so much how the political situation would play out.  That would suggest that the people of Israel were ready for someone to replace David as king (due to David’s inability to actually govern at that point).  Perhaps, the people even favored Adonijah as that replacement, since he was the oldest of David’s surviving sons.  In any case, Joab miscalculated this time.  If I were to interpret the situation as presented by the writer, Joab and Abiathar were David’s two most powerful advisors, and I am unsure about Abiathar vs Zadok for control of the priesthood.  Going further, it looks to me like Joab was in conflict with Benaiah for control over the military.  Joab controlled the army, but Benaiah controlled David’s elite guards.  Then there was the conflict between Abiathar and Zadok for control over the priesthood.  The mistake Adonijah, Joab, and Abiathar made was that they discounted the importance of Nathan as David’s spiritual advisor, and of Shimei and Rei.  We don’t really have any information about Rei, but Shimei’s appearance here gives us some insight into why David did not punish Shimei for cursing him as he fled from Absalom: David spared Shimei because Shimei controlled a powerbase whose support David desired.

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

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

There is a meme going around social media (and it has been going around off and on for awhile) that goes, “Tell me you are … without telling me you are …”  This book starts off with something about which I would say, “Tell me that David was no longer able to rule without telling me that David was no longer able to rule.”  The writer told us that David’s attendants got him a young woman to lie in his bed and keep him warm and that he did not have sexual relations with her, which was his way of saying that David was no longer able to truly do his job as king, that his various attendants were doing the things which really should be done by the king.  Which led his eldest surviving son, Adonijah, to decide to crown himself as king.  But, he knew he could not do so on his own, that he needed the support of, at least some, David’s inner circle.  It appears to me that he spoke to all of those mentioned and Joab, commander of the army, and Abiathar, the co-high priest, threw their support behind him, while that Zadok, the other high priest, Benaiah, the commander of David’s bodyguards, Nathan the prophet, and Shimei and Rei (we have no further identification of these last two, but I have always assumed that this Shimei was the same Shimei as the one who cursed David when he fled from Absalom).  Having obtained what he believed was sufficient support from David’s inner circle, Adonijah proceeded to crown himself as king.  I find it telling that Adonijah invited all of David’s other surviving sons, except Solomon, and all of the royal officials except Nathan and Benaiah to his coronation feast.

When Nathan learned that Adonijah was going through with making himself king, he went to Bathsheba and got her to go to David and ask him why Adonijah was being made king when David had promised her that Solomon would be king after him.  Now, I always wonder if David had actually made this promise, since there is no mention of it before this point in time.  However, I realized today that even if David had never made such a promise, the fact that Solomon was the only one of David’s other sons whom Adonijah had not invited to his coronation feast indicates that Solomon was known as David’s choice to take the throne after his death.  David’s response to the news that Adonijah was attempting to make himself king was to send Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah, along with David’s bodyguard to make Solomon king.  Before today I never noticed that David’s bodyguard was composed on non-Hebrews, Kerethites and Pelethites.  As best scholars can determine, these two ethnic groups were either Philistines, or closely associated with Philistines (the best explanation I can see is that Pelethite was a word for Philistines who allied with Israel and Kerethites were a closely related ethnic group who did likewise).  This made me realize that a good bit of David’s success came from his willingness to incorporate those who were not Hebrews into his forces and the administration of his kingdom.  If we look at David’s mighty men, and at the accounts of those who followed him we see that from the beginning, David welcomed any who chose to loyally follow him.  And to a large degree, Adonijah’s failure resulted from his thinking that he did not need the non-Israelites in David’s court on his side.

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

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

So, I started this daily devotional ten years ago today.  It has accomplished the purpose which inspired me to start writing: it motivates me to read some of the Bible each day (well, most days).  Sometimes I do entries for more than one day at a time, particularly when I know I have something coming up which will prevent me from writing a devotional for a day or more.  I was hoping that I might develop a following, but that does not appear to have been God’s plan.

The first thought which crosses my mind when I read this passage is about what caused the divide among King David’s most loyal retainers over the succession.  On the one hand, why did Joab and Abiathar the priest support Adonijah’s claim to the throne, while Zadok the priest, Nathan, Benaiah, and Shimei did not?  We can make some guesses, but the passage does not really tell us the answer.    The most likely reason that Joab and Abiathar supported Adonijah’s claim to the throne is that Adonijah was apparently the eldest of David’s surviving sons at this point.  We might believe that the others did not support Adonijah because they were aware of David’s promise to Bathsheba that Solomon would sit on his throne after him.  Except that this passage is the first time the Bible mentions that promise, and only by telling us that Nathan told Bathsheba to tell David that he had done so and then that Bathsheba told David that he had done so.  Nowhere does the passage, or any other that I am aware of, tell us that David had made such a promise.  We also know that Adonijah clearly considered Solomon his rival for the throne, since Adonijah had invited all of his other brothers to his coronation, but not Solomon.

I find it interesting that Adonijah did not intend this as a coup, since it becomes obvious he did not have any military force with him at his attempted coronation.  We know this to be the case because everyone with him scattered as soon as they heard that David had had Solomon crowned king.  All of this leads me to suspect I know the answer to why those who did not support Adonijah’s claim to the throne did not…those involved with running the government knew that Solomon was David’s chosen successor, and quite possibly Solomon was already acting as regent for King David.  Even if Solomon was not acting as regent, he was likely already making many of the decisions normally reserved for the king to make.  Which would also explain why Adonijah acted when he did.  Adonijah was hoping that by declaring himself king while David yet lived he could make it a fait accompli which no one would be able to reverse.  As I read this, if Adonijah had not acted at this point, upon David’s death Solomon would have just stepped into the role of king.

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

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.

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

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

I find that the NIV translation of this passage makes it clearer what happened when David’s son Adonijah decided to make himself king.  In the NLT, it seems as if the story about King David and Abishag is a story about David.  In the NIV, you can see that it is included because it explains why Joab and Abiathar thought that Adonijah should take the throne.  What is not clear is why David’s other advisers opposed Adonijah becoming king.  This is not because we cannot read the passage and think of many good reasons for them to do so.  Rather it is because the passage gives us little insight into their reasons.  However, there is one telling point which allows us to believe that their reasons were not selfish.  When Adonijah made his move he invited all of David’s other sons to join him, except Solomon.  This suggests that David had already made it clear that Solomon was his choice as a successor.  The fact that Nathan the prophet pulled the strings to get David to have Solomon crowned suggests that Solomon was God’s choice as well.

I started out thinking that this story had little to give us a lesson today.  Yet, when I finished writing the previous paragraph I realized that was not true.  This situation arose because David failed to turn over authority to a chosen successor when he became unable to truly exercise that authority himself.  If David had appointed Solomon as his successor sooner, Adonijah would never have tried to seize the throne.  We need to recognize when it is time to pass our responsibilities on to someone else.  This is the flip side of the lesson we learn from the story of Caleb in the Book of Joshua.  That lesson was that we are never too old to do the tasks to which God has called us.  This lesson is that sometimes those tasks are to hand our life’s missions on to the next generation.