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.