Topic: WHAT DO YOU WANT: ABISHAG OR THE KINGDOM?
Text:1 Kings 2:19-27
2:19 Bathsheba therefore went to King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her and bowed down to her, and sat down on his throne and had a throne set for the king’s mother; so she sat at his right hand
2:20 Then she said, “I desire one small petition of you; do not [d]refuse me.” And the king said to her, “Ask it, my mother, for I will not refuse you.”
2:21 So she said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as wife.”
2:22 And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, “Now why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also—for he is my older brother—for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”
2:23 Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, saying, “May God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life!
2:24 Now therefore, as the Lord lives, who has confirmed me and set me on the throne of David my father, and who has established a [e]house for me, as He promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today!”
2:25 So King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he struck him down, and he died.
2:26 And to Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for [f]you are deserving of death; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted.”
2:27 So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, that he might fulfill the word of the Lord which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.
STUDY:
Abishag was the young woman who cared for and ministered to David in his old age, like a companion. In ancient Near Eastern culture, marrying a king’s concubine was not simply about love. It was an assertion of one’s claim to power and status (2 Sam. 16:21-22). It was one of the customs of that culture that the concubines of a sovereign descended to his successor. Adonijah’s request for Abishag was beyond mere romantic interest; it was an appeal to legitimacy and authority. Solomon’s sharp and yet decisive response to Adonijah’s request (v. 22) shows his awareness that this was manipulative; Adonijah was seeking to utilise this means to reclaim power. Solomon therefore pronounced a death sentence on Adonijah.
We have lessons to learn here from Adonijah, Bathsheba and Solomon. Having received pardon for his initial action of setting himself up for the throne (1 Kings 1:50-52), Adonijah needed not to have had an eye on the throne again. His death came from the desire for something temporal. Bathsheba, who was highly respected by her son, was used by the conspirators against the kingdom, thereby ‘misusing’ her position to facilitate an ‘unholy’ request. And for Solomon, he was discerning enough to see through the pretence of Adonijah and to know what he was aiming at. He was not naive in his assessment. We must be watchful.
Prayer:
Lord, may I not be an instrument in the hands of conspirators. Help me to see through the pretenses of men.
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