2 Samuel ended with David at an altar; 1 Kings opens with him in bed, old and stricken in years, covered with clothes and getting no heat (v. 1). The servants' remedy is a young virgin to cherish him and lie in thy bosom (v. 2), and they find Abishag a Shunammite — of Shunem in Issachar, it seems. Verse 4 is careful: the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not. The narrator states it plainly, and the study does the same: there was no sexual relationship. The phrase matters for chapter 2, where Adonijah will ask for her.

Readers should feel the weakness the narrator wants felt. The king who ran at Goliath, who danced before the ark, cannot get warm; and the man who once could not keep from a woman on a roof now knew her not. The verse is not mockery; it is the end of strength, told without comment. But it also explains the chapter: a king who cannot rise from bed seems to many to be no longer ruling, and the question who shall sit on the throne? (v. 20) is asked because the throne looks empty. Psalm 71:9, cast me not off in the time of old age, has been read as a prayer that fits this room.

Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king — the fourth son of 2 Samuel 3:4, and now, with Amnon and Absalom dead (and Chileab not heard of again), apparently the eldest living. He prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him — exactly what Absalom did (2 Samuel 15:1). The narrator adds two notes that make the comparison deliberate: his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? and he also was a very goodly man; and his mother bare him after Absalom (v. 6). A handsome son, never corrected, with runners.

His father had not displeased him at any time — the study reads this as the narrator's quiet verdict on David the father, as with Amnon (2 Samuel 13:21) and Absalom (14:33). Adonijah had a reasonable claim by age, and the text does not call him wicked here; what it shows is that he exalted himself, and took the throne by feast and faction rather than by the king's word or the LORD's. He conferred with Joab... and with Abiathar the priest (v. 7) — the army and one of the two priests — while Zadok... Benaiah... Nathan... and the mighty men stayed away (v. 8). The court divides along lines the reader already knows.

By the stone of Zoheleth, which is by Enrogel — the spring in the valley south of the city where Jonathan and Ahimaaz waited in Absalom's day (2 Samuel 17:17). Adonijah's feast is a sacrifice and a coronation meal together: sheep and oxen and fat cattle, and the guest list is the message — all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants. Verse 10 gives the other list: Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother, he called not. Who is not invited tells the reader that Adonijah knew who his rival was, and knew what the prophet had said about him.

Readers should recall 2 Samuel 12:24-25: the LORD loved Solomon, and sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, who called him Jedidiah, beloved of the LORD. Nathan was the prophet of the covenant of 2 Samuel 7 and of the rebuke of 2 Samuel 12; leaving him out, with Solomon, is a choice against that word. The study notes that the text never records an earlier public decree naming Solomon as heir, and that Adonijah's claim by birth was the ordinary one. But the narrator has told us whom the LORD loved, and Adonijah's guest list says he knew it too.

Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith doth reign, and David our lord knoweth it not? (v. 11). Nathan, the prophet who once came to David with a parable, now comes to Bathsheba with a plan: that thou mayest save thine own life, and the life of thy son Solomon (v. 12) — a usurper, as both knew, would not leave a rival heir alive. Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me...? The study notes honestly that this oath is not recorded anywhere earlier in Scripture; we hear of it first here, from Nathan, and then from Bathsheba and David.

Some readers have suspected that Nathan and Bathsheba invented the oath to work upon a failing king; the text gives no hint of it, and David himself confirms it — Even as I sware unto thee by the LORD God of Israel (v. 30) — with no sign of surprise. Others note the stagecraft: Bathsheba speaks, and while thou yet talkest... I also will come in after thee, and confirm thy words (v. 14). The study takes the oath as real, as the narrator does, and the method as human — a prophet using a palace's means to see that the LORD's word (1 Chronicles 22:9-10) is not lost through an old man's silence.

Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance and reports the feast (vv. 16-19): Adonijah reigneth, and now, my lord the king, thou knowest it not — he has invited Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain of the host: but Solomon thy servant hath he not called. Then the heart of her plea: the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne. The king's silence, not Adonijah's feast, is the real danger. In Israel no rule yet fixed that the eldest son must reign; Saul's house had fallen and David had been chosen. The decision was the king's, under God, and he had not given it.

Otherwise... I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders (v. 21) — the Hebrew word means sinners, those who have missed the mark; here it means rebels, who will be dealt with as rebels. Readers should hear the fear in it; Bathsheba is not overstating. Then Nathan enters (vv. 22-27), bows with his face to the ground, and asks the question as a question: hast thou said, Adonijah shall reign after me? He repeats the feast, adds that the guests cry God save king Adonijah (v. 25), and lists those not called — me, even me thy servant, and Zadok... and Benaiah... and thy servant Solomon (v. 26). The prophet lets the king judge.

Then king David answered and said, Call me Bathsheba (v. 28). The old man in the bed acts, and the first thing he does is swear: As the LORD liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress (v. 29) — close to the oath he swore over Rechab and Baanah, out of all adversity (2 Samuel 4:9), and a summary of his life. Even as I sware unto thee... Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me... even so will I certainly do this day. Not tomorrow, not after his death: this day. The king who had let the succession drift for so long settles it in a sentence. The study takes this as the verse on which the chapter turns.

Bathsheba answers Let my lord king David live for ever (v. 31) — the court formula, spoken to a dying man, and also a woman's thanks. Readers should note who is in the room: the wife of Uriah, whose taking was the great sin of the reign, now the mother of the chosen heir; and Nathan, who had told David the sword shall never depart from thine house (2 Samuel 12:10), now securing that house's future. The study does not make the grace of it neat. The child of the sin died (2 Samuel 12:18); Solomon was the child given after mourning (12:24), and God's choice of him is the chapter's quiet mercy.

David's orders (vv. 32-35) are a coronation in miniature: cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule — the king's own beast, a public sign; bring him down to Gihon, the spring east of the city; let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel; trumpet and cry; then up to sit upon my throne. I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah — both named, as in 2 Samuel 5:5. Benaiah answers Amen and prays that the LORD make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David (v. 37) — words the servants will echo at the bedside (v. 47), where the old king answers by blessing the LORD (v. 48).

Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle — most take this as the tent David had pitched for the ark (2 Samuel 6:17), though the study notes that 1 Kings 3:4 places the great altar at Gibeon. The guard goes down: the Cherethites, and the Pelethites (2 Samuel 8:18), Benaiah's men. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon — the cry Adonijah's guests had shouted for him (v. 25), now from all the people. Verse 40 gives the noise: pipes and great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them. Saul and David were anointed by Samuel; Solomon is anointed by priest and prophet together.

At Enrogel the guests had made an end of eating when the noise reaches them (v. 41), and Joab, the old soldier, is the first to ask what the trumpet means. Jonathan the son of Abiathar — the runner of 2 Samuel 15:36 and 17:17 — is greeted as one who bringest good tidings (v. 42), and brings the worst: Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king (v. 43), anointed, enthroned, blessed by the court, and the old king bowed himself upon the bed and blessed the LORD which hath given one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it (v. 48). All the guests... were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way (v. 49). The faction is gone in a verse.

Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. The horns were the projections at the altar's corners (Exodus 27:2), and the altar was a place of refuge — but not for the guilty of murder, whom the Law said thou shalt take... from mine altar, that he may die (Exodus 21:14). Adonijah has shed no blood, and asks an oath: Let king Solomon swear unto me today that he will not slay his servant (v. 51). Solomon swears nothing; he sets a condition — if he will shew himself a worthy man, there shall not an hair of him fall... but if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die (v. 52) — and sends him home (v. 53).