Long Live the King! - Reflections on 1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 for Proper 15, Year B

by John Hoblert on Thursday, August 15, 2024

The lectionary collectors toss us something of curveball this week, joining together two quite disparate texts, the end of David’s life and the beginning of the reign of his favorite son, Solomon. Even a careful reading of the two in English indicates that we are dealing with two very different narrators, even though the three verses chosen from 1 Kings 2 sound quite inocuous without their long and troubled context.

          David’s life ends in his royal bed,  finally alone and cold, attended by the beautiful Abishag, a woman chosen by David’s retainers to warm the freezing king before he leaves his life. Unfortunately, “the king knew her not” (1 Kings 1:4); his near-mythical sexual prowess has deserted him in his old age. As his end approaches, there is a mad scramble to become his successor. His eldest living child, Adonijah, with the connivance of General Joab and the priest Abiathar, declares his right to the throne and invites his many friends and allies to join him in a large tent outside of Jerusalem to announce and celebrate his coming accession. Meanwhile, those who have not been invited to the tent of Adonijah, namely Zadok, a rival priest, Benaiah, a rival to Joab, the prophet Nathan, Shimei and Rei, David’s bodyguards, and most especially his beloved wife, Bathsheba, hatch a plan of their own.

          It is obvious that these last named will suffer greatly if Adonijah becomes the king. They are intent that Solomon must be king, thus assuring their safety within the realm. Bathsheba, under the advice of Nathan (1 Kings 1:11), goes right to the bedchamber of the dying David, and demands to know just why it is that Adonijah is saying he is king. She speaks as follows: “My lord, you yourself swore by YHWH your God to your servant (namely Bathsheba!), ‘Solomon your son will be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne’” (1 Kings 1:17). There is no written record of David ever having said anything like this to anyone, and surely not to his scheming wife. And he adds to her speech, tellingly, if Adonijah becomes king, “I and my son Solomon will be held offenders” (1 Kings 1:21). In short, our lives will be cut off by this usurping pretender, Adonijah, so David, you must say publicly that Solomon will be your heir!

          And immediately, Nathan, the prophet who earlier had so soundly and effectively upbraided David for his evil with Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah, comes into the chamber and supports Bathsheba in all that she has said, placing thereby the divine seal of approval on the reign of Solomon. And so it happens, the aged king rises off his royal pillows and proclaims Solomon his heir. In short order, Solomon rides on the sacred mule and is proclaimed king by an apparently enthusiastic populace. And Adonijah realizes he has lost the struggle for the kingship, and leaves the tent along with all of those who followed him with the hope of power, and scuttle off into the night to attempt to save themselves from the wrath of the new king.

          But before David dies, he calls Solomon to him and “in a last will and testament worthy of a dying Mafia capo” (R. Alter, The David Story, 374.) commands Solomon to pay off two old scores with David’s enemies. First, he says, Joab must be dealt with at last, he who for 50 years has done David’s dirtiest work for him, but now must pay the price for his dogged and immoral actions. “You must act in your wisdom, and do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace” (1 Kings 2:6). In other words, have Joab killed, which Solomon will later do. The second enemy that David feels the need to get even with is the pathetic and aged Shemei, who when David was running for his life from his son, Absalom, cursed the king, annnouncing loudly that he was getting precisely what he deserved, being the “man of blood” that he was. Of course, the old man is all too right about the bloody-minded king, but at the very end of his life, David must get even for the humiliation. Murder him, too, says David (1 Kings 2:9). And then it is that David at last dies with revenge on his mind and lips (1 Kings 2:10-13).

          Not only does Solomon act as his father has commanded him, having both Joab and Shemei killed, but also deals with Adonijah, who foolishly asks for the hand of Abishag as wife. All know, as Adonijah surely must, that to request a former king’s consort is to announce nothing else than a desire to be king. Solomon works up a furious rage and dispatches Benaiah, his kingdom’s new hit man, to slay Adonijah (1 Kings 2:25). Very soon after, Joab is murdered at the very altar of protection, and Shemei is likewise dispatched when he attempts to recapture two runaway slaves, thus breaking Solomon’s demand that he never leave his house.

          And that brings us to 1 Kings 3 which is a lengthy and deeply pious prayer attributed to Solomon, that same Solomon who has just engaged in an orgy of bloodshed and revenge on his enemies; he has come to the throne of Israel on a vertiable ocean of mayhem and blood. I fear his pious prayer in this context rings hollow. When the text claims, “Solomon loved YHWH, walking in the statutes of his father David; however he sacrificed and offered incense at the high places” (1 Kings 3:3), it is a small intrusion of difficulty in a sea of piety by the new king, but it will surely not be the last time that Solomon is upbraided, even by this overtly pious Deuteronomist, clearly the author of this prayer. It will be said more than once that Solomon is enamored of things foreign, from wives and concubines to richly appointed temples. Yet, here, in this prayer, the new king, in reply to a dream request from YHWH that he “should ask what I (YHWH) should give you,” asks only for a “discerning spirit (or “understanding mind”) to govern your people, to be able to discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). And YHWH’s reply to this humble request? “I do inded give you a wise and discerning mind…and I also give you what you did not ask for, both riches and honor all your life; no other king will compare with you” (1 Kings 3:11, 13). Thus, Solomon is given by YHWH, according to this text, what he has long been remembered for, namely wisdom, not to mention fabulous royal wealth.

          But any reader who has just consumed the horrifying tale of revenge and murder of 1 Kings 1-2, is surely suspicious of this so-called pious and wise Solomon. The brilliant narrator, who has led us through the complex story of Samuel, Saul, and David, from 1 and 2 Samuel through to 1 Kings 1-2, will simply not allow us to accept such a simplistic and innocuous portrait of any king of Israel. It has always deeply saddened me that that storyteller stopped his narration when he did, leaving us without the rich pictures conjured in the previous chapters. Neverthless, those pictures have forever determined the vast and rich tableaux that have been ours to see nearly this entire summer of texts. I hope you have enabled your congregation to enjoy the feast along with you as you have preached with these matchless tales.