Solomon was able to see clearly that it was God’s hand that had placed him on David’s throne. Adonijah, another son of David and Solomon’s half-brother, had attempted to rally a group of leaders around him so as to make a show of taking power as the next king over Israel. But it wasn’t real. It was a fake kingship. It was fake leadership.
But Solomon knew that God himself had placed him on the throne. He had been rightfully named by David to be the successor, to be the next king.
And yet Solomon was still merciful. He allowed Adonijah to live. If Adonijah would be loyal to the king, to Solomon, he would be allowed to stay and live in the kingdom. If not, however, it would be Adonijah’s end.
Adonijah just couldn’t get the idea of being the king out of his head. He kept thinking of ways that he could wiggle his way into the palace, to find his way to the front of the line. He made a request to Solomon through Bathsheba, Solomon’s own mother, that Solomon would allow him to have Abishag as his wife.
But Solomon saw through the request. He knew that this wasn’t just a request from Adonijah because he loved Abishag. No, this was a power play.
Abishag, despite not having sex with the king, had been chosen as a type of concubine for king David to lay with him and keep him warm in the days and weeks leading up to his death. In that time of ancient Israel, taking the king’s concubines was a sign of power, of taking the throne from the current king, just as Absalom had done with David’s concubines when he took control of the palace. As David left Jerusalem, he left behind his concubines and as Absalom came to take the throne, one of the first things that he did was to sleep with each of David’s concubines in a tent before all of Jerusalem.
But Solomon understood what Adonijah was doing, so despite the mercy that he had shown to Adonijah previously, giving him a chance to remain loyal to him as king, Solomon now acted decisively. He acted with moral clarity. He knew that God had given him the throne and the role that he should have as the king to establish peace in Israel:
And now, as surely as the LORD lives—he who has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a dynasty for me as he promised —Adonijah shall be put to death today!
1 Kings 2:24
Personally, I have struggled to understand what was happening to David in his latter years as king over Israel. Previously, before he decided to let his armies go to war without him and instead decided to stay in Jerusalem where he would take Uriah’s wife Bathsheba and then subsequently kill Uriah, he seemed to speak and act with a confidence that I believe we could only say was given to him by God. However, after his fall in sleeping with Bathsheba and murdering Uriah, David seems to lose his clarity of thought. He no longer has a clear vision of what God has called him to do as he leads Israel. He can no longer objectively see what he should do.
As a result, the child who was born from him having slept with Bathsheba died.
As a result, David doesn’t rebuke or punish Amnon for raping his sister Tamar.
As a result, Absalom kills Amnon and sets his sights on becoming king over David.
As a result, David leaves his throne and the city of Jerusalem so that Absalom can enter.
As a result, David’s kingdom ends up in war, yet David doesn’t want Absalom, who is in rebellion to the true owner of the throne over Israel, to be killed.
And finally, as a result, Adonijah also believes that he can take the throne as king and further divides the kingdom, subsequently causing more death and destruction.
All of this resulted from David’s disconnection from God and his willingness to do whatever it was that he wanted to do. He slept with whom he wanted. He killed whom he wanted to cover up for his sexual sins.
My inclination has been to try to see David in the light of God saying that he was a man after God’s own heart. He was supposed to be one of the good guys. And I believe that was true. He was one of the good guys. At one time, one of the best. Prior to him deciding to live based on his own prestige, based on his own power, he definitely did act in this way. He was a man that acted with the heart of God. So my desire has been to try to see his lack of rebuke of Amnon and his love for Absalom in this light as well.
But now, understanding the clarity with which Solomon acts, the clear vision with which he sees the reality of the situation and takes action upon Adonijah as well as the others who had aligned themselves with Adonijah, I think I am now fully persuaded that David had truly lost his way. Solomon sees the hand of God, the will of God, in the way that he was given the throne over Israel and so he speaks and acts with a similar clarity with which David spoke prior to the turning point of his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. Solomon, at this time, has not yet been lured away into his own self-absorbed, self-exalted stupor caused by his view of himself through riches and power, so he still sees with the clarity that God gives him. He still is able to understand clearly God’s intention that he would be king over Israel, so he makes decisions and acts within that clarity.
The roots of sin can be, at times, a difficult thing to fully nail down to understand completely. In David’s case, I believe that David’s sin was actually not just the fact that he slept with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. Yes, these were egregious sins and certainly seemed to mark David’s downfall, but these were the outward symptoms of an inward reality of what was happening within of David. At some point along the way, David’s pride began to allow him to think that it would be OK to call Bathsheba to him and sleep with her. David’s pride allowed him to think it would be OK to send Uriah to his death, intentionally murdering him, even causing the death of others.
This is the same type of deception that happened to Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden. It seemed that they were being punished because they ate a piece of fruit. But what was really happening? They believed that they would be like God, themselves having the “knowledge” of good and evil. In other words, they could decide for themselves what was right and wrong. They would have this knowledge. So, as a result of their pride and desire to no longer be ruled by God, no longer need to listen to him, they ate the fruit and their eyes were opened.
This is the pride by which David was deceived, and this is the same pride by which we must also remember that we must not be deceived. We must understand the lessons of pride and desire to be our own “gods”, making our own decisions about right and wrong in our own way. We may not be kings, but in the influence of our own world, we can make similar pride-filled decisions that take us far from God’s plan for our lives.
Instead, I pray that, for myself, I will be able to remain connected to the vine, as Jesus says in John 15. I pray that I will remain connected to him, the true source of life. I pray that I will be able to truly understand my relationship to him, that he is God, the one and true God over all people and all things. I pray that my life will continue to glorify him, not choosing for myself what is right and what is wrong, but instead living for him above all and in this way, I will have a guide for my life, as both David and Solomon did before their pride led them away from God’s plan for their lives.
