The First Book of the Kings

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(Psalm 37:1–40)

When David knew that he was about to die, he gave these final instructions to his son Solomon:

“I am about to die, as everyone else on earth does. Be courageous and conduct yourself as man should.

Do what Yahweh our God tells you to do. Conduct yourself as he wants you to do. Obey all of his laws and commands and decrees and instructions that are written in the laws that Moses gave us. Do this in order that you will prosper in all that you do and wherever you go.

If you continually do that, Yahweh will do what he promised me. He said, ‘If your descendants do what I tell them to do, and faithfully obey my commands with all their inner beings, they will always be the ones who will rule Israel.’

There is something else that I want you to do. You know what Joab did to me. He killed my two army commanders, Abner and Amasa. He murdered them violently. He is guilty of murder.

Because you are wise, do to him what you think is best for you to do, but do not allow him to become old and die peacefully.

But act kindly toward the sons of Barzillai, the man from the region of Gilead, and be sure that they always have enough food to eat. Do that because Barzillai helped me when I was running away from your older brother Absalom.

Also, you remember Gera’s son Shimei from the town of Bahurim in the area where the descendants of Benjamin live. You know what he did to me. He cursed me terribly on the day I left Jerusalem and went to the town of Mahanaim. But when he later came down to see me when I was crossing the Jordan River, I solemnly promised, while Yahweh listened, that I would not cause him to be executed.

But now you must surely punish him. You are a wise man, so you will know what you should do to him. He is an old man, but be sure that his blood flows when he dies.”

David’s Reign and Death

(1 Chronicles 29:26–30)

Then David died and was buried in that part of Jerusalem which was called the city of David.

David had been king of Israel for forty years. He ruled for seven years in Hebron and for thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

Solomon became the ruler to take the place of his father David and took control of all of the kingdom.

The Execution of Adonijah

One day Adonijah came to Solomon’s mother Bathsheba. She said to him, “Have you come because you want things to go well?” He replied, “Yes.”

But then he said, “I have something to request you to do.” She said, “Tell me what you want me to do.”

He said, “You know that all the Israelite people expected me to be their king because I am David’s oldest son. But that did not happen. Instead, my younger brother became king, because that is what Yahweh wanted.

Now I have one thing that I request you to do. Please do not refuse to do it.” She replied, “Tell me what you want me to do.”

He said, “Please ask King Solomon to give to me Abishag, the woman from the town of Shunem, to be my wife. I am sure that he will not refuse.”

Bathsheba replied, “Very well, I will speak to the king for you.”

So Bathsheba went to King Solomon. The king got up from his throne and went to greet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat on his throne again and asked someone to bring a chair for her. So she sat down at the king’s right side.

Then she said, “I have one small thing that I want you to do. Please do not say that you will not do it.” The king replied, “Mother, what do you want? I will not refuse you.”

She said, “Allow Abishag to be given to your older brother Adonijah to be his wife.”

The king replied angrily, “What? Are you requesting me to give Abishag to Adonijah? Does he want me to allow him to rule the kingdom, too? Because he is my older brother, does he think that he should be the king? Does he think that Abiathar should be the priest instead of Zadok, and that Joab should be the army commander instead of Benaiah because they supported him when he tried to become the king?”

Then Solomon solemnly promised, requesting Yahweh to listen, “I wish God to strike me and kill me if I do not cause Adonijah to be executed for requesting this!

Yahweh has appointed me to be the king and placed me here to rule as my father David did. He has promised that my descendants will be the kings of Israel. So just as surely as Yahweh lives, I solemnly promise that Adonijah will be executed today!”

So King Solomon gave orders to Benaiah to go and kill Adonijah, and Benaiah did that.

Then Solomon said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to the town of Anathoth, to your land there. You deserve to be killed, but I will not execute you now, because you were the one who supervised the men who carried Yahweh’s sacred chest for David my father, and you endured all the troubles that my father endured.”

So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being the priest of Yahweh. By doing that he caused to happen what Yahweh had said many years previously at Shiloh, that some day he would get rid of the descendants of Eli.

The Execution of Joab

Joab had not supported Absalom when he tried to become the king, but he had supported Adonijah. So when Joab heard what had happened, he ran to the sacred tent, and he took hold of the altar because he thought that no one would kill him there.

When someone told Solomon that Joab had run to the sacred tent and was alongside the altar, Solomon told Benaiah, “Go and execute Joab.”

So Benaiah went to the sacred tent and said to Joab, “The king commands that you come out.” But Joab replied, “No, I will die here.” So Benaiah went back to the king and reported what he had said to Joab, and what Joab had replied.

The king replied to him, “Do what he has requested. Kill him and bury his body. If you do that, I and my descendants will no longer be punished for what Joab did when he killed two men who were innocent.

But I hope that Yahweh will punish Joab for attacking and killing Abner, the commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the commander of the army of Judah, who were both much better men than he is. My father David did not even know that Joab was planning to murder them.

I hope that Yahweh will punish Joab and his descendants forever for his murdering Abner and Amasa. But I hope that things will go well forever for David’s descendants who rule as he did.”

So Benaiah went into the sacred tent and killed Joab. Joab was buried on his property in the wilderness of Judah.

Then the king appointed Benaiah to be the commander of the army instead of Joab, and he appointed Zadok to be the priest instead of Abiathar.

The Execution of Shimei

Then the king sent a messenger to summon Shimei, and the king said to him, “Build a house for yourself here in Jerusalem. Remain there and do not leave the city to go anywhere.

Be sure that the day that you leave Jerusalem and go across the Kidron Brook, you will be executed, and it will be your own fault.”

Shimei replied, “Your Majesty, what you say is good. I will do what you have said.” So Shimei remained in Jerusalem for several years.

But three years later, two of Shimei’s slaves ran away. They went to stay with Maacah’s son Achish, the king of the city of Gath. When someone told Shimei that they were in Gath,

he put a saddle on his donkey and got on the donkey and went to Gath. He found his slaves staying with King Achish and brought them back home.

But someone told King Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned.

So the king sent a soldier to summon Shimei and said to him, “I told you to solemnly promise, knowing that Yahweh was listening, that you must not leave Jerusalem. I told you, ‘Be sure that if you ever leave Jerusalem, you will be executed.’ And you replied to me, ‘What you have said is good; I will do what you have said.’

So why did you not do what you solemnly promised to Yahweh? Why did you disobey what I commanded you?”

The king also said to Shimei, “You know in your inner being all the evil things that you did to my father David. So Yahweh will now punish you for the evil things that you did.

But Yahweh will bless me, and he will enable David’s descendants to rule forever.”

Then the king gave a command to Benaiah son of Jehoiada. He went out and put Shimei to death. So Solomon obtained complete control of the kingdom.

(Psalm 37:1–40)

Now the days of David came near that he should die; and he commanded Solomon his son, saying,

“I am going the way of all the earth. You be strong therefore, and show yourself a man;

and keep the instruction of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn yourself.

Then the LORD may establish his word which he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your children are careful of their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail you,’ he said, ‘a man on the throne of Israel.’

“Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, even what he did to the two captains of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his sash that was around his waist and in his sandals that were on his feet.

Do therefore according to your wisdom, and don’t let his gray head go down to Sheol

(a)

in peace.

But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for so they came to me when I fled from Absalom your brother.

“Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’

Now therefore don’t hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down to Sheol

(b)

with blood.”

David’s Reign and Death

(1 Chronicles 29:26–30)

David slept with his fathers, and was buried in David’s city.

The days that David reigned over Israel were forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

Solomon sat on David his father’s throne; and his kingdom was firmly established.

The Execution of Adonijah

Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. She said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably.

He said moreover, I have something to tell you.” She said, “Say on.”

He said, “You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign. However, the kingdom is turned around, and has become my brother’s; for it was his from the LORD.

Now I ask one petition of you. Don’t deny me.” She said to him, “Say on.”

He said, “Please speak to Solomon the king (for he will not tell you ‘no’), that he give me Abishag the Shunammite as wife.”

Bathsheba said, “All right. I will speak for you to the king.”

Bathsheba therefore went to King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose up to meet her and bowed himself to her, and sat down on his throne and caused a throne to be set for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right hand.

Then she said, “I ask one small petition of you; don’t deny me.” The king said to her, “Ask on, my mother, for I will not deny you.”

She said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as wife.”

King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my elder brother; even for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”

Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, “God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life.

Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on my father David’s throne, and who has made me a house as he promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death today.”

King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell on him, so that he died.

To Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are worthy of death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you bore the Lord

(c)

GOD’s ark before David my father, and because you were afflicted in all in which my father was afflicted.”

So Solomon thrust Abiathar out from being priest to the LORD, that he might fulfill the LORD’s word which he spoke concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

The Execution of Joab

This news came to Joab; for Joab had followed Adonijah, although he didn’t follow Absalom. Joab fled to the LORD’s Tent, and held onto the horns of the altar.

King Solomon was told, “Joab has fled to the LORD’s Tent; and behold, he is by the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, fall on him.”

Benaiah came to the LORD’s Tent, and said to him, “The king says, ‘Come out!’” He said, “No; but I will die here.” Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, “This is what Joab said, and this is how he answered me.”

The king said to him, “Do as he has said, and fall on him, and bury him, that you may take away the blood, which Joab shed without cause, from me and from my father’s house.

The LORD will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn’t know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.

So their blood will return on the head of Joab and on the head of his offspring

(d)

forever. But for David, for his offspring, for his house, and for his throne, there will be peace forever from the LORD.”

Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell on him, and killed him; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.

The king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his place over the army; and the king put Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar.

The Execution of Shimei

The king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and live there, and don’t go anywhere else.

For on the day you go out and pass over the brook Kidron, know for certain that you will surely die. Your blood will be on your own head.”

Shimei said to the king, “What you say is good. As my lord the king has said, so will your servant do.” Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

At the end of three years, two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. They told Shimei, saying, “Behold, your slaves are in Gath.”

Shimei arose, saddled his donkey, and went to Gath to Achish to seek his slaves; and Shimei went and brought his slaves from Gath.

Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and had come again.

The king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, “Didn’t I adjure you by the LORD and warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and walk anywhere else, you shall surely die’? You said to me, ‘The saying that I have heard is good.’

Why then have you not kept the oath of the LORD and the commandment that I have instructed you with?”

The king said moreover to Shimei, “You know in your heart all the wickedness that you did to David my father. Therefore the LORD will return your wickedness on your own head.

But King Solomon will be blessed, and David’s throne will be established before the LORD forever.”

So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell on him, so that he died. The kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Fußnoten

(a)2:6 Sheol is the place of the dead.

(b)2:9 Sheol is the place of the dead.

(d)2:33 or, seed