11. And Nathan spoke to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, saying, “have you not heard that Adonijahu ben Haggith reigns and our lord David does not know it?

12. “And now, come, let me counsel you (with) counsel. And let your life and the life of your son Solomon escape (= save yourself and your son).

13. “Go and come to the king, David, and you will say to him, ‘you, my lord, the king, did you not swear to your maidservant, saying “yes, Solomon, your son, will reign after me, and he will sit on my throne.” So why does Adonijahu reign?’

14. “Dude! You will still be speaking there with the king and I, I will come in after you and will fill your words.”

Comments on the Text

At first glance, v. 11 is overloaded with personal identifiers, particularly since the reader is familiar with all of these characters. The mention of Bathsheba as “Solomon’s mother” and Adonijahu as “son of Haggith” are somewhat superfluous in context. The opening of Nathan’s speech in this verse is only the third time that the name “David” appears in the book. It is the first time that it remains unqualified, bearing neither the title “the king” nor the reference to his soldiers. While from a literary standpoint, this episode clearly continues from the preceding, it is conspicuous that Nathan, and not Solomon, is suddenly Adonijah/u’s alternate as the head of one of the opposing parties.

In verse 12, Nathan’s first command to Bathsheba is not literally to “come,” but rather to “go.” Biblical Hebrew uses this similarly to “come now” or “come on” in contemporary English. In the continuation of his speech, Nathan presumes that Adonijah/u will kill both Bathsheba and Solomon, though such has been intimated at no point thus far in the narrative. He expresses this as an imperative with the verb “escape,” used here as a transitive with the objects “your/your son’s breath/life/soul.” First Nathan expresses why Bathsheba should act, before stating how in the next verse.

Nathan tells Bathsheba what to do in vv. 13-14 and informs her how his plan will develop. She should go to the David, once again, described here as “the king” and tell him of a promise he made to her, to make her son king after him. I initially started to write “remind” instead of “tell” in the previous sentence, but David has never made such a promise–to Bathsheba or anyone else–anywhere in the Bible. This is the first time that it has been expressed that Solomon should succeed David on the throne. Nathan suggests she should mention both that Solomon should reign and that he should sit on David’s throne, essentially a duplication that we find variously in the next chapters of Kings. Again, Nathan refers to Adonijahu, not Adonijah. This whole plan sounds suspicious from the outset. Perhaps the previous identification of Nathan as “the prophet” in vv. 8 and 10 should let the reader imagine that this whole idea stems from God, but the narrator has at no point either explicitly stated such nor obliquely implied it.

Nathan’s instructing Bathsheba concludes with he noting his part in the whole plan: he will come in and confirm what Bathsheba has said. That being said, he does not enumerate specifically what he will confirm, other than Bathsheba’s words generally. That is, which part of all of this will he affirm: Adonijahu’s attempting to reign (a fact that the narrator has imparted to the reader) or “the king’s” presumed promise to Bathsheba (to which the narrator remains silent)? This conclusion to the speech again raises eyebrows and leaves the reader somewhat suspicious.

5. And Andonijah ben Haggith raised himself, saying, “I, I will be king.” And he made for himself chariotry and horses and fifty men running before him.
6. And his father had not upset him from his days, saying, “to what end did you do thus?” And also he was of very good form. And him she bore after Absalom.
7. And his words were with Joab ben Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they helped behind [i.e., they supported] Adoniah.
8. And Zadok the priest and Benaiahu ben Jehoiada and Nathan the prophet and Shimei and Rei and the warriors who belonged to David, they were not with Adoniahu.
9. And Adoniahu sacrificed sheep and cattle and fattened calves with [= “at”?] the stone of Zoheleth [“Slithering Stone”] that was by the Rogel well. And he called all his brothers–the sons of the king–and to all of the men of Judah–the servants of the king.
10. And Nathan the prophet and Benaiahu and the warriors and Solomon, his brother, he did not call.

Comments on the Text

Verse five has, at first glance, nothing to do with the preceding material. The text reintroduces a character, namely Adoniah, the son of Haggith (and David, who is not named here). The last time he appeared was in a list of David’s sons in 2 Sam 3:4. The same is true of his mother. Adoniah is said to “raise himself,” an unusual reflexive form of a common verb, and proclaim his ascendency to the throne. Both verbal forms used for Adoniah here are unique in the Hebrew Bible. The remainder of the verse serves to cast Adoniah in a suspicious light, in that it strongly echoes the description of Absalom, David’s son. Second Samuel 15:1 reports the beginning of Absalom’s revolt against his father. Though the terms for chariotry and horses differ in these cases, the intention seems to be clear: Adoniah is revolting against his father, just as his brother previously had. So, while the first half of the verse recounts something distinct, the latter half sounds distinctly familiar to anyone who knows the stories of the book of Samuel.

Verse six relates Adoniah to his father, who is not named nor is his office mentioned. The verb “upset” has not appeared in the Hebrew Bible since 2 Sam 19:3, where it describes the king’s (David’s) mourning for his son Absalom (incidentally, it is also the term used for the pain of a woman in childbirth in Gen 3:16, if that matters). That is, the connection here points back to the Absalom story, just as the preceding material. The mention of Adoniah’s appearance might seem unusual initially, but it relates his both the David and Absalom (cf. 1 Sam 16:12, 18; and 2 Sam 14:25). Unusually, the final phrase in this verse returns back to Adoniah’s mother, mentioned in v. 5. At least, the subject is feminine. However, the phrase would suggest that Haggith was also the mother of Absalom, which was not the case according to 2 Sam 3:3-4, which notes that different mothers bore Absalom and Adoniah.

Verse seven turns to Adoniah’s supporters, namely Joab and Abiathar. Both of them play important roles in Samuel. Joab killed the usurper Absalom (2 Sam 18:14), and Abiathar supported David in his quests against Saul and Absalom. Both of these men are mentioned to prepare for the resolutions of their stories in chapter 2 and their supporting Adoniah anticipates what that resolution will be.

The next verse, v. 8, establishes a second group against Adoniah, who now suddenly has a differently spelled name, “Adoniahu.” All of the men mentioned here served David (who is also mentioned here for the first time since v. 1) in some capacity or another. Again, with the exception of Shimei and Rei, the names mentioned anticipate what happens in chapter 2 and the rest of chapter 1. Here it becomes conspicuous that Adoniah/u did not have prophetic support. The formulation is also unclear: did Adoniah/u not seek to work with these men? Or why were they not with him?

The division of the groups continues in vv. 9-10. Verse 9 reports that Adoniahu essentially throws a grill party and invites the important people in the kingdom, particularly the (once again nameless) king’s sons and servants. Should this be understood as Adoniah/u’s attempt to lull them to his side? A note on the locations: En Rogel should apparently be understood as some kind of boundary location between Judah and Benjamin (cf. Jos 15:7 and 18:16); the Slithering Stone does not appear elsewhere in the Bible.

The episode here concludes here by mentioning whom Adoniah/u did not invite to the party. With the exception of Solomon, this repeats data already noted in v. 8 (though now without the priest). Conspicuously, Solomon is described as Adoniah/u’s brother, but obviously was not included among the “sons of the king” in v. 9. Is that a jab at Solomon, perhaps questioning his parentage or offering a different background for him than that reported in 2 Sam 12?

1. And the King, David, was old. He came in the days. And they covered him with the blankets, but it was never warm for him.
2. And his servants said to him, “let them seek for my lord, the king, a young woman, a virgin, so that she can stand before the king, and she can be for him an official and lay in your lap and it will be warm for my lord, the king.”
3. And they sought a beautiful young woman in the whole territory of Israel, and they found Abishag the Shunamite, and they brought her to the king.
4. And the young woman was beautiful, even greatly so. And she became for the king an official and she served him, but the king did not know her.

Comments on the Text

Two observations merit mention in verse 1. First, syntactically, it appears as if David was added as an afterthought. The subject “the king David” is unwieldy and probably the product of editing. One notes in this vein, that David essentially vanishes from the text after this verse, which consistently refers to “the king” without mentioning a name. Second, the final phrase regarding the king’s inability to be warm appears in the imperfect, suggesting that it should be understood as an iterative. It is not that he is not warm only once; rather, he is never warm.

The woman the king’s servants propose to seek should fulfill two functions: she should serve him as an official (the term is otherwise used for someone like a chancellor in Isa 22:15) and also lay in his lap. That’s an exceptional combination of distinct services, to say the least. Only the latter has to do with verse 1.

The woman they eventually find in verse 3 is said to come from the territory of Shunem, known otherwise in the Bible as a town in the north of Israel and ascribed to the tribe of Issachar. This town may be mentioned in Egyptian correspondence from the Amarna period. Any identification of the site is currently insecure. Interesting here is that the king’s servants seek a woman for him in the north of Israel. If this is about David, who should be from the south, we see perhaps something of an imperialistic tendency, perhaps even an implied overreach, suggested in this action. More importantly: Abishag is found and brought to David. It is never suggested that she came willingly, at best, only passively.

Verse 4 initially focuses on Abishag’s appearance and notes that she is especially attractive. That could only have merit for one of her supposed functions for the king. The text does not even mention her name here, describing her only as “the young woman”; older translations preserve readings like “maid.” The verse continues, noting that she serves the king in some official capacity. Nonetheless, she never speaks in the Bible. Finally, the verse (and this brief passage) conclude with the notice that the king did not know her, i.e., he did not have sex with her. Two (perhaps not entirely mutually exclusive) options bear consideration here. Is the text trying to preserve the dignity of the king or the woman by stating that there was no physical intimacy between them? Or is the text mocking the king, saying he was impotent (in every sense of the word)? This second option is especially poignant, if the text was always about David, who had a somewhat voracious appetite for women (though not as ludicrous as that of his son and successor Solomon).