Now King David was old and stricken in years. 1 Kings 1:1-4 The Winter of Life J. Barlow. I. OVERTAKES MEN IN THE HIGHEST RANK. II. CHILLS THE VITAL SOURCES OF THE NATURALLY ROBUST. "And they covered him with clothes, and he gat no heat." III. IS BUT TEMPORARILY ALLEVIATED BY THE BEST CONSIDERED HUMAN DEVICES. The cherishing of Abishag was — 1. Advised by the court physicians. An expedient not unusual in similar cases, when internal cordials failed, and with the limited skill of the faculty in the use of warmth-creating potions. 2. Was innocent. Suggested for no other than purely medical reasons. Sophocles lauded old age as a deliverance from the tyranny of the passions, as an escape from some furious and savage master. 3. Suspended only for a brief season the inevitable progress of decay. Medical skill is no more efficacious for the monarch than for the humblest subject. David died within the year. A moment comes in the winter of life when the warm pulse is stilled, and the once stalwart frame is locked in the icy embrace of death. ( J. Barlow. ) Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself. 1 Kings 1:5-53 Usurpation J. Parker, D. D. David is "old and stricken in years." Round about him there are certain proceedings which are almost always associated with the death of great men. There are persons who are wondering who will succeed to the throne. One man has made up his mind that he will be the king. Could we understand all that is going on in the minds of our friends when we ourselves arc approaching the hour and article of death, we should be surprised by some revelations of character which we had little suspected. Adonijah said, "I will be king" (ver. 5). How certainly, then, he will not! "Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself." He did not hear the voice sounding far away in the coming time which said, "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased." You will find that Adonijah was a spoiled child, for "his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?" (ver. 6). That is the explanation. Every will has to be broken, and it ought to be broken as soon as possible; it is not as if the will could go on always having its own way, marching from conquering to conquer, going on from throne to throne; it is the law of life, and it is the most solemn fact in personal history, that the will must be broken, in the sense of being subdued, chastened, made to feel that there are other wills in creation, and that peace can only come by mutual understanding and concession. How cruel, then, are parents! They think they are kind, but their kindness is the worst form of cruelty. How would it be in physical matters? You say that a man's hand is out of action, and the doctor says that hand might have been as good as the other if the infirmity or accident had been attended to when the child was young. That we call reason. A child does not see straightly; its eye is somewhat askance; and the doctor again says that eye could have been made perfectly right if it had been attended to when the child was young. When the doctor says that, everybody looks upon him as a wise man. So many things ought to have been done when we were young! Yet we ourselves will not do them to those who are young, and who depend upon us for discipline, education, and general training. When Adonijah said, "I will be king," he carried to its logical issue the training which he had received, or lacked, at home. How will he set about this business? Exactly like a spoiled child. There is a striking consistency in all the parts of his character and action. If you ask for his programme, you may yourself write it for him; them is no need to make inquiry as to what he will do. Spoiled children can only do one thing. They are absolutely destitute of originality. What, then, does Adonijah do? He copied, Absalom,. whom in some degree he resembled, being also "a very goodly man." That is to say, a well-favoured man physically; good to look upon, a handsome, noble figure. What will Adonijah do? The answer is in the fifth verse: "He prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him." How will Adonijah proceed? quite consistently. In the seventh verse we find him still pursuing the same level of thought and purpose: "And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest." What was Abiathar the priest? the priest of the tent in which the ark of God was kept? or was he but some subordinate, good and honest in his own way, hut a little tempted to believe in chariots and horses and forerunners and outriders? Alas! it is possible for a priest even to be so demented. This was the bound of Adonijah's counsel; the crafty Joab and Abiathar. Not the people. The people were to be taken by a storm of music. That was Adonijah's great plan for taking the nation! But the people are wiser than they are often thought to be. Have faith in the people. You cannot easily measure them. Taken one by one, they do not seem to amount to much; but when they touch one another, and feel the contagion of sympathy and the inspiration of common interests; when they listen as one man to the voice of the declaimer or the charmer, the reasoner and the statesman, they know who is right and who is wrong. Why these signs of masonry? Why this desire to get away from the society of pure women and frank children, question-asking youth, and unsuspecting love! Why did you not call Zadok and Nathan and Solomon? Out of thine own month I condemn thee. The honest man would have said, Let all come; this thing shall not he done in a corner; it is right, sound, clear-hearted, through and through — come one, come all, and guide me if I am wrong. The right man need not be in any hurry. He will be sent for in due time. What became of Adonijah? He "feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar" — the projecting pieces of wood overlaid with gold, to which the sacrifices were fastened with bands or ropes. Laying hold of these, he thought he had the right of asylum; and he feared Solomon, saying, "Let King Solomon swear unto me to-day that he will not slay his servant with the sword" (vers. 50, 51). "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased." Adonijah, who began by saying, "I will be king," ended by saying, I am a servant. See the end of all vanity, foolish conceit, mistaken and selfish ambition; so Solomon, being a king in very deed, said: He shall have a conditional pardon — If he will shew himself a worthy man, there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth: but if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die" (vers. 52, 53). So Adonijah became a ticket-of-leave man. What a fame! but right. Do not let us mistake this: for we are all ticket-of-leave men. Let there be no boasting. We are all out of hell conditionally. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Adonijah A. Williamson. I. BEWARE OF AMBITION. When regulated, restrained, and guided, ambition serves a good end. It rouses to activity, and it tends to produce a generous and noble character. But when it is inspired only by selfishness, by the desire simply to attain to a certain position, so that vanity may be indulged and pride gratified — by the determination to outstrip your fellows and win certain prizes for which they too are toiling; — when, in short, there is nothing but self to be consulted and flattered and appeased, it is dangerous. It may lead you to do much that is evil, to trample on that which is sacred, to break through and cast down the barriers which God's law has erected around you, to despise the nearest and dearest relationships of human life. Under its withering influence he loses sight of the eternal in the temporal, ignores the spiritual in the carnal, and forgets God in self! There is no ban laid by God on advancement or "getting on." You are not forbidden to attain earthly honours, to acquire what are called the world's "good things." But then, recollect, you must regard them only as subordinate to higher things. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." II. BEWARE OF DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS. It may be an old, but it is a permanent command, "Honour thy father and thy mother," etc. III. BEWARE OF EVIL ASSOCIATIONS. The unholy alliance at Enrogel broke up, immediately on the arrival of adverse tidings. Joab, Abiathar, and their confederates disappeared, and left Adonijah to his own devices. There was no deep affection, and no bond of pure love to keep them together; selfishness was at the root of the association. They fawned, and flattered, and fled. Wicked men do not care for their companions beyond the point of advantage. They have no interest in each other's welfare, and they are suspicious of each other's designs and of each other's fidelity. Accomplices and partners in guilt indulge in mutual accusations and revelations which show the slender nature of the tie which binds them together. There is no love — no true, deep, self-sacrificing love — such as dwells in the hearts of Christian brethren, united in Jesus Christ. ( A. Williamson. ) When the play is out T. Adams. Honour must put off the robes when the play is done, make it never so glorious a show on this world's stage; it hath but a short part to act. A great name of worldly glory is but like a peal rung on the bells, the common people are the clappers, the rope that moves them is popularity; if you once let go your hold and leave pulling, the clapper lies still, and farewell honour. ( T. Adams. ) Ambition, destructive Plutarch. The principal thing that excited the public hatred, and at last caused the death of Julius Caesar was his passion for the title of king. It was the first thing that gave offence to the multitude, and it afforded his inveterate enemies a very plausible plea. ( Plutarch. ) But Zadok the priest... went not with Adonijah. 1 Kings 1:8 Steadfast when others falter J. Trapp. So Cranmer and Ridley, and some few other conscientious persons, afterwards ill rewarded by Queen Mary, refused to subscribe the letters patent for Lady Jane Grey's succession to the crown, after the death of King Edward VI.; which yet were subscribed by the most of the statesmen, who were guided with respect to their particular interest, for that they were possessed of divers lands which once pertained to monasteries, chanteries, etc., which they foresaw they should lose, in case religion should change under Queen Mary. ( J. Trapp. ) Nathan the prophet also came in. 1 Kings 1:22-27 Solomon succeeding David Monday Club Sermons. I. THE TROUBLE ARISING FROM LACK OF HOME DISCIPLINE. Many a parent sows seeds of sorrow by over-indulgence of the children. Nothing is more prophetic of grief to come, for the parent, and calamity, for the child, than failure to insist upon obedience. There is to be a throne and something of parental sovereignty in every home. God requires of all parents, for their own sakes, the children's sake, and the sake of society, that they should govern their household. II. THE SIN OF DISREGARD FOR PARENTS. Adonijah knew that his father had designated Solomon as his successor. Finding his father feeble and at the point of death, he conspired against him, influenced all he could to join him in the conspiracy, and aid him in accomplishing his purpose. In the ambition of his heart to reign over Israel he was ready for any intrigue, any injustice. Ambition is the cause of much of this world's crime. It consumes all the better feelings of our nature; makes men regardless of tenderest relations and deepest obligations. There are no duties diviner than those we owe to our parents. In their old age, especially, parents have supreme claim on the affection and protection of their children. None but he who is lost to all sense of the claims of love, and is far gone in sin, can wilfully make sad a parent's heart. In all tenderness, and all solicitation for the joy and comfort of their parents, children should hand them down to their graves, making, if it may be, their last days the sunniest and most restful. III. THE SACREDNESS OF HUMAN PLEDGES. David had assured Bathsheba that her son Solomon should succeed to the throne. Human pledges are sacred, especially when made in the fear of God, and according to His conscious will. No difficulties should ever turn men aside from fulfilling their vows. There should be no delay when danger threatens. All men have many interests in their hands. It will cost, of time, strength, and exposure, it may he, to guard these interests; but they should be guarded, whatever the cost. David acted promptly, thus he succeeded. Delays are often fatal. Decision is demanded for emergencies. While men fear and hesitate it often becomes too late. Truth is to be done. Neither God nor man excuses falsehood. Faithlessness is full of annoyance. Our lives should be worthy of trust. There may be impossibilities in the way; these alone should prevent the keeping of our pledges. IV. THE FAITHFULNESS OF FRIENDS. Adonijah would have been crowned as king, had not the friends of David and Solomon revealed the conspiracy. But these friends were true; and their haste in acquainting the king of what was transpiring gave him time to avert the calamity. Faithfulness to friends is one great want of the world. None is safe from attack on the part of the ambitious and designing. Neighbours are in danger of being injured in person or position without knowing it, or being able to avoid the snare. Society is full of secret schemings to rise on the ruin of others. Character is assailed; property imperilled; all sacred things put in jeopardy by the unscrupulous. Often serious and irreparable injury is done before the parties affected dream of anything evil in the air. In business, in politics, in the whole range of human plan's for personal advancement, or right doing on any line, men are liable to be maligned and harmed. It is duty in all cases and at all hazard to give warning or counsel, and to interpose for the protection of others. We are not to be busybodies, but we are to be our brother's keeper. V. THE PATIENCE OF FAITH. Solomon likely knew of the conspiracy of Adonijah; but he was as a deaf man that heard not. He seems to have quietly composed himself, leaving it to God and his friends to order all. God had a will as to that succession to the throne. Solomon understood it, and he could wait. Faith is patient. There may be delays and disasters. Enemies may seem to succeed against us. Providence may seem to be opposing. It may be wholly dark and ominous. But we are to compose ourselves and wait. VI. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. Adonijah considered the kingdom his by birthright, after the death of Absalom. He had, however, been set aside by Divine appointment. He had been welcomed with the cry: "God save King Adonijah!" Shall that conspiracy succeed? God had planned otherwise. No plan formed against the Almighty can permanently prosper. Wickedness may prevail for a time. Wicked men may come to crowning. There may be long bafflings and delayings in the fulfilment of prophecy. But God reigns. His word shall be accomplished. Here is our hope in reference to this lost world. We have only to find our place and do our work. The day is to dawn. There are to be turnings and overturnings. Kingdoms and empires are to rise and fall — all unto the end of the setting up of the kingdom of Christ on the earth. The day of jubilee is to be ushered in. ( Monday Club Sermons. ) Solomon's succeeding David A. T. Pierson, D. D. This presents before us the last of those three equal reigns, of forty years each, which seem to be typical of the three dispensations: the Hebrew Church with its apostasy; the Christian Church during its militant period; and the millennial reign with its triumphant glory. If Solomon was thus the type of the "Prince of Peace," the fact that he ascended his throne only by displacing a usurper may find its correspondence in the usurpation of authority over this world, Christ's rightful realm, by the prince of darkness. Yet how sure stands the unchanging word, "I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion"! Adonijah, who is mentioned fourth among David's sons, as his mother, Haggith, is fourth among David's wives, was a curious compound of physical beauty and grace with boundless conceit and impudence, arrogance, and ambition. He was a spoiled child: we are quaintly told in this chapter that "his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?" Of his mother, Haggith, we get no glimpse, except as the record reveals that at Hebron, not long after Absalom's birth, she became the mother of this her only child, Adonijah. Her name in the Hebrew tongue means "dancer," and she was probably a gay, light, unprincipled woman, lacking both intellectual force and moral depth of character. This son certainly resembled this probable portrait of his mother. He was a "goodly man"; that is, of attractive personal presence — what, in our corruption of pure English, we would call a "handsome man." Yet his youthful passions were stronger than his principles, and his impulses trampled upon his convictions. As often happens in such cases, this son, who by reason of his mother's laxity and his own waywardness, needed a father's restraint the more, was subject to no parental authority or discipline whatever, and under no sceptre of family government. His ambition was reckless. Ordinarily, however much the favourite of his father, he could not have aspired to succeed him on the throne, for Ammon, Chileab, and Absalom would each in turn prefer the clash of primogeniture; but the death of these three elder brothers left Adonijah the eldest living son, and therefore a claimant to the royal succession. The throne was, however, pledged to Solomon, his younger brother, a child of promise, "beloved of the Lord," and better qualified every way for a wise and just ruler. Adonijah's ambition was not to be so easily thwarted. He saw with secret exultation the visible and rapid decline of his father's strength, and that the time had come to seize by force a crown which he could not secure by favour or procure by merit. Let us not forget the lesson's moral, which touches both parents and children. Parental authority and filial obedience are among God's unchanging decrees. A Divine curse for ever alienated from Eli's house the sacred privilege of the priesthood; and this is the ground of the curse: "Because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." Yet he did inquire into their conduct and severely rebuked it, and so was a better father than David, who did not even investigate Adonijah's course. How grand is the contrast of Abraham, who commanded his children and his household after him to do justice and judgment! There may be an indulgence which is innocent. To deny to a child the gratification of a proper and natural desire whose indulgence would work no harm to the child nor injustice to others may be unjust; capricious refusal may provoke to wrath a child who is disposed to obedience, and stir up mischief, if not malice. But promiscuous indulgence leaves children to grow up selfish, sensual, and reckless. One of the laws of the Mosaic code required every builder of a house to put a battlement around the roof; and that battlement, in the building of the household, is parental law. Where that exists a child falls into ruin only as he climbs over the battlement. Without pressing this lesson to the extreme of a fanciful typical interpretation, we may lawfully find in it illustrations of some most important truths: first of all, the secret of prevailing prayer. Bathsheba went before King. David with confidence, for he had given his royal word of promise: "Surely Solomon thy son shall sit on my throne." There was no presumption in her plea; she was emboldened by the king's word: it was the confidence and courage of faith. And so she got her request, and the answer was immediate as well as sure: "Even so will I certainly do this day." What is our encouragement in prayer? The promise of the immutable God. No capricious moods make Him liable to repent or change His mind; no old age and failing faculties render Him liable to forget. We have to do with the eternal, unchanging God, whose word is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. A second illustration may be gathered from this lesson as to the providence of God overruling the evil designs of men and accomplishing His purposes. Everything seemed against Solomon when Adonijah, surrounded by his fellow-conspirators, was saluted as king. His throne was at risk, and even his life was in peril But there was an old man, not yet dead, in whose feeble hands the sceptre still rested, and who had sworn that Solomon should be heir to the kingdom. A few words spoken by him unseated the usurper, dispersed his minions, and placed the child of promise upon the throne. How often "all things" seem against us, while "all things work together for our good." The god of this world has usurped the kingdom, and a host of followers rally round his standard. The apparent successes of the god of this world in seizing the reins of empire and oppressing the saints of the Most High shall make his ultimate defeat only the more overwhelming, complete, and final ( A. T. Pierson, D. D. ) Solomon succeeding David Sunday School Times. I. A ROYAL ADVISING. 1. Visiting the king 2. Honouring the king.(1) In advancing a good cause a little quiet planning may accomplish excellent results, and not be dishonest. Nathan and Bathsheba had made their arrangements beforehand.(2) In advancing a good cause, a good. action or good advice wins much in efficacy by being skilfully performed or given.(3) In advancing a good cause a respectful demeanour toward those in authority costs nothing, and usually accomplishes much.(4) In advancing a good cause a good name is of the first importance. David knew at once that Nathan's plea was not for anything bad. II. A ROYAL USURPER. 1. Treacherous sacrifices. 2. Treacherous treatment. 3. Treachery suspected.(1) In advancing a bad cause, it is natural to have good things to eat.(2) In advancing a bad cause, its promoters are always forward in appealing to the Divine protection, "God save King Adonijah."(3) In advancing a bad cause, its promoters are generally exclusive in their friendships. Of course, Nathan was not admitted to a share m proceedings upon which he would have frowned.(4) In combating a bad cause, it is always best to come to a clear understanding of exactly who are its friends, and who its enemies. That is what Nathan sought in questioning David.(5) In combating a bad cause, the more care that is exercised the better. Every bad cause has at least one very skilful promoter, whose mere tools Adonijah and Abiathar and all the rest of them are. The devil keeps a close watch over his own interests. III. A ROYAL RULER. 1. His mother summoned. 2. His father promising. (1) By the Lord, his Redeemer. (2) To establish Solomon. 3. His mother rejoicing. (1) In act. (2) In word. 4. His reign established.(1) When a man must go forth to leave the duties of his earthly station, it is becoming that he should carefully consider in whose hands he shall leave them.(2) When a man has an important question to decide, he seldom loses anything by inviting his wife to assist at the conference.(3) When a man is called to the test, he ought not to be long in making good his promises, if it is in his power to do so.(4) When a man is nearing the point of death, it is folly to defer doing as he has promised until the future. "So will I certainly do, this day."(5) When a man has humbled himself to do, it will seldom harm his wife to humble herself to thank him.(6) When a man is nearing the point of death, such a cry as "Let my lord King David live for ever," has its very serious aspects. ( Sunday School Times. ) And Benaiah... said Amen. 1 Kings 1:36 The "Amen" of God and of man H. J. Foster. Benaiah recognises the necessity that God shall ratify and effectuate man's desires and purposes. Man's "Amen" means "May it be so." Jehovah's "Amen" alone means "It shall be so." His words are the expression of — I. HUMAN HELPLESSNESS. Man's plans only succeed when in the way of God's Providence, and when carried out in His strength. The true, broad view of His Providence shows us a government of the world's affairs, which takes in the life of the highest and humblest, their aims, their work, their wants, their very sins and opposition, and, as here, makes all contribute to the revelation of His Son and the setting up of His kingdom. At the same time He can fulfil David's narrower plan, and secure Solomon's elevation. He can secure my private wish and His own will; He can harmonise the course, and aims, and wants, of two lives, or twenty, or a hundred, even if not to converge for many years to come. If they harmonise, it is because "He says so too." Men must strive in vain against God's purposes; or for their own, without Jehovah's "Amen." Men are, and are not, "architects of their own fortune." "Except the Lord build the house" of David, or Benaiah, or any other, "they labour in vain that build it." Babel-builders leave God out of their counsel; they must have Him in their work. Napoleon's fall dates from his words at Berlin: " I propose, and I dispose." "Man proposes, God disposes." II. HOPE. Human effort is not to be paralysed: "I cannot make my plan absolutely secure, or any plan, therefore I will do nothing." This is fatalism. There is a responsibility for effort lying on every man. David and Benaiah must propose. This done prayerfully and submissively, man may hope for a blessing on his effort, The godly man proposes, and may hope that God will "say so too." III. HUMILITY. Not the sullen submission which bows, and bears, and yields, because there is no choice, if He does not "say so too." But the reverent acknowledgment of a superior will to which a man loves to bow; the glad submission of every plan to the scrutiny and revision of a wise Father. 1. Let all our plans in life be conceived in this spirit. Write "D.V." upon every record of purpose and desire. 2. All must be conceived and carried out in His strength. In our vows — Thou art not only to perform Thy part, Thou also mine: as when the league was made, Thou didst at once Thyself indite And hold my hand, while I did write. — (Herbert.) ( H. J. Foster. ) Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. 1 Kings 1:48 The joy of aged and dying saints J. Orton, S. T. P. It is matter of great joy and thankfulness to aged Christians, when they are dying, to leave their families in prosperous and peaceful circumstances; and especially, rising up in their stead to serve God and support religion. I. TO ILLUSTRATE THIS OBSERVATION. 1. It is a pleasure to an aged, dying Christian to leave his family in prosperous circumstances. It is the character of a good man, that he is not a lover of this world, nor anxiously solicitous about future events. Nevertheless, he considers himself as obliged, by the laws of nature, reason, and the gospel, to provide for those of his own house. He is not solicitous to heap up so much wealth for them as may be likely to make them idle, proud, and luxurious; but only so much as may fix them comfortably in the world; in that middle station which may be most friendly to their piety and happiness. He rejoiceth in that declaration of Solomon, "The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him"; and he dieth with a full persuasion that it will be confirmed to his children. 2. It is a greater pleasure to him to leave his descendants in unity and love. Contentions and quarrels, between whomsoever they happen, are grievous to all the sons of peace, dishonourable to religion and injurious to its power; but between those of the same stock and family they are most shameful and pernicious. The aged saint, when he is going to the world of peace, is delighted to see his descendants loving as brethren, courteous and kind one to another. 3. It is his greatest joy to leave his descendants in the way of holiness, and zealous for the support of religion. "A wise son," saith Solomon, "maketh a glad father. The father of a wise child rejoiceth in him": especially when he is quitting the stage of life, and can do no more for the Church of God than pour out his prayers for its prosperity. II. WHY SUCH A PROSPECT GIVETH SO MUCH JOY TO AGED AND DYING CHRISTIANS. 1. This joy ariseth, in part, from their natural love to their descendants. God hath implanted in all creatures a strong affection to their offspring, in order that they may preserve and sustain them till they are capable of providing for themselves. This natural instinct or affection is, in good men, sanctified by religion. 2. The concern which aged Christians feel for the honour of God and Christ, and for the continuance and spread of religion, increaseth this joy. The great object of a good man's desire is, "that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ"; that His perfections may be seen and manifested in the world, especially by the spread of His glorious gospel; and that He may receive that reverence, homage, and love, which is due to Him from all His rational, especially His redeemed, creatures. 3. His prospect of meeting his pious descendants again in the heavenly world. It is a most reviving and glorious consolation which the gospel affords to dying saints, that when they part with pious friends and relatives, it is not an eternal separation; it is indeed but a short one. For when Christ shall be revealed from heaven, there shall be "a gathering together of all His saints unto Him"; and He will so range and dispose them in the heavenly mansions, that those who were united in the bonds of pious friendship here, shall be happy in the renewed acquaintance and society of each other, and shall be ever with one another and with the Lord. III. INFERENCES. 1. It should be the earnest desire, and diligent care, of all parents, that they may have this joy. 2. Aged Christians who have this joy ought to be very thankful. Bless the Lord God of Israel, as David did, that He hath given you dutiful and religions children, and spared you to be witnesses of their holy conversation. 3. It is the duty of young persons to fulfil their parents' joy. Let them be solicitous to cherish and manifest those graces and dispositions which will afford their parents much comfort, especially when they are aged and dying. "The father of the righteous," saith Solomon, "shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice." ( J. Orton, S. T. P. ) Adonijah feared because of Solomon. 1 Kings 1:50 The best way of overcoming Homiletic Review. David did not directly attack this false kingdom of Adonijah's. He did set up the true kingdom in the place of the false. So the false fell because there was no room for it in the presence of the true. Here is admirable illustration of the best way of overcoming. Deduce the principle — crown the right, the true, the trustful, and these, thus resolutely set up, will crowd out and take the place of the bad and the false. Apply the principle — 1. To the overcoming of evil thoughts. They are a common trouble. From the evil nature within us, the evil world without us, from the suggestions of Satan, from the laws of association under the action of which much of our thinking emerges, it is not surprising that evil thoughts should assault. What is to be done with them? How are they to be overcome? A frequent attempt is that of the sheer set of the will against them. But this is wearying, and frequently unsuccessful. A better way is to simply enthrone the true. Crown Solomon. Summon attention to the right. And thus in the presence of the crowned right thought and pure, the evil thought will fade and fail. Here is a test for the right sort of reading — a book which suggests evil is a book which ought not to be read. Here we can see the importance of daffy devotion — study of the Bible and prayer These things suggest and crown right thoughts and pure, and the mind, being occupied with these, will have no room or care for evil thoughts. 2. Apply this principle to the overcoming of despondency. Even the bravest and most hopeful are sometimes despondent — Moses, Elijah A simple determination not to be despondent wilt not much help one. But there is a way of overcoming The opposite of despondency is action. Crown that opposite. Set yourself, however despondent you may feel, bravely at the duty next you. T

Benson Commentary 1 Kings 1:1 Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. 1 Kings 1:1 . Now King David was old — Being in the end of his seventieth year. They covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat — Which is not strange, considering he was a person who had been exercised with so many hardships in war, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows for his own sins, (as divers of his psalms witness,) and for the sins and miseries of his children and people. Besides, this might be from the nature of his bodily distemper, which Dr. Lightfoot thinks was a dead palsy. [David now began to feel the effects of old age, and probably remembered with lively interest the words of his faithful friend Barzillai, spoken some time before: “Can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink?”] 1 Kings 1:2 Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. 1 Kings 1:2 . Wherefore his servants — His physicians; said, Let there be sought for the king a young virgin — Whose natural heat is fresh and wholesome, and not impaired with bearing or breeding children. The same counsel is given by Galen for the cure of some cold and dry distempers. Let her stand before the king — That is, minister unto him, or wait upon him in his sickness, as occasion requires. And let her lie in his bosom — As his wife; for that she was so, may appear by divers arguments. 1st, Otherwise this had been a wicked course; which, therefore, neither his servants would have dared to prescribe, nor would David have used, especially being now in a dying condition. 2d, It appears from this phrase of lying in his bosom, which is everywhere in Scripture mentioned as the privilege of a wife. 3d, This made Adonijah’s crime, in desiring her to wife, so heinous in Solomon’s account, because he saw, that by marrying the king’s wife, he designed to revive his pretence to the kingdom. 1 Kings 1:3 So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. 1 Kings 1:4 And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not. 1 Kings 1:4 . The king knew her not — Did not enjoy her as his wife, but she remained still a virgin: which is mentioned to signify the continuance and progress of the king’s malady. 1 Kings 1:5 Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 1 Kings 1:5 . Then — Upon notice of the desperateness of the king’s disease, and the approach of his death; Adonijah exalted himself — Entertained high thoughts and designs; saying, I will be king — As the right of the kingdom is mine, ( 1 Kings 1:6 ,) so I will now take possession of it. And he prepared him chariots, &c. — As Absalom had done upon the like occasion, 1 Samuel 15:1 . 1 Kings 1:6 And 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. 1 Kings 1:6-7 . His father had not displeased him at any time — This is mentioned as David’s great error, and the occasion of Adonijah’s presumption. In saying, Why hast thou done so? — He had neither restrained him from, nor reproved him for his miscarriages, which David knew was a great sin. He also was a very goodly man — This was a second ground of his confidence, because his great comeliness made him amiable in the people’s eyes. His mother bare him after Absalom — This is mentioned as a third reason why he expected the crown. Absalom being dead, he was next to him in order of birth. See 2 Samuel 3:3-4 . He conferred with Joab and with Abiathar — Whom it is likely he knew to be two discontented persons; the former on account of David’s putting Amasa in his place, and the other because he saw Zadok in greater favour than himself. They helped him — Probably, not so much because they thought the right of the crown was his, as with a view to oppose Solomon, and to secure and advance their own interest. It seems that God left them to themselves, to correct them for former miscarriages, with a rod of their own making. 1 Kings 1:7 And he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest: and they following Adonijah helped him . 1 Kings 1:8 But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David, were not with Adonijah. 1 Kings 1:8-10 . The mighty men were not with Adonijah — That is, those named 2 Samuel 23., and the guards, who had served under David so long, and had done such mighty acts in his reign and under his conduct. Adonijah had no hope of drawing them to his party, and therefore did not confer with them as he did with Joab and Abiathar. And called all his brethren and all the men of Judah — Except those mentioned 1 Kings 1:8 , and again excepted, 1 Kings 1:10 . But all the rest of the family of David, and the principal persons of the tribe of Judah, with the high-priest and captain of the host, being present, there seemed to be nothing wanting to the making of him king, but only his anointing. For this appears to have been a federal feast, in which they swore allegiance to Adonijah. But Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, &c., he called not — Because he knew they favoured Solomon. 1 Kings 1:9 And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by Enrogel, and called all his brethren the king's sons, and all the men of Judah the king's servants: 1 Kings 1:10 But Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, and the mighty men, and Solomon his brother, he called not. 1 Kings 1:11 Wherefore Nathan spake unto Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, Hast thou not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith doth reign, and David our lord knoweth it not? 1 Kings 1:11 . Nathan spake unto Bath-sheba — Who, being private and retired in her apartment, was ignorant of what was done abroad; and who was likely to be most zealous in the cause, and most prevalent with David. To her Nathan was induced to speak, both by his piety, that he might fulfil the will of God declared to him concerning Solomon’s succession, 2 Samuel 7:13 ; and by his prudence, knowing that Adonijah hated him for being the principal instrument of Solomon’s advancement. That Adonijah doth reign — It seems they were so bold as to proclaim him king. 1 Kings 1:12 Now therefore come, let me, I pray thee, give thee counsel, that thou mayest save thine own life, and the life of thy son Solomon. 1 Kings 1:13 Go and get thee in unto king David, and say unto him, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? why then doth Adonijah reign? 1 Kings 1:13-15 . Didst thou not, O king, swear unto thy handmaid? — We do not read anywhere else of this oath: but, no doubt, David had solemnly sworn to her that he would make her son his successor, knowing that God himself had designed him to that honour. And it is probable that Adonijah was not an entire stranger to what God had declared to Nathan and David on this subject: and if so, his crime was the greater in setting himself to oppose the decree of heaven. Indeed he acknowledges as much, 1 Kings 2:15 . The king was very old — And therefore, probably, could not see so as to discern who had entered the chamber till Abishag, who ministered unto him, informed him. 1 Kings 1:14 Behold, while thou yet talkest there with the king, I also will come in after thee, and confirm thy words. 1 Kings 1:15 And Bathsheba went in unto the king into the chamber: and the king was very old; and Abishag the Shunammite ministered unto the king. 1 Kings 1:16 And Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance unto the king. And the king said, What wouldest thou? 1 Kings 1:17 And she said unto him, My lord, thou swarest by the LORD thy God unto thine handmaid, saying , Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne. 1 Kings 1:18 And now, behold, Adonijah reigneth; and now, my lord the king, thou knowest it not: 1 Kings 1:19 And he hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain of the host: but Solomon thy servant hath he not called. 1 Kings 1:19-20 . Solomon thy servant — She speaks very submissively, and calls herself his handmaid, and her son his servant. The eyes of all Israel are upon thee — This she said that she might free him from all fear of such a rebellion as Absalom raised; the people not being yet joined to Adonijah, but continuing in suspense till the king had declared his mind about his successor. 1 Kings 1:20 And thou, my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. 1 Kings 1:21 Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders. 1 Kings 1:22 And, lo, while she yet talked with the king, Nathan the prophet also came in. 1 Kings 1:23 And they told the king, saying, Behold Nathan the prophet. And when he was come in before the king, he bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. 1 Kings 1:24 And Nathan said, My lord, O king, hast thou said, Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne? 1 Kings 1:25 For he is gone down this day, and hath slain oxen and fat cattle and sheep in abundance, and hath called all the king's sons, and the captains of the host, and Abiathar the priest; and, behold, they eat and drink before him, and say, God save king Adonijah. 1 Kings 1:26 But me, even me thy servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and thy servant Solomon, hath he not called. 1 Kings 1:26-27 . But me hath he not called — Whom he knew to be acquainted with thy mind, and with the mind of God in this matter; and therefore his neglect of me herein gives me cause to suspect that this is done without thy knowledge. Thou hast not showed it to thy servant — Who, having been an instrument in delivering God’s message to thee concerning thy successor, might reasonably expect that if thou hadst changed thy mind, thou wouldest have acquainted me with it, as being both a prophet of the Lord, and one whom thou hast found faithful to thee. He insinuates that, in a matter of such importance, he could not believe the king would act without his advice, whom he was wont to consult on other occasions, and who had acquainted him with the mind of God concerning Solomon. Nathan knew that David had given no orders about this thing, but thought it prudent to introduce in this manner a relation of what Adonijah had done. 1 Kings 1:27 Is this thing done by my lord the king, and thou hast not shewed it unto thy servant, who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him? 1 Kings 1:28 Then king David answered and said, Call me Bathsheba. And she came into the king's presence, and stood before the king. 1 Kings 1:28-29 . King David said, Call Bath-sheba — Who, upon Nathan’s approach to the king, had modestly withdrawn. That hath redeemed my soul out of all distress — The words contain a grateful acknowledgment of the goodness of God to him, in bringing him safe through the many difficulties that had lain in his way, and which he now mentions to the glory of God, (as Jacob when he lay a dying,) thus setting to his seal, from his own experience, that the Lord redeemeth the souls of his servants. 1 Kings 1:29 And the king sware, and said, As the LORD liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress, 1 Kings 1:30 Even as I sware unto thee by the LORD God of Israel, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead; even so will I certainly do this day. 1 Kings 1:31 Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth, and did reverence to the king, and said, Let my lord king David live for ever. 1 Kings 1:31 . Let my lord King David live for ever — Though I desire thy oath may be kept, and the right of succession confirmed to my son, yet I am far from thirsting after thy death, and should rather rejoice, if it were possible, for thee to live and enjoy thy crown for ever. There could be no higher expression of love and thankfulness, than to desire never to see Solomon on the throne, if it were possible for David always to enjoy it. 1 Kings 1:32 And king David said, Call me Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king. 1 Kings 1:33 The king also said unto them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, and bring him down to Gihon: 1 Kings 1:33 . Take with you the servants of your lord — His constant guards, the Cherethites and Pelethites, 1 Kings 1:38 . Cause Solomon to ride upon mine own mule — As a token that the royal dignity is transferred upon him, and that by my consent. The rest of David’s sons were wont to ride upon mules when they went abroad, 2 Samuel 13:29 . And Absalom rode on a mule when he was hanged in the oak. But David had a mule peculiarly reserved for himself alone; on which Solomon’s being set, was considered as the beginning of his kingly power, no private person whatsoever being permitted to ride upon the king’s mule. “It was capital,” says Maimonides, “to ride on the king’s ass or mule, to sit upon his throne, or to handle his sceptre without his order.” On the contrary, it appears from the story of Mordecai, (Esther 6.,) that to have the honour to ride on the king’s beast by his appointment, was accounted the highest dignity among the Persians. Bring him down to Gihon — A little river or brook near Jerusalem, on the west side, which discharged itself into the brook Kidron, and in the Chaldee is called by its modern name, Siloa. If we may credit Maimonides, and other rabbis, the kings of the house of David were all obliged, to be anointed by the side of a fountain or river; which, they say, was the reason why David commanded his servants to bring his son down to Gihon, and anoint him there. Such a situation for anointing their kings, the Jews say, was chosen to show the perpetuity of their kingdom, because rivers run always, though the cities which they wash are continually decaying, and liable to destruction. But it is much more probable that this place was fixed on, because it was near Jerusalem, and a place of great resort, and capable of containing and displaying that numerous company, which David knew would follow Solomon thither. And being on the west side of the city, it was remote from Adonijah, who was inaugurated on the east side, and from his company, and therefore the people could assemble here without fear of tumults or bloodshed. 1 Kings 1:34 And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel: and blow ye with the trumpet, and say, God save king Solomon. 1 Kings 1:34 . Let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him — That is, say the Jews, one of them poured out the oil, and the other anointed his head, drawing a circle round about it with oil, according to their maxim that their kings were anointed in the form of a crown, to denote their delegation to the royal dignity. It is of more importance to observe, that this unction signified not only the designation of the person anointed to his office, but the gifts and graces which were necessary to qualify him for it, and which, seeking them sincerely of God, he might expect to receive. “We do not find,” says Henry, “that Abiathar pretended to anoint Adonijah: he was made king by a feast, not by unction. Whom God calls, he will qualify, which was signified by the anointing: usurpers had it not. Christ signifies anointed, and he is the king whom God hath set upon his holy hill of Zion, according to the decree, Psalm 2:6-7 . Christians, also, are made to our God, and by him, kings, and they have an unction from the Holy One, 1 John 2:20 .” 1 Kings 1:35 Then ye shall come up after him, that he may come and sit upon my throne; for he shall be king in my stead: and I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah. 1 Kings 1:35-36 . Then ye shall come up after him, that he may sit on my throne — Ye shall attend upon him to Jerusalem, and give him actual possession of the throne. For he shall be king in my stead — My deputy and vice-king while I live, and absolutely king when I die. Over Israel and over Judah — The latter clause is added, lest the men of Judah, who were in a special manner invited by Adonijah, ( 1 Kings 1:9 ,) should think themselves exempted from his jurisdiction. And Benaiah said, Amen — They all said the same, ( 1 Kings 1:47 ,) not doubting but God would establish his authority. 1 Kings 1:36 And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king, and said, Amen: the LORD God of my lord the king say so too . 1 Kings 1:37 As the LORD hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David. 1 Kings 1:38 So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, went down, and caused Solomon to ride upon king David's mule, and brought him to Gihon. 1 Kings 1:39 And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. 1 Kings 1:39-40 . Zadok took a horn of oil — A vessel of oil, as the Arabic translates it; which vessel was made of an ox’s horn, as Bochart observes; out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon — It rendered his unction more solemn, and his person more sacred, that he was anointed with holy oil taken out of the tabernacle: though the Jews are generally of opinion, that it was not necessary to anoint their kings with this holy oil made by Moses. So that the earth rent — An hyperbolical expression, to signify the very loud noise which the people made with their shouts and their pipes. 1 Kings 1:40 And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them. 1 Kings 1:41 And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar? 1 Kings 1:42 And while he yet spake, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came: and Adonijah said unto him, Come in; for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings. 1 Kings 1:43 And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king. 1 Kings 1:44 And the king hath sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have caused him to ride upon the king's mule: 1 Kings 1:45 And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon: and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that ye have heard. 1 Kings 1:46 And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom. 1 Kings 1:46-48 . Also Solomon sitteth on the throne — Being in actual possession of the kingdom, though his father be alive. For to sit upon the throne was proper to the king; and none else, on pain of death, might be placed there. The king bowed himself upon the bed — Adoring God for this great mercy, and thereby declaring his hearty consent to this action. And also thus said the king, Blessed be the Lord, &c. — He gave his solemn thanks to God for the happiness of seeing Solomon begin his reign, with such affection of his people as they expressed by their joy at his inauguration. It is a great satisfaction to good men, when they are going out of the world, to see their children rising up in their stead, to serve God in their generation: and especially to see peace upon Israel, and the establishment of it. 1 Kings 1:47 And moreover the king's servants came to bless our lord king David, saying, God make the name of Solomon better than thy name, and make his throne greater than thy throne. And the king bowed himself upon the bed. 1 Kings 1:48 And also thus said the king, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which hath given one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it . 1 Kings 1:49 And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way. 1 Kings 1:50 And Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. 1 Kings 1:50-51 . Adonijah feared, &c. — He fled to the altar for protection and safety, it being a privileged place; not, indeed, by the appointment of the law, but by the custom of all nations. And caught hold on the horns of the altar — With a resolution, it seems, of not stirring therefrom till Solomon had given his oath, or solemn word, not to take away his life. And by thus doing Adonijah appears to have hindered the offering of sacrifices on the altar till such time as Solomon granted his pardon. Let King Solomon swear that he will not slay his servant — He owns Solomon as his king, and himself as his servant and subject; and being sensible of his guilt, and of the jealousy which kings have of their competitors, could not be satisfied without Solomon’s oath. 1 Kings 1:51 And it was told Solomon, saying, Behold, Adonijah feareth king Solomon: for, lo, he hath caught hold on the horns of the altar, saying, Let king Solomon swear unto me to day that he will not slay his servant with the sword. 1 Kings 1:52 And Solomon said, If he will shew himself a worthy man, there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth: but if wickedness shall be found in him, he shall die. 1 Kings 1:52-53 . And Solomon said, &c. — Solomon did not swear unto him, as he desired, but only declared that he gave him a full pardon for what was past, on condition that he behaved himself as became a good subject for the time to come. But if wickedness be found in him, he shall die — That is, if he did any thing in future which manifested that he had still a rebellious mind, the pardon, now granted, should signify nothing, because he had broken the condition of it. He came and bowed himself to King Solomon — Thereby owning him for his sovereign, such respect not being otherwise due from one brother to another. And Solomon said unto him, Go to thy house — There to lead a private life, without noise, equipage, or numerous attendants, and not meddling with the affairs of the kingdom. 1 Kings 1:53 So king Solomon sent, and they brought him down from the altar. And he came and bowed himself to king Solomon: and Solomon said unto him, Go to thine house. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary 1 Kings 1:1 Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. DAVID’S DECREPITUDE 1 Kings 1:1-4 . "Praise a fair day at night." THE old age of good men is often a beautiful spectacle. They show us the example of a mellower wisdom, a larger tolerance, a sweeter temper, a more unselfish sympathy, a clearer faith. The setting sun of their bright day tinges even the clouds which gather round it with softer and more lovely hues. We cannot say this of David’s age. After the oppressive splendor of his heroic youth and manhood there was no dewy twilight of honored peace. We see him in a somewhat pitiable decrepitude. He was not really old; the expression of our Authorized Version, "stricken in years," is literally "entered into days," but the Book of Chronicles calls him "old and full of days." {1Ch 23:1} Josephus says that when he died he was only seventy years old. He had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem. {2Sa 5:5} At the age of seventy many men are still in full vigor of strength and intellect, but the conditions of that day were not favorable to longevity. Solomon does not seem to have survived his sixtieth year; and it is doubtful whether any one of the kings of Israel or Judah-excepting, strange to say, the wicked Manasseh-attained even that moderate age. Threescore years and ten have always been the allotted space of human life, and few who long survive that age find that their strength then is anything but labor and sorrow. But the decrepitude of David was exceptional. He was drained of all his vital force. He took to his bed, but though they heaped clothes upon him he could get no warmth. "He remained cold amid the torrid heat of Jerusalem." Then his physicians recommended the only remedy they knew, to give heat to his chilled and withered frame. It was the primitive and not ineffectual remedy-which was suggested twenty-two centuries later to the great Frederic Barbarossa-of contact with the warmth of a youthful frame. So they sought out the fairest virgin in all the coasts of Israel to act as the king’s nurse, and their choice fell on Abishag, a maiden of Shunem in Issachar. There was no question of his taking another wife. He had already many wives and concubines, and what the bed-ridden invalid required was a strong and youthful nurse to cherish him. We are surprised at such total failure of life’s forces. But David had lived through a youth of toil and exposure, of fight and hardship, in the days when his only home had been the dark and dripping limestone caves, and he had been hunted like a partridge on the mountains by the furious jealousy of Saul. The sun had smitten him by day and the moon by night, and the chill dews had fallen on him in the midnight bivouacs among the crags of Engedi. Then had followed the burdens and cares of royalty with guilty anxieties and deeds which shook his pulses with wrath and fear. Coincident with these were the demoralizing luxuries and domestic sensualism of a polygamous palace. Worst of all he had sinned against God, and against light, and against his own conscience. For a time his moral sense had slumbered, and retribution had been delayed. But when he awoke from his sensual dream, the belated punishment burst over him in thunder and his conscience with outstretched finger and tones of menace must often have repeated to the murderous adulterer the doom of Nathan and the stern sentence, "Thou art the man!" Many a vulgar Eastern tyrant would hardly have regarded David’s sin as a sin at all; but when such a man as David sins, the fact that he has been admitted into a holier sanctuary adds deadliness to the guilt of his sacrilege. True he was forgiven, but he must have found it terribly hard to forgive himself. God gave back to him the clean heart, and renewed a right spirit within him; but the sense of forgiveness differs from the sweetness of innocence, and the remission of his sins did not bring with it the remission of their consequences. From that disastrous day David was a changed man. It might be said of him as of the Fallen Spirit:- "His face Deep scars of thunder had entrenched, and care Sat on his faded cheek." The Nemesis of sin’s normal consequences pursued him to the end. Dark spirits walked in his house. Joab knew his guilty secrets, and Joab became the tyrannous master of his destiny. Those guilty secrets leaked out, and he lost his charm, his influence, his popularity among his subjects. He was haunted by an ever-present sense of shame and humiliation. Joab was a murderer, and went unpunished; but was not he too an unpunished murderer? If his enemies cursed him, he sometimes felt with a sense of despair, "Let them curse. God hath said unto them, Curse David." His past carried with it the inevitable deterioration of his present. In the overwhelming shame and horror which rent his heart during the rebellion of Absalom, he must often have felt tempted to the fatalism of desperation, like that guilty king of Greek tragedy who, burdened with the curse of his race, was forced to exclaim, -Curses in his family, a curse upon his daughter, a curse upon his sons, a curse upon himself, a curse upon his people, -there was scarcely one ingredient in the cup of human woe which, in consequence of his own crimes, this unhappy king had not been forced to taste. Scourges of war, famine, and pestilence-of a three years’ famine, of a three years’ flight before his enemies, of a three days’ pestilence-he had known them all. He had suffered with the sufferings of his subjects, whose trials had been aggravated by his own transgressions. He had seen his sons following his own fatal example, and he had felt the worst of all sufferings in the serpent’s tooth of filial ingratitude agonizing a troubled heart and a weakened will. It is no wonder that David became decrepit before his time. Yet what a picture does it present of the vanity of human wishes, of the emptiness of all that men desire, of the truth which Solon impressed on the Lydian king that we can call no man happy before his death! David’s youth had been a pastoral idyll; his manhood an epic of war and chivalry; his premature age becomes the chronicle of a nursery. What different pictures are presented to us by David in his sweet youth and glowing bloom, and David in his unloved and disgraced decline! We have seen him a beautiful ruddy boy, summoned from his sheepfolds, with the wind of the desert on his cheek and its sunlight in his hair, to kneel before the aged prophet and feel the hands of consecration laid upon his head. Swift and strong, his feet like hart’s feet, his arms able to bend a bow of steel, he fights like a good shepherd for his flock, and single-handed smites the lion and the bear. His harp and song drive the evil spirit from the tortured soul of the demoniac king. With a sling and a stone the boy slays the giant champion, and the maidens of Israel praise their deliverer with songs and dances. He becomes the armor-bearer of the king, the beloved comrade of the king’s son, the husband of the king’s daughter. Then indeed he is driven into imperiled outlawry by the king’s envy, and becomes the captain of a band of freebooters; but his influence over them, as in our English legends of Robin Hood, gives something of beneficence to his lawlessness, and even these wandering years of brigandage are brightened by tales of his splendid magnanimity. The young chieftain who had mingled a loyal tenderness and genial humor with all his wild adventures-who had so generously and almost playfully spared the life of Saul his enemy-who had protected the flocks and fields of the churlish Nabal-who, with the chivalry of a Sydney, had poured on the ground the bright drops of water from the well of Bethlehem for which he had thirsted, because they had been won by imperiled lives-sprang naturally into the idolized hero and poet of his people. Then God had taken him from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young ones, that he might lead Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance. Generous to the sad memories of Saul and Jonathan, generous to the princely Abner, generous to the weak Ishbosheth, generous to poor lame Mephibosheth, he had knit all hearts like the heart of one man to himself, and in successful war had carried all before him, north and south, and east and west. He enlarged the borders of his kingdom, captured the City of Waters, and placed the Moloch crown of Rabbah on his head. Then in the mid-flush of his prosperity, in his pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, "the tempting opportunity met the susceptible disposition," and David forgot God who had done so great things for him. The people must have felt how deep was the debt of gratitude which they owed to him. He had given them a consciousness of power yet undeveloped; a sense of the unity of their national life perpetuated by the possession of a capital which has been famous to all succeeding ages. To David the nation owed the conquest of the stronghold of Jebus, and they would feel that "as the hills stand about Jerusalem, so standeth the Lord round about them that fear Him." {Psa 122:3-5} The king who associates his name with a national capital-as Nebuchadnezzar built great Babylon, or Constantine chose Byzantium-secures the strongest claim to immortality. But the choice made by David for his capital showed an intuition as keen as that which had immortalized the fame of the Macedonian conqueror in the name of Alexandria. Jerusalem is a city which belongs to all time, and even under the curse of Turkish rule it has not lost its undying interest. But David had rendered a still higher service in giving stability to the national religion. The prestige of the Ark had been destroyed in the overwhelming defeat of Israel by the Philistines at Aphek, when it fell into the hands of the uncircumcised. After that it had been neglected and half forgotten until David brought it with songs and dances to God’s holy hill of Zion. Since then every pious Israelite might rejoice that, as in the Tabernacle of old, God was once more in the midst of His people. The merely superstitious might only regard the Ark as a fetish-the fated Palladium of the national existence. But to all thoughtful men the presence of the Ark had a deeper meaning, for it enshrined the Tables of the Moral Law; and those broken Tables, and the bending Cherubim which gazed down upon them, and the blood-sprinkled gold of the Mercy-Seat were a vivid emblem that God’s Will is the Rule of Righteousness, and that if it be broken the soul must be reconciled to Him by repentance and forgiveness. That meaning is beautifully brought out in the Psalm which says, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall rise up into the holy place? Even he that hath clean bands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his mind into vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor." To David more than to any man that conviction of the supremacy of righteousness must have been keenly present, and for this reason his sin was the less pardonable. It "tore down the altar of confidence" in many hearts. It caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, and was therefore worthy of a sorer punishment. And God in His mercy smote, and did not spare. He sinned: then came earthquake and eclipse. His earthly life was shipwrecked in that place where two seas meet-where the sea of calamity meets the sea of crime. Then followed the death of his infant child; the outrage of Amnon; the blood of the brutal ravisher shed by his brother’s hands; the flight of Absalom; his insolence, his rebellion, his deadly insult to his father’s household; the long day of flight and shame and weeping and curses, as David ascended the slope of Olivet and went down into the Valley of Jordan; the sanguinary battle; the cruel murder of the beloved rebel; the insolence of Joab; the heartrending cry. "O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom; would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Not even then had David’s trials ended. He had to endure the fierce quarrel between Israel and Judah; the rebellion of Sheba; the murder of Amasa, which he dared not punish. He had to sink into the further sin of pride in numbering the people, and to see the Angel of the Plague standing with drawn sword over the threshing-floor of Araunah, while his people-those sheep who had not offended-died around him by thousands. After such a life he was made to feel that it was not for blood-stained hands like his to rear the Temple, though he had said, "I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep nor mine eyelids to slumber, neither the temples of my head to take any rest tilt I find a place for the tabernacle of the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob." And now we see him surrounded by intrigues; alienated from the friends and advisers of his youth; shivering in his sickroom; attended by his nurse; feeble, apathetic, the ghost and wreck of all that he had been, with little left of his life but its "glimmerings and decays." It is an oft-repeated story. Even so we see great Darius "Deserted at his utmost need By those his former bounty fed; On the bare ground exposed he lies Without a friend to close his eyes." So we see glorious Alexander the Great, dying as a fool dieth, remorseful, drunken, disappointed, at Babylon. So we see our great Plantagenet:- "Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye afford A tear to grace his obsequies." So we see Louis XIV, le grand monarque , peevish, ennuye, fortunate no longer, an old man of seventy, seven left in his vast lonely palace with his great-grandson, a frivolous child of five, and saying to him, " J’ai trop aime la guerre; ne m’imitez point . "So we see the last great conqueror of modern times, embittering his dishonored island-exile by miserable disputes with Sir Hudson Lowe about etiquette and champagne. But among all the "sad stories of the deaths of kings" none ends a purer glory with a more pitiful decline than the poet-king of Israel, whose songs have been to so many thousands their delight in the house of their pilgrimage. Truly David’s experience no less than his own may have added bitterness to the traditional epitaph of his son on all human glory: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." AN EASTERN COURT AND HOME 1 Kings 1:1-53 "Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness." Ezekiel 16:49 A MAN does not choose his own destiny; it is ordained for higher ends than his own personal happiness. If David could have made his choice, he might, indeed, have been dazzled by the glittering lure of royalty; yet he would have been in all probability happier and nobler had he never risen above the simple life of his forefathers. Our saintly king in Shakespeare’s tragedy says:- "My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen. My crown is called Content; And crown it is which seldom kings enjoy." David assuredly did not enjoy that crown. After his establishment at Jerusalem it is doubtful whether he could count more happy days than Abderrahman the Magnificent, who recorded that amid a life honored in peace and victorious in war he could not number more than fourteen. We admire the generous freebooter more than we admire the powerful king. As time went on he showed a certain deterioration of character, the inevitable result of the unnatural conditions to which he had succumbed. Saul was a king of a very simple type. No pompous ceremonials separated him from the simple intercourse of natural kindliness. He did not tower over the friends of his youth like a Colossus, and look down on his superiors from the artificial elevation of his inch-high dignity. "In himself was all his state," and there was something kinglier in his simple majesty when he stood under his pomegranate at Migron, with his huge javelin in his hand, than in "The tedious pomp which waits On princes, when their rich retinue long Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold Dazzles the crowd and sets them all agape." We should not have presumed beforehand that there was anything in David’s character which rendered external pomp and ceremony attractive to him. But the inherent flunkeyism of Eastern servility made his courtiers feed him with adulation, and approach him with genuflections. Apparently he could not rise superior to the slowly corrupting influences of autocracy which gradually assimilated the court of the once simple warrior to that of his vulgar compeers on the neighboring thrones. There is something startling to see what a chasm royalty has cleft between him and the comrades of his adversity, and even the partner of his guilt who had become his favorite queen. We see it throughout the story of the last scenes in which he plays a part. He can only be addressed with periphrases and in the third person. "Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the king, and let her lie in thy bosom that my lord the king may get heat. Bathsheba can only speak to him in such terms as, Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear unto thy handmaid?" and even she, when she enters the sick-chamber of his decrepitude, prostrates herself and does obeisance. Every other word of her speech is interlarded with "my lord the king," and "my lord, O king"; and when she leaves "the presence" she again bows herself with her face to the earth, and does reverence to the king with the words, "May my lord, King David, live forever." The anointed dignity of the prophet who had once so boldly rebuked David’s worst crime does not exempt him from the same ceremonial, and he too goes into the inner chamber bowing his face before the king to the earth. Insensibly David must have come to require it all, and to like it. Yet the unsophisticated instincts of his more natural youth would surely have revolted from it. He would have deprecated it as sternly as the Greek conqueror in the mighty tragedy who hates to walk to his throne on purple tapestries, and says to his queen:- "Open not the mouth to me, nor cry amain As at the footstool of a man of the East, Prone on the ground: so stoop not thou to me"; or, as another has more literally rendered it:- "Nor like some barbarous man Gape thou upon me an earth-groveling howl." But the royal position of David brought with it a surer curse than that which follows the extreme exaltation of a man above his fellows. It brought with it the permitted luxury or imaginary necessity for polygamy, and the man-enervating, woman-degrading paraphernalia of an Eastern harem. Jesse and Boaz, in their paternal fields at Bethlehem, had been content with one wife, and had known the true joys of love and home. But monogamy was thought unsuitable to the new grandeur of a despot, and under the curse of polygamy the joy of love, the peace of home, are inevitably blighted. In that condition man gives up the sweetest sources of earthly blessing for the meanest gratifications of animal sensuousness. Love, when it is pure and true, gilds the life of man with a joy of heaven, and fills it with a breath of Paradise. It renders life more perfect and more noble by the union of two souls, and fulfills the original purpose of creation. A home, blessed by life’s most natural sanctities, becomes a saving ark in days of storm, - "Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels." But in a polygamous household a home is exchanged for a troubled establishment, and love is carnalized into a jaded appetite, The Eastern king becomes the slave of every wandering fancy, and can hardly fail to be a despiser of womanhood, which he sees only on its ignoblest side. His home is liable to be torn by mutual jealousies and subterranean intrigues, and many a foul and midnight murder has marked, and still marks, the secret history of Eastern seraglios. The women-idle, ignorant, uneducated, degraded, intriguing-with nothing to think of but gossip, scandal, spite, and animal passion; hating each other worst of all, and each engaged in the fierce attempt to reign supreme in the affection which she cannot monopolize-spend wasted lives of ennui and slavish degradation. Eunuchs, the vilest products of the most corrupted civilization, soon make their loathly appearance in such courts, and add the element of morbid and rancorous effeminacy to the general ferment of corruption. Polygamy, as it is a contravention of God’s original design, enfeebles the man, degrades the woman, corrupts the slave, and destroys the home. David introduced it into the Southern Kingdom, and Ahab into the Northern; -both with the most calamitous effects. Polygamy produces results worse than all the others upon the children born in such families. Murderous rivalry often reigns between them, and fraternal affection is almost unknown. The children inherit the blood of deteriorated mothers, and the sons of different wives burn with the mutual animosities of the harem, under whose shadowing influence they have been brought up. When Napoleon was asked the greatest need of France, he answered in the one laconic word, "Mothers"; and when he was asked the best training ground for recruits, he said, "The nurseries, of course." Much of the manhood of the East shows the taint and blight which it has inherited from such mothers and such nurseries as seraglios alone can form. The darkest elements of a polygamous household showed themselves in the unhappy family of David. The children of the various wives and concubines saw but little of their father during their childish years. David could only give them a scanty and much-divided attention when they were brought to him to display their beauty. They grew up as children, the spoiled and petted playthings of women and debased attendants, with nothing to curb their rebellious passions or check their imperious wills. The little influence over them which David exercised was unhappily not for good. He was a man of tender affections. He repeated the errors of which he might have been warned by the effects of foolish indulgence on Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, and even on the sons of the guide of his youth, the prophet Samuel. The wild careers of David’s elder sons show that they had inherited his strong passion, and eager ambition, and that in their case, as well as Adonijah’s he had not displeased them at a time in saying, "Why hast thou done so?" The consequences which followed had been frightful beyond precedent. David must have learnt by experience the truth of the exhortation "Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children neither delight in ungodly sons Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, except the fear of the Lord be with them: for one that is just is better than a thousand; and better it is to die without children, than to have those that are ungodly." David’s eldest son was Amnon, the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel; his second Daniel or Chileab, son of Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel; the third Absalom, son of Maacah, daughter of Talmal, King of Geshur; the fourth Adonijah, the son of Haggith. Shephatiah and Ithream were the sons of two other wives, and these six sons were born to David in Hebron. When he became king in Jerusalem he had four sons by Bathsheba, born after the one that died in his infancy, and at least nine other sons by various wives, besides his daughter Tamar, sister of Absalom. He had other sons by his concubines. Most of these sons are unknown to fame. Some of them probably died in childhood. He provided for others by making them priests. His line down to the days of Jeconiah, was continued in the descendants of Solomon, and afterwards in those of the otherwise unknown Nathan. The elder sons, born to him in the days of his more fervent youth, became the authors of the tragedies which laid waste his house. "They were youths of splendid beauty, and as they bore the proud title of the king’s sons," they were from their earliest years encircled by luxury and adulation. Amnon regarded himself as the heir to the throne and his fierce passions brought the first infamy into the family of David. By the aid of his cousin Jonadab, the wily son of Shimmeah, the king’s brother, he brutally dishonored his half sister Tamar and then as brutally drove the unhappy princess from his presence. It was David’s duty to inflict punishment on his shameless heir, but he weakly condoned the crime. Absalom dissembled his vengeance for two whole years, and spoke to his brother neither good nor evil. At the end of that time he invited David and all the princes to a joyous sheep-shearing festival at Baal Hazor. David, as he anticipated, declined the invitation, on the plea that his presence would burden his son with needless expense. Then Absalom asked that, as the king could not honor his festival, at least his brother Amnon, as the heir to the throne, might be present. David’s heart misgave him, but he could refuse nothing to the youth whose magnificent and faultless beauty filled him with an almost doting pride, and Amnon and all the princes went to the feast. No sooner was Amnon’s heart inflamed with wine, than, at a preconcerted signal, Absalom’s servants fell on him and murdered him. The feast broke up in tumultuous horror, and in the wild cry and rumor which arose the heart of David was torn with the intelligence that Absalom had murdered all his brothers. He rent his clothes, and lay weeping in the dust surrounded by his weeping servants. But Jonadab assured him that only Amnon had been murdered in revenge for his unpunished outrage, and a rush of people along the road, among whom the princes were visible riding on their mules, confirmed his words. But the deed was still black enough. Bathed in tears, and raising the wild cries of Eastern grief, the band of youthful princes stood round the father whose incestuous firstborn had thus fallen by a brother’s hand, and the king also and all his servants "wept greatly with a great weeping." Absalom fled to his grandfather the King of Geshur; but his purpose had been doubly accomplished. He had avenged the shame of his sister, and he was now himself the eldest son and heir to the throne. His claim was strengthened by the superb physique and beautiful hair of which he was so proud, and which won the hearts both of king and people. Capable, ambitious, secure of ultimate pardon, the son and the grandson of a king he lived for three years at the court of his grandfather. Then Joab, perceiving that David was consoled for the death of Amnon, and that his heart was yearning for his favorite son, obtained the intercession of the wise woman of Tekoah, and got permission for Absalom to return. But his offence had been terrible, and to his extreme mortification the king refused to admit him. Joab, though he had maneuvered for his return, did not come near him, and twice refused to visit him when summoned to do so. With characteristic insolence the young man obtained an interview by ordering his servants to set fire to Joab’s field of barley. By Joab’s request the king once more saw Absalom, and, as the youth felt sure would be the case, raised him from the ground, kissed, forgave, and restored him to favor. For the favor of his weakly-fond father he cared little; what he wanted was the throne. His proud beauty, his royal descent on both sides, fired his ambition. Eastern peoples are always ready to concede pre-eminence to splendid men. This had helped to win the kingdom for stately Saul and ruddy David; for the Jews, like the Greeks, thought that "loveliness of person involves the blossoming promises of future excellence, and is, as it were, a prelude of riper beauty." It seemed intolerable to this prince in the zenith of glorious life that he should be kept out of his royal inheritance by one whom he described as a useless dotard. By his personal fascination, and by base intrigues against David, founded on the king’s imperfect fulfillment of his duties as judge, "he stole the hearts of the children of Israel." After four years, everything was ripe for revolt. He found that for some unexplained reason the tribe of Judah and the old capital of Hebron were disaffected to David’s rule. He got leave to visit Hebron in pretended fulfillment of a vow, and so successfully raised the standard of revolt that David, his family, and his followers had to fly hurriedly from Jerusalem with bare feet and cheeks bathed in tears along the road of the Perfumers. Of that long day of misery-to the description of which more space is given in Scripture than to that of any other day except that of the Crucifixion-we need not speak, nor of the defeat of the rebellion. David was saved by the adhesion of his warrior-corps (the Gibborim ) and his mercenaries (the Krethi and Plethi ). Absalom’s host was routed. He was in some strange way entangled in the branches of a tree as he fled on his mule through the forest of Rephaim. As he hung helpless there, Joab, with needless cruelty, drove three wooden staves through his body in revenge for his past insolence, leaving his armor-bearer to dispatch the miserable fugitive. To this day every Jewish child flings a contumelious stone at the pillar in the King’s Dale, which bears the traditional name of David’s Son, the beautiful and bad. The days which followed were thickly strewn with calamities for the rapidly ageing and heartbroken king. His helpless decline was yet to be shaken by the attempted usurpation of another bad son. 1 Kings 1:5 Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, I will be king: and he prepared him chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. ADONIJAH’S REBELLION 1 Kings 1:5-53 "The king’s word hath power; and who may say unto him, What doest thou?"- Ecclesiastes 8:4 THE fate of Amnon and of Absalom might have warned the son who was now the eldest, and who had succeeded to their claims. Adonijah was the son of Haggith, "the dancer." His father had piously given him the name, which means "Jehovah is my Lord." He too, was "a very goodly man," treated by David with foolish indulgence, and humored in all his wishes. Although the rights of primogeniture were ill-defined, a king’s eldest son, endowed as Adonijah was, Would naturally be looked on as the heir; and Adonijah was impatient for the great prize. Following the example of Absalom "he exalted himself, saying, I will be king" and, as an unmistakable sign of his intentions, prepared for himself fifty runners with chariots and horsemen. David, unwarned by the past or perhaps too ill and secluded to be aware of what was going on put no obstacle in his way. The people in general were tired of David, though the spell of his name was still great. Adonijah’s cause seemed safe when he had won over Joab, the commander of the forces, and Abiathar, the chief priest. But the young man’s precipitancy spoiled everything. David lingered on. It was perhaps a palace-secret that a strong court-party was in favor of Solomon, and that David was inclined to leave his kingdom to this younger son by his favorite wife. So Adonijah, once more imitating the tactics of Absalom, prepared a great feast at the Dragon-stone by the Fullers’ Well in the valley below Jerusalem. He sacrificed sheep and fat oxen and cattle, and invited all the king’s fifteen sons, omitting Solomon, from whom alone he had any rivalry to fear. To this feast he also invited Joab and Abiathar, and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants, by which are probably intended "all the captains of the host" who formed the nucleus of the militia forces. {1Ki 1:9-25} At this feast Adonijah threw off the mask. In open rebellion against David, his followers shouted, "God save king Adonijah!" The watchful eye of one man-the old prophet-statesman, Nathan-saw the danger. Adonijah was thirty-five; Solomon was comparatively a child. "Solomon, my son," says David, "is young and tender." What his age was at the date of Adonijah’s rebellion we do not know, Josephus says that he was only twelve, and this would well accord with the fact that he seems to have taken no step on his own behalf, while Nathan and Bathsheba act for him. It accords less well with the calm magnanimity and regal decisiveness which he displayed from the first day that he was seated on the throne. The Greek proverb says, "Power shows the man." Perhaps Solomon, hitherto concealed in the seclusion of the harem, was, up to this time, ignorant of himself as well as unknown to the people. Being unaware of the