Thoughts on 1 Kings 2

Today's reading: 1 Kings 2; Philippians 3

A lot of people are punished or die in 1 Kings 2 for disloyalty to either David or Solomon, but one that used to strike me as not really fitting was always Adonijah. Adonijah asks for Abishag the Shunammite to be given to him as a wife, and as a result he is immediately executed. Isn't execution a little extreme for this ask...?

There are a few pieces of context that are important here in understanding why this execution makes sense.

First of all, it is clear from 1 Kings 1 that Adonijah knew that he was attempting to steal the throne from Solomon. While it says that David had never displeased Adonijah by stopping him from gathering a following, the fact that he doesn't mention his coronation to David, the current king, is pretty telling. If he was confident that he was the rightful king, then certainly David would be involved in the coronation ceremony, or at least give his blessing to the events. So the fact that he skirts directly asking for David's permission to claim the throne tells us that he was not doing this with integrity. On top of that, the people he omits are Nathan and Solomon. Solomon was the one David had declared would be king after him and Nathan knew this and would stand up for it. This means that not only did Adonijah know he did not have the king's blessing to take the throne, but he also knew who was supposed to be on the throne and was actively avoiding detection. 

And lest we think that he certainly couldn't just claim the throne like that if David didn't support it, don't forget that Absalom already successfully did it when David was younger and more able to contest him. Absalom was the oldest son and reasonable choice for the next king, and with popular support behind him, he was able to claim the throne. Adonijah is now the oldest son, with Absalom dead, and so the people would see him as the right/reasonable choice to sit on David's throne. With David being so old, once the people are behind Adonijah, even if David tries to contest and say he wanted Solomon to be king, it would be too late, and Adonijah could easily just kill David and/or Solomon if they were causing trouble.

Once Adonijah's attempt to steal the throne fails, Solomon chooses not to kill him, but then in our chapter today he executes him after he asks for Abishag for a wife.

Here it's important to understand that in the ancient world, to take the wife or concubine of the head of a tribe or family was making a play for their position by asserting dominance over them. Reuben lost his right as the first-born when he tried to preemptively steal the role of patriarch from Jacob by sleeping with one of his wives. Shortly after the flood account Ham tried to steal the role of patriarch from Noah by sleeping with his own mother, and Canaan, the likely result of that illicit encounter, was cursed by Noah as a result. When Absalom took the throne from David, he set up a shelter on the roof of the palace and slept with David's concubines in the sight of all Jerusalem in order to strengthen his claim to his father's position. This is a well documented aspect of ancient culture and it is well represented in the Biblical account as well.

What this means is that in making this request, Adonijah is trying to surreptitiously strengthen his claim to the throne. He is already the oldest living son of David, and he has the support of the military and the priests, so if he can add Abishag as a wife to that resume, in the eyes of the people, he could very well have a much stronger claim to the throne than Solomon. Especially as David dies, it would not be a stretch for him to make another play for the throne.

This is why he is executed for this request. It is not an innocuous request for Solomon to give Adonijah a servant girl he has had a crush on for a wife, it is an attempt to position himself to steal Solomon's throne.