David’s final instructions to Solomon
2
📚Now David’s time to die 📖 drew near, and he gave a charge to his son Solomon, saying, 2 📚“I am going the way of all the earth, therefore be strong 📖, and show yourself a man, 3 📚and keep the charge of the LORD your God to walk in his ways 📖, to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, 4 📚so that the LORD may fulfil his word 📖 which he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your children are careful about their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart 📖 and with all their soul, you will not lack (he said) a man on the throne of Israel.’5 📚“Moreover, you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether. He killed them 📖, shedding the blood of war in peace, and putting the blood of war on his belt that was around his waist, and on his shoes that were on his feet. 6 📚Therefore act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray head go down to the grave 📖 in peace.
2:6 David wanted Solomon to do what he himself had been too weak to do. David knew that if Joab lived he could be a continual source of trouble to Solomon’s reign.⚜
7 📚“But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table, for so they came to me when I fled because of Absalom your brother.
8 📚“And, look, you have with you Shimei 📖 the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, who cursed me with a terrible curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ 9 📚Now therefore do not consider him innocent 📖, for you are a wise man, and know what you ought to do to him, and bring his gray head down to the grave with blood”.
David’s death
10 📚So David slept 📖 with his ancestors, and was buried in the city of David 📖. 11 📚And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron, and he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.
2:11 2 Sam 5:4-5. His reign was from about 1010 to 970 B.C.⚜
The beginning of Solomon’s rule and the elimination of wicked enemies
12 📚Then Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his kingdom was firmly established.
13 📚And Adonijah, the son of Haggith, came to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon. And she said, “Do you come peaceably 📖?”
And he said, “Peaceably”.
14 📚He also said, “I have something to say to you”.
And she said, “Speak”.
15 📚And he said, “You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel was looking to me to be king. However the kingdom has turned around and become my brother’s, for it was his from the LORD.
2:15 He may have thought that as the oldest living son of David, the kingdom was his. However, the kingdom was really God’s and He had not given it to Adonijah.⚜
16 📚And now I make one request of you. Do not deny me”. And she said to him, “Speak”.
17 📚And he said, “Please speak to Solomon the king (for he will not refuse you) that he may give Abishag 📖 the Shunammite to me as my wife”.
18 📚And Bathsheba said, “Very well. I will speak for you to the king”.
19 📚So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed down to her, and sat down on his throne, and had a seat placed for the king’s mother; and she sat at his right hand 📖.
20 📚Then she said, “I will make one small request of you. Please do not refuse me”. And the king said to her, “Ask, my mother, for I will not refuse you”. 21 📚And she said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to your brother Adonijah as his wife”.
22 📚And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, “And why are you asking Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask the kingdom for him 📖 also, for he is my older brother. Ask it for him and for Abiathar the priest and for Joab the son of Zeruiah”.
23 📚Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, “God do harm to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life.
2:23 See 1 Kings 1:52. Adonijah had proved unworthy.⚜
24 📚Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of my father David, and who has founded a house for me, as he promised 📖, Adonijah will be put to death today”. 25 📚And King Solomon sent orders to Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he struck him down, and Adonijah died.
26 📚And the king said to Abiathar 📖 the priest, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are worthy of death. But I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the LORD God in front of my father David, and because you suffered in everything my father suffered 📖”. 27 📚So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being a priest to the LORD in fulfilment of the word of the LORD, which he spoke in Shiloh concerning the house of Eli.
28 📚Then news came to Joab, for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he had not turned after Absalom. And Joab fled to the tabernacle of the LORD, and took hold of the horns of the altar 📖. 29 📚And it was told King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tabernacle of the LORD, and was there by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, strike him down 📖”.
30 And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the LORD, and said to him, “This is what the king says, ‘Come out.’ ”
And he said, “No, but I will die here”.
And Benaiah brought word back to the king, saying, “This is what Joab says, and this is what he answered me”.
31 📚And the king said to him, “Do as he has said, and strike him down and bury him, so that you can remove from me and from my father’s house the innocent blood 📖 which Joab shed. 32 📚And the LORD will bring back his blood 📖 onto his own head. He struck down two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, my father David being unaware of it, Abner the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. 33 📚Therefore their blood will return onto the head of Joab, and onto the head of his offspring forever, but there will be peace from the LORD forever on David, and on his offspring, and on his house, and on his throne”.
2:33 Only by cleansing the kingdom from guilt could peace be expected.⚜
34 📚So Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, went up and struck him down and killed him. And he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. 35 📚And in his place the king put Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, over the army, and the king put Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar.
36 📚And the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, “Build a house for yourself in Jerusalem, and live there, and do not go anywhere from there. 37 📚For this is the way it will be: on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, you may know for certain that you will surely die; your blood will be on your own head”.
2:37 A wise way of making Shimei himself responsible for whether he was to live or die.⚜
38 📚And Shimei said to the king, “The word is good. Your servant will do just as my lord the king has said”. And Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.
39 📚And it so happened at the end of three years, that two of Shimei’s servants ran away to Achish, son of Maachah king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, “Look, your servants are in Gath”. 40 📚And Shimei arose and saddled his donkey and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants. So Shimei went and brought his servants from Gath.
41 And it was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and had returned. 42 📚And the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the LORD, and solemnly warned you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and travel around anywhere, you shall surely die?’ And you said to me, ‘The word I have heard is good.’ 43 📚Why then have you not kept the oath you swore by the LORD, and the command that I gave you?”
44 📚Moreover the king said to Shimei, “You know all the evil that you did 📖 to my father David of which your heart is aware of; therefore the LORD will bring back 📖 your evil on your own head, 45 📚and King Solomon will be blessed, and the throne of David will be established before the LORD forever”.
2:45 Verses 32,33.⚜
46 📚So the king gave a command to Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck him down, and Shimei died. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.
2:46 The death of two potential troublemakers helped to make Solomon’s position stable.⚜