1. And King David had grown old. Although an editor, several centuries after the composition of the story, placed this episode and the next one at the beginning of the Book of Kings, and after the coda of 2 Samuel 21–24, because of the centrality in them of Solomon’s succession, they are clearly the conclusion to the David story and bear all the hallmarks of its author’s distinctive literary genius. There are strong stylistic links with the previous David narrative; the artful deployment of dialogue and of spatial shifts is very similar; and there are significant connections of phrasing, motif, and theme.

they covered him with bedclothes, but he was not warm. This extraordinary portrait of a human life working itself out in the gradual passage of time, which began with an agile, daring, and charismatic young David, now shows him in the extreme infirmity of old age, shivering in bed beneath his covers.

2. Let them seek out for my lord the king a young virgin. The language used by the courtiers recalls that of the mentally troubled Saul’s courtiers, “We shall seek out a man skilled in playing the lyre” (1 Samuel 16:16)—the very words that were the prelude to the young David’s entrance into the court.

become his familiar. The exact meaning of the Hebrew noun sokhenet is uncertain. Some translate it as “attendant” on the basis of the context. The verbal stem from which the word is derived generally has the meaning of “to become accustomed,” hence the choice here of “familiar”—of course, in the social sense and not in the secondary sense linked with witchcraft. The only other occurrence of this term in the biblical corpus, Isaiah 22:15, seems to designate a (male) court official.

and lie in your lap. Nathan in his denunciatory parable addressed to David represented the ewe, symbolic of Bathsheba, lying in the poor man’s lap (2 Samuel 12:3).

4. the young woman was very beautiful . . . but the king knew her not. David, lying in bed with this desirable virgin, but now beyond any thought or capacity of sexual consummation, is of course a sad image of infirm old age. At the same time, this vignette of geriatric impotence is a pointed reversal of the Bathsheba story that brought down God’s curse on the house of David, triggering all the subsequent troubles of dynastic succession. There, too, David was lying in his bed or couch (mishkav, as in verse 47 here), and there, too, he sent out emissaries to bring back a beautiful young woman to lie with him, though to antithetical purposes.

5. was giving himself airs. The reflexive verb has a root that means to raise up (hence the King James Version, “exalted himself”). Since a common noun derived from that verb, nasiʾ, means “prince,” the reflexive verb might even have the sense of “acting the part of a prince.”

he made himself a chariot and horsemen with fifty men running before him. These acts of regal presumption are the same ones carried out by the usurper Absalom, Adonijah’s older brother.

6. his father never caused him pain. The obvious sense of the verb in context is “reprimand.” The Septuagint reads “restrained him” (ʿatsaro instead of ʿatsavo), either because the Greek translators had a better Hebrew version here or were smoothing out the Hebrew.

And he, too, was very goodly of appearance. As the second clause of this sentence makes clear, the “too” refers to Absalom, the son Haggith bore David before Adonijah.

8. Shimei and Rei. The Septuagint reads “Shimei and his companions” (reʿaw instead of reʿi).

9. made a sacrificial feast. The Hebrew verb z-b-ḥ refers both to the sacrifice of the animals, the greater part of which was kept to be eaten, and to the feast. This is clearly a ceremonial feast at which the monarchy is to be conferred on Adonijah.

the Zoheleth stone which is near Ein-Rogel. The spring (Hebrew ‘ayin) of Rogel is within a couple of miles of Jerusalem. The spatial proximity becomes important later in the story because Adonijah’s supporters, after they finish their feast, are able to hear the shouting from the city. Zoheleth means “creeping thing,” which has led some scholars to conjecture that this location was a sacred site dedicated to the worship of a snake deity.

and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants. Like his brother Absalom, Adonijah draws on a base of support from his own tribe, Judah. In political and royal contexts, the phrase “the king’s servants” usually refers to courtiers, members of the king’s inner circle.

10. But Nathan the prophet and Benaiah. In keeping with the established convention of biblical narrative, this list of the uninvited and the report of Adonijah’s self-coronation feast will be repeated more or less verbatim, with subtle and significant changes reflecting who the speaker is.

and the warriors. One should remember that Joab, commander of the army, was not listed in 2 Samuel 23 as a member of “the Three Warriors,” David’s elite fighting corps. Although few in number, they would have been a formidable counterforce in a struggle for the throne.

11. Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. After her fatal affair with David, she disappears from the narrative. Now, after some two decades or perhaps more of elapsed time, she resurfaces. Whereas the beautiful young wife was accorded no dialogue except for her report to David of her pregnancy, the mature Bathsheba will show herself a mistress of language—shrewd, energetic, politically astute.

Adonijah . . . has become king, and our lord David knows it not. J. P. Fokkelman notes the play on words in the Hebrew between ʾAdoniyah (“my lord is Yah”) and ʾadoneinu (“our lord”). Playing also on the double sense of the Hebrew verb “to know,” the writer represents David in a state of both sexual and cognitive impotence: he knows not Abishag and he knows not Adonijah’s initiative to assume the throne.

13. Has not my lord the king sworn to your servant. The script that Nathan dictates to Bathsheba invokes a central ambiguity, which the writer surely intends to exploit. Perhaps David actually made a private vow to Bathsheba promising that Solomon would succeed him. There is, however, no mention of such a vow anywhere in the preceding narrative, including the report of Solomon’s God-favored birth, where one might expect it. This opens up a large, though by no means certain, possibility that Nathan the man of God has invented the vow and enlists Bathsheba’s help in persuading the doddering David that he actually made this commitment.

Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne. The verselike parallelism of David’s purported vow has the effect of impressing it on memory. It is repeated three times: here by Nathan, then by Bathsheba as she carries out Nathan’s orders, then by David, who will make one small but crucial change in the wording of the formula.

14. fill in your words. Many translate the Hebrew verb that means “to fill” as “confirm.” But in fact what Nathan will do is to complement Bathsheba’s speech, adding certain elements and not repeating certain others.

15. the inner chamber. At an earlier moment, a figure from David’s house, Amnon, was seen lying ill (or pretending) while a beautiful woman came to him in the inner chamber.

16. Bathsheba did obeisance and bowed down to the king. Whatever the actual relationship between Bathsheba and David at this very late point in his life, it seems reduced to a punctilious observance of palace protocol. In the background, silent, stands the beautiful young Abishag, now the king’s bedmate but not really his consort.

17. My lord, you yourself swore by the LORD your God. Bathsheba edits the script Nathan has given her in two ways: the third-person address to the king is switched to the second person, allowing her to introduce an emphatic, “you yourself” (in the Hebrew the addition of the pronoun ʾatah before the conjugated verb); and the vow is said to have been made solemnly “by the LORD your God.” If in fact the vow is a fabrication, perhaps Nathan the prophet was leery of invoking God’s name in connection with it.

19. oxen and fatlings and sheep in abundance. The last term, “in abundance,” is added to the verbal chain from the narrator’s initial report of the feast, a small magnification of the scale of the event that Adonijah has staged.

but Solomon your servant he did not invite. Nathan had not incorporated a list of the excluded in his instructions to her. Bathsheba singles out only her own son among the uninvited, but she is careful to identify him to David not as “my son” but as “your servant,” emphasizing Solomon’s status as loyal subject.

20. the eyes of all Israel are upon you to tell them who will sit on the throne. Now improvising, Bathsheba uses words that strongly evoke David’s authority, though in fact he has been out of the picture, failing and bedridden.

21. when my lord the king lies with his fathers . . . I and my son Solomon will be held offenders. With admirable tact, she uses a decorous euphemism for dying, and then expresses her perfectly plausible fear that as king, Adonijah would take prompt steps to eliminate both her and Solomon. (Compare Nathan’s “save your own life and the life of your son.”)

23. Here is Nathan the prophet. Nathan in his role as prophet is formally announced to David by the courtiers. According to biblical convention, there are no three-sided dialogues. Bathsheba presumably withdraws as soon as she sees Nathan enter. In verse 28, after the conversation with Nathan, David has to summon her back. All this takes place not in the throne room but in the “inner chamber,” where David lies in bed.

24. have you yourself said, “Adonijah shall be king.” Unlike Bathsheba, Nathan makes no reference to a vow regarding Solomon, presumably because it would have been a private vow to her. Instead, he refers to observable public events: have you authorized the succession of Adonijah? He uses the identical formula for succession that has already twice been attached to Solomon (“shall be king after me . . . shall sit on my throne”).

25. he has invited all the king’s sons and the commanders of the army. Nathan’s more political version of the unfolding usurpation adds to the list of Adonijah’s supporters the whole officer corps of the army.

Long live King Adonijah. This vivid acclamation of Adonijah’s kingship, not reported by the narrator, is calculated to rouse David’s ire. The evocation of the coronation feast (“they are eating and drinking before him”) is similarly more vivid than Bathsheba’s account.

26. But me—your servant. Nathan takes pains, in righteous indignation as prophet to the throne, to highlight his own exclusion, at the very beginning of the list.

30. as I swore to you by the LORD God of Israel. Whether or not David actually made this vow to Bathsheba, by now he is thoroughly persuaded that he did. Note that he raises Bathsheba’s language to still another level of politically efficacious resonance: Nathan had made no mention of God in invoking the vow; Bathsheba had said “you . . . swore by the LORD your God”; David now encompasses the whole national realm in declaring, “as I swore to you by the LORD God of Israel.”

he shall sit on my throne in my stead. David introduces a crucial change into the formula for the promise of succession, as Fokkelman shrewdly observes: to the understandable “after me” of the first clause he adds “in my stead,” implying not merely that Solomon will succeed him but that Solomon will replace him on the throne while he is still alive. Accordingly, David then proceeds to give instructions for an immediate ceremony of anointment. In the face of Adonijah’s virtual coup d’état, David appears to realize that he is no longer physically capable of acting as monarch and protecting himself against usurpation, and that the wisest course is to put his chosen successor on the throne without a moment’s delay.

31. May my lord King David live forever. Bathsheba’s tact remains flawless. Now that she has extracted from David exactly the commitment she wanted, she wishes him, hyperbolically, eternal life, even as he teeters on the edge of the grave.

33. your lord’s servants. That is, David’s courtiers.

my special mule. Literally, “the mule that is mine.” Seating Solomon on the royal mule is the first public expression of the conferral of the kingship on him.

the Gihon. This is a brook just outside the city walls. David enjoins his officials to act rapidly in anointing Solomon while Adonijah’s coronation feast is still under way a couple of miles off.

35. he shall come and sit on my throne. This reiterated symbolic statement is now literalized: after the anointment at the Gihon brook, Solomon is to be brought to the palace and publicly seated on the throne.

him have I charged to be prince. The term nagid, “prince,” previously attached to Saul and now to David, appears for the last time to designate the monarch. He is to be prince over Judah, where Adonijah has gathered support, as well as over Israel.

38. the Cherithites and the Pelethites. These members of the palace guard of Philistine origin provide a show of arms for the act of anointing Solomon.

39. took the horn of oil from the Tent. The Tent in question is obviously the cultic site where the Ark of the Covenant is kept—the emphasis is that the oil of anointment is sanctified oil.

40. the people were playing flutes and making such revelry that the very earth split apart with their noise. This hyperbolic report of the public rejoicing over Solomon’s succession to the throne serves two purposes: the tremendous clamor is so loud that the sound reaches Adonijah and his supporters at Ein-Rogel (verse 41), and it is a vocal demonstration that the choice of Solomon immediately enjoys extravagant popular support. This latter consideration is crucial for the politics of the story because it makes clear that Adonijah has no hope of mustering opposition to Solomon.

41. Adonijah heard, and all the invited guests . . . and Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn. As a couple of commentators have noted, Adonijah and his followers hear only the hubbub from the town, whereas Joab, the military man, picks up the sound of the shofar, the ram’s horn. This would be either a call to arms or the proclamation of a king.

42. For you are a valiant fellow and you must bear good tidings. This obvious non sequitur ominously echoes David’s anxious words about Ahimaaz (2 Samuel 18), “He is a good man and with good tidings he must come.” Jonathan’s very first word, “alas,” shows how mistaken Adonijah is.

43. our lord King David has made Solomon king. Jonathan flatly begins with the brunt of the bad news, then fleshes out the circumstances to make it all the worse. He at once identifies David as “our lord,” conceding that, after all, David retains a monarch’s authority to determine his successor.

46–48. And what’s more, Solomon is seated. . . . And what’s more, the king’s servants have come. . . . And what’s more, thus has the king said. Jonathan’s long, breathless account of the installation of Solomon as king, with its reiterated “what’s more” (wegam), conveys an excited cumulative sense of the chain of disasters that have destroyed all of Adonijah’s hopes. He goes beyond what the narrator has reported to depict Solomon actually seated on the throne, receiving his father’s blessing.

48. someone sitting on my throne. Some textual critics propose instead the Masoretic reading “a son sitting on my throne.”

49. each man went on his way. Terrified, the supporters of Adonijah’s claim to the throne disperse. This moment is reminiscent of the dispersal and flight of “all the king’s sons” from Amnon’s feast after Absalom’s men murder Amnon.

50. caught hold of the horns of the altar. The typical construction of ancient Israelite altars, as archaeology has confirmed, featured a curving protuberance at each of the four corners, roughly like the curve of a ram’s horn. The association of horn with strength may explain this design. Gripping the horns—actually, probably one horn—of the altar was a plea for sanctuary: at least in principle, although not always in practice, a person in this posture and in this place should be held inviolable by his pursuers.

51. Let King Solomon swear . . . that he will not put his servant to death. Adonijah, compelled by force majeure, fully acknowledges Solomon’s kingship and his own status as subject in his plea for mercy.

52. And Solomon said. Until this point, Solomon has been acted upon by others, and no dialogue has been assigned to him. Now that he is king, he speaks with firm authority.

If he prove a valiant fellow. In immediate context, the force of the idiom ben ḥayil is obviously something like “a decent fellow.” But its usual meaning is worth preserving because it precisely echoes the term Adonijah addressed to Jonathan (verse 42), and it also points up ironically that Adonijah now is trembling with fear.

if evil be found in him, he shall die. The evil Solomon has in mind would be further political machinations. He thus does not agree to swear unconditionally, as Adonijah had pleaded, not to harm his half brother, and he will make due use of the loophole he leaves himself.

53. Go to your house. This injunction concludes the episode on a note of ambiguity. Solomon is distancing Adonijah from the palace. He sends him to the presumed safety of his own home, or is it to a condition of virtual house arrest? In any case, Adonijah is surely meant to be kept under surveillance, and Solomon has already put him on warning.