King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (38 page)

But even as the alluring Abishag was ushered into David's bedchamber, the king continued to shiver helplessly beneath his bedclothes. Abishag, as it turned out, served as a nurse rather than a lover to the old man in her care: “She was a very beautiful girl, and she took care of the king and waited on him, but he had no intercourse with her.” (1 Kings 1:4) (NEB)

All that was left to David, as far as the Bible is concerned, was to select a successor from among his many ambitious and contentious sons, and then die.

David had buried many sons, Amnon and Absalom and the nameless first child of Bathsheba among them, but two of his remaining male offspring managed to put the royal succession into question and even crisis. Would the next king of Israel be Adonijah, David's eldest surviving son, or Solomon, the late-born son of David and Bathsheba?

These two contested with each other for the throne, and the wishes of the dying king would be crucial in determining which one of them would occupy it when their father died. The very idea of dynastic succession was something wholly new in ancient Israel, and no law or custom was available to resolve the conflicting claims of Adonijah and Solomon. Indeed, if a son of David succeeded him to the throne, it would be the first peaceful succession in the short history of the Israelite monarchy.

Adonijah, as the eldest son, seemed to take it for granted that he would inherit the crown one day. Like Absalom, the Bible reports, Adonijah was “a very handsome man.” (1 Kings 1:6) (NEB) Unlike Absalom, he had never offended David with his conduct— at least until now. For as David's health began to fail, Adonijah began to ape his deceased brother by acting like a king without wearing a crown. Everywhere he went in Jerusalem, Adonijah traveled with “chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him” (1 Kings 1:5), and he presided over showy ritual sacrifices, slaughtering “sheep and oxen and fatlings” at a ceremony from which Solomon, his brother and rival, was pointedly excluded. (1 Kings 1:9)

As the old king rested in the royal bedchamber, Adonijah hurried through the corridors of the palace, lobbying the king's cabinet and lining up allies in what promised to be a battle for the throne. Joab, David's ever-ruthless but ever-faithful general, sided with Adonijah, and so did Abiathar, the high priest who had survived Saul's slaughter of the priests of Nob and remained loyal to David ever since.

Solomon was more subtle in his politicking but no less effective. Zadok, the
other
high priest, and Nathan, the prophet, and Benaiah, commander of the palace guard, assured him of their support in the contest for the crown. And Solomon claimed the loyalty of one person who counted for more than all the rest in terms of influence on King David—Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, the love of David's life.

“Have you not heard that Adonijah has become king, all unknown to our lord David?” Nathan said to Bathsheba. “Now, come, let me advise you what to do for your own safety and for the safety of your son, Solomon.” (1 Kings 1:11–12)
²

Nathan urged Bathsheba to present herself to King David and remind him that he had once vowed to her that he would make Solomon his successor as king of Israel. Until now, the Bible has reported no such promise by David, and Bible scholar Robert Alter proposes the provocative idea that Nathan may simply have invented it. If so, Alter writes, the briefing of Bathsheba by Nathan
may reflect his effort to enlist her assistance in “persuading the doddering David that he actually made this commitment.”
³

The final encounter between David and Bathsheba is charged with both political and sexual tension, a fitting note on which to end the life story of David. As Bathsheba entered the royal bedchamber, she spotted the comely young Abishag in the midst of her ministrations, but the old queen betrayed no lack of confidence in her own influence over David. Bathsheba simply ignored Abishag as she presented herself to David, bowing to the ground before her old lover in an ostentatious display of royal protocol.

“What troubles you?” David asked Bathsheba, the woman for whom he had once been willing to commit murder. (1 Kings 1:16)

“My lord, you swore to me, by the Lord your God, that my son Solomon should succeed you as king, and that he should sit on your throne,” Bathsheba declared. “And now, behold, Adonijah reigns as king, and you, my lord the king, know it not.” (1 Kings 1:17–18)
⁴

Bathsheba's words—bold, assured, and guileful—must have struck David's ears like a scolding. Before this moment, we have heard only one sentence from the lips of Bathsheba, an utterance that changed David's life and the history of Israel forever: “I'm pregnant.” But now, more than twenty years later, Bathsheba showed herself to be one of those articulate and compelling women—like the old woman of Tekoa and the wise woman of Abel—who are able to capture the hearts and minds of powerful men with nothing but their own commanding words. She proceeded to press her case, telling David about the lavish feast to which Adonijah had invited all of the king's sons
except
Solomon and describing in detail how Adonijah had put on a spectacular display of ritual sacrifice, offering up oxen, buffalo, and sheep in abundance. And she named names, listing each of the courtiers who were siding with Adonijah.

“And now, my lord the king, all Israel is looking to you to announce who is to succeed you on the throne,” Bathsheba said. “Otherwise, when you sleep with your forefathers, my son Solomon and I shall be treated as criminals.” (1 Kings 1:20–21)
⁵

Nathan, who had slipped into the king's bedchamber during Bathsheba's address, confirmed that everything Bathsheba had told him was true and then added a few incriminating details of his own. The sons of King David—all of them except Solomon— were feasting even now with Adonijah, and so were Joab, the commander of the king's army, and even Abiathar, the high priest. All of them ate and drank with Adonijah, boldly toasting him as if he already wore David's crown: “Long live king Adonijah!” (1 Kings 1:25)

At length, the king bestirred himself and called upon Bathsheba to draw closer to his bed. The old woman whom David had loved so long ago had now succeeded where Abishag's youthful charms had failed—the king was hot with anger, and he gave Bathsheba the promise that she sought.

“As the Lord lives, who has delivered me from all my troubles,” croaked the old king, “I swore by Yahweh, the God of Israel, that Solomon your son should succeed me, and that he should sit on my throne, and so will I do this day.” (1 Kings 1:29–30)
⁶

Bathsheba bowed again, her face to the floor, and offered one last poignant wish: “Let my lord king David live forever.” (1 Kings 1:31) Her words were nothing more than a prayer, and David knew that some prayers went unanswered.

Just as he had promised Bathsheba, David promptly set in motion the plan that would make Solomon the next king of Israel. First he summoned Benaiah and ordered him to assemble the elite corps of foreign mercenaries, the Cherethites and the Pelethites. The soldiers were to convey Solomon to the sacred spring of Gihon—and lest anyone fail to understand whom David had chosen as his successor, Solomon was to ride the king's own mule all the way to Gihon and back. (1 Kings 1:34)
⁷

“Then he shall come and sit upon my throne,” declared
David, “for he shall be king in my stead, and I have appointed him to be prince over Israel and over Judah.” (1 Kings 1:35)

To which Benaiah, guarantor of Solomon's physical security, answered: “Amen.” (1 Kings 1:36)

Solomon's anointment was vastly grander than his father's. David, of course, had been a shepherd boy when he was called from the fields and secretly anointed by Samuel with only his father and brothers as witnesses. Solomon, by contrast, was attended by an honor guard of soldiers, he was anointed with holy oil from the tent-shrine of Yahweh by both the prophet Nathan and the high priest Zadok, and he was surrounded by a vast crowd that had followed him to the sacred spring of Gihon and broke into wild celebration at the sight of the oil glistening in his hair.

David's last promise to Bathsheba had been fulfilled, and the only surviving child of their passionate but illicit love affair was now king of Israel.

At the very moment of Solomon's anointment, as the Bible reveals, Adonijah and his own band of intimates—Joab and Abiathar and all the sons of David
except
Solomon—were celebrating what turned out to be Adonijah's premature claim on the kingship. Their revelries were disturbed by the distant shriek of the shofar, the sound of drums and horns, the swelling roar of a crowd. “What is all this uproar in the city?” asked Joab, whose instinct and experience must have prompted him to wonder
whether some fresh rebellion had broken out in Jerusalem. “What has happened?” (1 Kings 1:41) (NEB)

Jonathan, son of the high priest Abiathar, approached the house of Adonijah. He was flushed and out of breath.

“Come in,” Adonijah said hopefully. “You are an honorable man and bring good tidings.” (1 Kings 1:42)
⁸

“Alas, our lord King David has made Solomon king!” Jonathan cried. He proceeded to describe all the particulars, including the soldiers who guarded Solomon, the priest and the prophet who anointed him with holy oil, and the frenzy of celebration that Solomon's anointment had inspired. And then he reported that David himself had confirmed Solomon as his chosen successor: “ ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has set a successor on my throne this day,’ ” Jonathan reported, quoting the words of David, “ ‘while I am still alive to see it.’ ” (1 Kings 1:48)
⁹

“The city is in an uproar,” concluded Jonathan, abject and miserable. “That was the noise that you heard.” (1 Kings 1:45)
¹⁰

Then, as each man at Adonijah's table realized that he had staked his fortune on the wrong son of David, all of them began to scatter in panic. Soon Adonijah found himself abandoned, and panic seized him, too. He hastened to the altar of Yahweh, a squat column of stone with a hornlike protuberance on each corner, and he “caught hold on the horns of the altar,” thus invoking an ancient tradition by which a man could claim the protection of Yahweh against his pursuers. (1 Kings 1:50)

“Behold, Adonijah fears king Solomon,” it was reported to Solomon, “for he has laid hold on the horns of the altar, saying: ‘Let king Solomon swear to me first of all that he will not slay his servant with the sword.’ ” (1 Kings 1:51)

Here was the very first test of Solomon's kingship. His father, as we have seen, was quick to forgive those who challenged his authority—but Solomon was equally quick to threaten his brother with death.

“If he shall show himself a worthy man, there shall not a hair of him fall to the earth,” said Solomon of Adonijah, “but if wickedness be found in him, he shall die.” (1 Kings 1:52)

When Adonijah heard of Solomon's words, he released his grip on the horned altar, made his way to the palace, and prostrated himself before his brother in abject surrender. Solomon was satisfied, at least for the moment, and he spared his brother's life. “Go to thy house,” Solomon ordered Adonijah. But Solomon vowed to keep a closer watch on Adonijah than David had kept on Absalom, and he would not be so lenient if Adonijah betrayed any sign that he still coveted the throne. (1 Kings 1:53)

Now that his successor was safely seated on the throne, David fell into his last decline. The old king lived on even as the new king reigned, but not for much longer. “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die,” the Bible reports, “and he charged Solomon his son, saying: ‘I go the way of all the earth.’ ” (1 Kings 2:2)

David now delivered a deathbed speech to Solomon. We might imagine that David, old and frail, struggled to utter his last words. But, unlike the valedictory speech that is reported in the closing pages of the Book of Samuel—“Now these are the last words of David” (2 Sam. 21:1)—his final instructions to Solomon as reported in the Book of Kings were blunt and bloody.

David charged Solomon to be resolute and ruthless in claiming and keeping the crown of Israel. Just as Moses
and
God once charged Joshua, conqueror of Canaan, to “be strong and of good courage” (Deut. 31:23, Josh. 1:6), David urged Solomon: “Be thou strong, and show thyself a man.” (1 Kings 1:2)
¹¹

Next, David gave orders for what would be his final act of revenge. Indeed, he gave Solomon a hit list—“a last will and testament worthy of a dying Mafia capo” is how Robert Alter describes David's final words to his son and successor,
¹²
and indeed the scene was artfully copied by Francis Ford Coppola in
The Godfather
.

“You know how Joab treated me and what he did to two commanders-in-chief in Israel,” said David, referring to Joab's assassination of Abner, general of Saul's army, and Amasa, general
of Absalom's army. “He killed them both, breaking the peace by bloody acts of war, and with that blood he stained the belt about my waist and the sandals on my feet.” (1 Kings 2:5) (NEB)

David's sudden insistence on settling old scores is something new and shocking, if only because we are accustomed to seeing David carefully distance himself from acts of revenge and political violence. Throughout his reign, David refused to acknowledge responsibility for the deaths of his enemies even when he benefited from them, and he constantly tried to hold back his brutal henchmen, Joab and his brothers, from acting on their bloodthirsty impulses. Now and then, of course, he failed—Joab had killed David's beloved son, Absalom, in defiance of the king's specific order. At the very end of his life, David was ready to take his own vengeance on Joab—and yet, even now, his instructions to Solomon were oblique, more like a poem than a death sentence.