_ADONIJAH'S REBELLION._
1 KINGS i. 5-53.
"The king's word hath power; and who may say unto him, What doest
thou?"--ECCLES. viii. 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
humoured 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.[74] 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 favour
of Solomon, and that David was inclined to leave his kingdom to this
younger son by his favourite 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.[75] 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.[76] 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."[77]
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, Ἀρχὴ ἄνδρα δείκνυσιν, "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 boy's capacity, many were taken in by the more showy
gifts of the handsome Adonijah, whose age might seem to promise
greater stability to the kingdom.
But Solomon from his birth upwards had been Nathan's special
charge.[78] No sooner had he been born than David had entrusted
the infant to the care of the man who had awakened his slumbering
conscience to the heinousness of his offence, and had prophesied
his punishment in the death of the child of adultery. An oracle had
forbidden him to build the Temple because his hands were stained with
blood, but had promised him a son who should be a man of rest, and in
whose days Israel should have peace and quietness.[79] Long before,
in Hebron, David, yearning for peace, had called his eldest son
Absalom ("the father of peace"). To the second son of Bathsheba, whom
he regarded as the heir of oracular promise, he gave the sounding
name of Shelōmoh ("the Peaceful").[80] But Nathan, perhaps with
reference to David's own name of "the Beloved," had called the child
Jedidiah ("the beloved of Jehovah").
The secret of his destiny was probably known to few, though it was
evidently suspected by Adonijah. To have proclaimed it in a crowded
harem would have been to expose the child to the perils of poison,
and to have doomed him to certain death if one of his unruly brothers
succeeded in seizing the royal authority. The oath to Bathsheba that
her son should succeed must have been a secret known at the time to
Nathan only. It is evident that David had never taken any step to
secure its fulfilment.
The crisis was one of extreme peril. Nathan was now old. He had
perhaps sunk into the courtly complaisance which, content with one
bold rebuke, ceased to deal faithfully with David. He had at any rate
left it to Gad the Seer to reprove him for numbering the people.
Now, however, he rose to the occasion, and by a prompt _coup d'état_
caused the instant collapse of Adonijah's conspiracy.
Adonijah had counted on the jealousy of the tribe of Judah, on the
king's seclusion and waning popularity, on the support of "all the
captains of the host," on the acquiescence of all the other princes,
and above all on the favour of the ecclesiastical and military power of
the kingdom as represented by Abiathar and Joab. To Solomon himself, as
yet a shadowy figure and so much younger, he attached no importance.
He treated his aged father as a cipher, and Nathan as of no particular
account.[81] He overlooked the influence of Bathsheba, the prestige
which attached to the nomination of a reigning king, and above all the
resistance of the body-guard of mercenaries and their captain Benaiah.
Nathan had no sooner received tidings of what was going on at
Adonijah's feast than he shook off his lethargy and hurried to
Bathsheba. She seems to have retained the same sort of influence over
David that Madame de Maintenon exercised over the aged Louis XIV.
"Had she heard," asked Nathan, "that Adonijah's coronation was going
on at that moment? Let her hurry to King David, and inquire whether
he had given any sanction to proceedings which contravened the oath
which he had given her that her son Solomon should be his heir." As
soon as she had broken the intelligence to the king, he would come
and confirm her words.[82]
Bathsheba did not lose a moment. She knew that if Adonijah's
conspiracy succeeded her own life and that of her son might not
be worth a day's purchase. The helplessness of David's condition
is shown by the fact that she had to make her way into "the inner
chamber" to visit him. In violation of the immemorial etiquette of an
Eastern household, she spoke to him without being summoned, and in
the presence of another woman, Abishag, his fair young nurse. With
profound obeisances she entered, and told the poor old hero that
Adonijah had practically usurped the throne, but that the eyes of all
Israel were awaiting his decision as to who should be his successor.
She asked whether he was really indifferent to the peril of herself
and of Solomon, for Adonijah's success would mean their doom.[83]
While she yet spoke Nathan was announced, as had been concerted
between them, and he repeated the story of what was going on at
Adonijah's feast. It is remarkable that he says nothing to David
either about consulting the Urim, or in any way ascertaining the will
of God. He and Bathsheba rely exclusively on four motives--David's
rights of nomination, his promise, the danger to Solomon, and the
contempt shown in Adonijah's proceedings. "The whole incident,"
says Reuss, "is swayed by the ordinary movements of passion and
interest."[84] The news woke in David a flash of his old energy. With
instant decision he summoned Bathsheba, who, as custom required,
had left the chamber when Nathan entered. Using his strong and
favourite adjuration, "As the Lord liveth, that hath redeemed my
soul out of all distress,"[85] he pledged himself to carry out that
very day the oath that Solomon should be his heir. She bowed her
face to the earth in adoration with the words, "Let my lord, King
David, live for ever." He then summoned Zadok, the second priest,
Nathan, and Benaiah, and told them what to do. They were to take the
body-guard[86] which was under Benaiah's command, to place Solomon on
the king's own she-mule[87] (which was regarded as the highest honour
of all honours), to conduct him down the Valley of Jehoshaphat to
Gihon,[88] where the pool would furnish the water for the customary
ablutions, to anoint him king, and then to blow the consecrated ram's
horn (_shophar_)[89] with the shout, "God save King Solomon!" After
this the boy was to be seated on the throne, and proclaimed ruler
over Israel and Judah.
Benaiah was one of David's twelve chosen captains, who was placed
at the head of one of the monthly courses of 24,000 soldiers in the
third month. The chronicler calls him a priest.[90] His available
forces made him master of the situation, and he joyfully accepted
the commission with, "Amen! So may Jehovah say!" and with the prayer
that the throne of Solomon might be even greater than the throne
of David. Joab was commander-in-chief of the army, but his forces
had not been summoned or mobilised. Accustomed to a bygone state
of things he had failed to observe that Benaiah's palace-regiment
of six hundred picked men could strike a blow long before he was
ready for action. These guards were the Krêthi and Plêthi,[91]
"executioners and runners," perhaps an alien body of faithful
mercenaries originally composed of Cretans and Philistines. They
formed a compact body of defenders, always prepared for action. They
resemble the Germans of the Roman Emperors, the Turkish Janissaries,
the Egyptian Mamelukes, the Byzantian Varangians, or the Swiss Guard
of the Bourbons. Their one duty was to be ready at a moment's notice
to carry out the king's behests. Such a picked regiment has often
held in its hands the prerogative of Empire. They were, originally at
any rate, identical with the _Gibborim_,[92] and had been at first
commanded by men who had earned rank by personal prowess. But for
their intervention on this occasion Adonijah would have become king.
While Adonijah's followers were wasting time over their turbulent
banquet, the younger court-party were carrying out the unexpectedly
vigorous suggestions of the aged king. While the eastern hills
echoed with "Long live King Adonijah!" the western hills resounded
with shouts of "Long live King Solomon!" The young Solomon had been
ceremoniously mounted on the king's mule, and the procession had gone
down to Gihon. There, with the solemnity which is only mentioned in
cases of disputed succession,[93] Nathan the prophet and Zadok as
priest anointed the son of Bathsheba with the horn of perfumed oil
which the latter had taken from the sacred tent at Zion.[94] These
measures had been neglected by Adonijah's party in the precipitation
of their plot, and they were regarded as of the utmost importance, as
they are in Persia to this day.[95] Then the trumpets blew, and the
vast crowd which had assembled shouted, "God save King Solomon!" The
people broke into acclamations, and danced, and played on pipes, and
the earth rang again with the mighty sound.[96] Adonijah had fancied,
and he subsequently asserted, that "all Israel set their faces on
me that I should reign." But his vanity had misled him. Many of the
people may have seen through his shallow character, and may have
dreaded the rule of such a king. Others were still attached to David,
and were prepared to accept his choice. Others were struck with the
grave bearing and the youthful beauty of the son of Bathsheba. The
multitude were probably opportunists ready to shout with the winner
whoever he might be.
The old warrior Joab, perhaps less dazed with wine and enthusiasm
than the other guests of Adonijah, was the first to catch the sound
of the trumpet blasts and of the general rejoicing, and to portend
its significance. As he started up in surprise the guests caught
sight of Jonathan, son of Abiathar, a swift-footed priest who had
acted as a spy for David in Jerusalem at Absalom's rebellion,[97] but
who now, like his father Abiathar and so many of his betters, had
gone over to Adonijah. The prince welcomed him as a "man of worth,"
one who was sure to bring tidings of good omen;[98] but Jonathan
burst out with, "Nay, but our Lord king David hath made Solomon
king." He does not seem to have been in a hurry to bring this fatal
intelligence; for he had not only waited until the entire ceremony
at Gihon was over, but to the close of the enthronisation of Solomon
in Jerusalem.[99] He had seen the young king seated on the throne of
state in the midst of the jubilant people. David had been carried
out upon his couch, and, bowing his head in worship before the
multitude, had said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which hath
given one to sit on my throne this day, mine eyes even seeing it."
This intelligence fell like a thunderbolt among Adonijah's unprepared
adherents. A general flight took place, each man being only eager to
save himself. The straw fire of their enthusiasm had already flared
itself away. Deserted by every one, and fearing to pay the forfeit
of his life, Adonijah fled to the nearest sanctuary, where the Ark
stood on Mount Zion under the care of his supporter the high priest
Abiathar.[100] There he caught hold of the horns of the altar--wooden
projections at each of its corners, overlaid with brass. When a
sacrifice was offered the animal was tied to these horns of the
altar,[101] and they were smeared with the victim's blood just as
in after days the propitiatory was sprinkled with the blood of the
bull and the goat on the Great Day of Atonement. The mercy-seat thus
became a symbol of atonement, and an appeal to God that He would
forgive the sinful priest and the sinful nation who came before Him
with the blood of expiation. The mercy-seat would have furnished an
inviolable sanctuary had it not been enclosed in the Holiest Place,
unapproachable by any feet but that of the high priest once a year.
The horns of the altar were, however, available for refuge to any
offender, and their protection involved an appeal to the mercy of man
as to the mercy of God.[102]
There in wretched plight clung the fallen prince, hurled down in one
day from the summit of his ambition. He refused to leave the spot
unless King Solomon would first of all swear that he would not slay
his servant with the sword.[103] Adonijah saw that all was over with
his cause. "God," says the Portuguese proverb, "can write straight on
crooked lines;" and as is so often the case, the crisis which brought
about His will was the immediate result of an endeavour to defeat it.
Solomon was not one of those Eastern princes who
"Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne."
Many an Eastern king has begun his reign as Baasha, Jehu, and
Athaliah did, by the exile, imprisonment, or execution of every
possible rival. Adonijah, caught red-handed in an attempt at
rebellion, might have been left with some show of justice to starve
at the horns of the altar, or to leave his refuge and face the
penalty due to crime. But Solomon, unregarded and unknown as he had
hitherto been, rose at once to the requirements of his new position,
and magnanimously promised his brother a complete amnesty[104] so
long as he remained faithful to his allegiance. Adonijah descended
the steps of the altar, and having made sacred obeisance to his new
sovereign[105] was dismissed with the laconic order, "Go to thine
house." If, as some have conjectured, Adonijah had once urged on his
father the condign punishment of Absalom, he might well congratulate
himself on receiving pardon.[106]
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Morier tells us that in Persia "runners" before the king's
horses are an indispensable adjunct of his state.
[75] The Stone of Zoheleth, probably a sacred stone--one of the
numerous isolated rocks of Palestine; is not mentioned elsewhere.
The Fuller's Fountain is mentioned in Josh. xv. 7, xviii. 16; 2 Sam.
xvii. 17. It was south-east of Jerusalem, and is perhaps identical
with "Job's Fountain," where the wadies of Kedron and Hinnom meet
(_Palestine Exploration Fund_, 1874, p. 80).
[76] Comp. 1 Kings i. 9-25.
[77] The same phrase is used of Rehoboam (2 Chron. xii. 13, xiii. 7)
when he was twenty-one, reading כא for מא, forty-one.
[78] 2 Sam. xii. 25: "And he sent by the hand of Nathan, the prophet;
he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord" (A.V.). The verse
is somewhat obscure. It either means that David sent the child to
Nathan to be brought up under his guardianship, or sent Nathan to ask
of the oracle the favour of some well-omened name (Ewald, iii. 168).
Nathan was perhaps akin to David. The Rabbis absurdly identify him
with Jonathan (1 Chron. xxvii. 32; 2 Sam. xxi. 21), nephew of David,
son of Shimmeah.
[79] 1 Chron. xxii. 6-9.
[80] LXX., Σαλωμών, and in Ecclus. xlvii. 13. Comp. Shelōmith (Lev.
xxiv. 11), Shelōmi (Num. xxxiv. 27). But it became Σαλόμων in the New
Testament, Josephus, the Sibylline verses, etc. The long vowel is
retained in Salōme and in the Arabic Sūleyman, etc.
[81] Among Solomon's adherents are mentioned "Shimei and Rei" (1 Kings
i. 8), whom Ewald supposes to stand for two of David's brothers, Shimma
and Raddai, and Stade to be two officers of the Gibborim. Thenius
adopts a reading partly suggested by Josephus, "Hushai, the friend of
David." Others identify Rei with Ira; a Shimei, the son of Elah, is
mentioned among Solomon's governors (_Nitzabim_, 1 Kings iv. 18); and
there was a Shimei of Ramah over David's vineyards (1 Chron. xxvii.
27). The name was common, and meant "famous."
[82] Duncker, Meyer, Wellhausen, Stade, regard Solomon's accession
as due to a mere palace intrigue of Nathan and Bathsheba, and
David's dying injunctions as only intended to excuse Solomon. They
treat 1 Kings ii. 1-12 as a Deuteronomic interpolation. Dillmann,
Kittel, Kuenen, Budde, rightly reject this view. Stade says, "Nach
menschlichen Gefühl, ein Unrecht war die Salbung Salomos." He thinks
that "the aged David was over-influenced by the intrigues of the
harem and the court" (i. 292).
[83] She said that they would be counted as "offenders" (_chattaim_)
Comp. 1 Kings i. 12, where Nathan assumes that they will both be put
to death. Thus Cassander put to death Roxana, the widow of Alexander
the Great, and her son Alexander (Justin., xv. 2).
[84] Reuss, _Hist. des Israelites_, i. 409.
[85] Comp. 2 Sam. iv. 9; Psalm xix. 14.
[86] "The servants of your Lord." Comp. 2 Sam. xx. 6, 7.
[87] Comp. Gen. xli. 43; 1 Kings i. 33; Esth. vi. 8.
[88] 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, xxxiii. 14. It was apparently "the Virgin's
Fountain," east of Jerusalem, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
[89] Comp. 2 Kings ix. 13.
[90] 1 Chron. xxvii. 5, where the true rendering is not "Benaiah the
chief priest," as in A.V., nor "principal officer," as in the margin:
but "Benaiah the priest, as chief."
[91] 1 Sam. xxx. 14; Josephus, σωματοφύλακες. The Targum calls them
"archers and slingers" (which is unlikely), or "nobles and common
soldiers." This body-guard is also said to be composed of Gittites (2
Sam. xv. 18, xviii. 2); but some suppose that they were so called not
by nationality, but because they had served under David at Gath. The
question is further complicated by the appearance of "Carians" (A.V.,
captains) in 2 Kings xi. 4, 15, and also in 2 Sam. xx. 23 (Heb.). The
Carians were universal mercenaries (Herod., ii. 152; Liv., xxxvii.
40). That there was an early intercourse between Palestine and the
West is shown by the fact that such words as peribolory, machaera,
macaina, lesche, pellex, have found their way into Hebrew (see Renan,
_Hist. du Peuple Israel_, ii. 33).
[92] 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39; 1 Chron. xi. 10-47; 1 Kings i. 8. The Gibborim
are by some supposed to be a different body from the Krêthi and Plêthi
(2 Sam. xv. 18, xx. 7); but from 1 Kings i. 8, 10, 38 they seem to be
the same (Stade, i. 275). The thirty heroes at their head furnish, as
Renan says, the first germ of a sort of "Legion of Honour."
[93] Saul (1 Sam. x. 1), David (1 Sam. xvi. 13, and twice afterwards, 2
Sam. ii. 4, v. 3), Jehu (1 Kings xix. 16), Joash (2 Chron. xxiii. 11).
[94] 1 Kings i. 39. "Tent," not "tabernacle," as in A.V. It has
generally been supposed that Zadok took it from the tabernacle at
Gibeon (1 Chron. xvi. 39), but there would have been no time to send
so far. Zadok is called a "Seer" in the A.V. (2 Sam. xv. 27); but the
true version may be "Seeth thou?" The LXX. and Vulgate omit the words.
[95] Morier, quoted by Stanley, p. 172, says that the Mustched, or
chief priest, and the Munajem, or prophet, are always present at a
Persian coronation.
[96] LXX., ἐῤῥάγη, ἤχησεν; Vulg., insonuit. Comp. Josephus, _Antt._,
VII. xiv. 3, 5.
[97] 2 Sam. xv. 27, xvii. 17.
[98] 2 Sam. xviii. 27. Heb., אִישׁחַי; LXX., ἀνὴρ δυνάμεως; Vulg.,
vir fortis. It is rather "virtuous," as in Prov. xii. 4.
[99] It is true that Solomon's adherents had wasted no time over a
feast.
[100] 1 Kings i. 50.
[101] Psalm cxviii. 27, and Exod. xxvii. 2 ff., xxix. 12, xxx. 10.
Comp. Exod. xxi. 14.
[102] Exod. xxi. 14. It protected the homicide, but not the wilful
murderer.
[103] 1 Kings i. 51. The words "this day" should be "first of all,"
_i.e._, before I leave the sanctuary. Many must have been reminded of
this scene when Eutropius, the eunuch-minister of Arcadius, under the
protection of St. Chrysostom, cowered in front of the high altar at
Constantinople.
[104] "There shall not a hair of him fall." Comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 45; 2
Sam. xiv. 11.
[105] "Bowed himself." Comp. 1 Kings i. 47.
[106] Grätz, i. 138 (E. T.).