Hope From the Word

Bill Luebkemann: The sneaky politics of Adonijah on today's Hope From the Word. It's power play time here. He's trying to work the thing out here to put himself in a position to make himself the next king. He's a politician, just like you see politicians today that spend years maneuvering to be in the right position to be president.

We're going to get in the right position now, can't run now. Positioning and power and everything is planned out and organized years ahead of time, and that's what this guy is doing. He's trying to maneuver himself into some kind of position. He's got some scheme up his sleeve here.

Guest (Male): Greetings and welcome to Hope From the Word with Bill Luebkemann. It's great to have you with us as we continue to explore 1st Kings together. 1st and 2nd Kings cover a period of approximately 400 years. They give us the record of the kings, both good and evil, and eventually cover Israel and Judah after the kingdom split.

We'll pick things up today in chapter 2 beginning in verse 13. David has passed away, leaving the throne to his son Solomon. Many good stories have a villain, and ours today is a man named Adonijah. Here's Pastor Bill.

Bill Luebkemann: Verse 13. Now, Adonijah being up to his old tricks, hasn't learned his lesson, up to no good. We see that mankind is basically sinful. I was reading a debate in World Magazine last night. It was a free thought debate, the atheist versus the Christian.

The atheists call themselves the free thinkers, although there's nothing free about what they think about because they're pretty well locked into the same old tired arguments. He was saying how much religion has caused all these problems in the world. The Christian guy was saying, "Yeah, the Crusades, a few thousand people died in the Crusades, and this religious war, a few thousand people died, and this religious war, and a few thousand other people died in this religious war."

But let's just look at how many people died, deaths caused by atheistic regimes in the 20th century. Let's just add up the atheistic regimes. Just take Communist Russia, Nazi Germany, and one other one, probably China, and he added up 100 million deaths caused by atheistic regimes just in the last 100 years.

That makes all the so-called religious wars trifling small compared to the wars caused by atheistic regimes. People who say religion causes problems in the world, the so-called religious problems pale when compared to the problems of people who don't believe in any religion, what the problems are that they cause or create or have.

It's funny because the article contrasted this debate, which was held earlier this year, to some debates that were held in the 1800s when they felt that they were on the verge of all these scientific breakthroughs. Darwin had just come out with his theory, and it was going to be the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Science.

All these problems were going to be eliminated and mankind was at the dawn of a new era, and so many things were going to be solved. Right around the corner came the 20th century and 100 million people killed in atheistic regimes, and more problems, not less, solved by science and people who had no religion. It's just interesting to see how the arguments of atheists just go around and around in circles and don't really prove anything at all.

Now, Adonijah, verse 13, the son of Haggith. We saw him in chapter 1. He went to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. Bathsheba asked him, "Do you come peacefully?" He answered, "Yes, peacefully." Then he added, "I have something to say to you." "You may say it," she replied.

"As you know," he said, "the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king. But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother, for it has come to him from the Lord. Now I have one request to make of you. Do not refuse me." "You may make it," she said.

So he continued, "Please ask King Solomon—he will not refuse you—to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife." "Very well," Bathsheba replied, "I will speak to the king for you." So here we have Adonijah, the king's older brother, and he is going to see Bathsheba, the king's mother.

Remember, it was Bathsheba and Nathan who got together and went to the king to remind the previous king, "Didn't you promise us that Solomon was going to be the king?" So she and Nathan were the ones that defeated this guy, Adonijah. I don't know if he knows that or not.

When he goes to see her, she may have had cause for alarm. This question, "Do you come peacefully?" I'm not sure if she had bodyguards there protecting her, or if he went at nighttime, or if he surprised her, snuck up on her, came around the corner or whatever.

But this question, "Do you come peacefully?" may have indicated that she had legitimate cause for alarm. But in fact, he did come peacefully, in a sense. He said, "I have something to say to you," and she let him say it. He said to her, "As you know, the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king."

Well, he starts out by saying a bald-faced lie because as we know from reading chapter 1, the only people that looked up to him as king were the few people that he took with him, which was his few cronies. If you look back at chapter 1, he had Joab son of Zeruiah and Abiathar the priest, and they gave him their support.

But Zadok the priest and Benaiah and Nathan the prophet and the other guys, they did not give him their support. He was given a party and he had a few of the other king's sons with him and a few other supporters, but nobody else.

When Solomon was made the real king by Nathan the prophet, all of Israel let up a cheer, and the little band who were with Adonijah said, "Well, what's all that noise we hear?" The fact is, this guy Adonijah was having a really small party when they heard this big loud noise because all of Israel was cheering for the real king.

When he says here, "The kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king," this guy has a really major case of paranoia, ego, or something. He's either really high on himself or really confused, or he's just a liar. Anyway, he says, "But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother."

Well, that's certainly true. Things did change. "For it has come to him from the Lord." Well, that is definitely true. So he has his one request and he's asking the king's mother. "I would like to get this girl for my wife."

Remember her? She's the young girl that was very beautiful that was helping out the king, David, before he died. The virgin who very likely became one of his wives or concubines. Now, on the surface, you might think, "What's the big deal? She was one of his wives or concubines. He's dead. She's not committed to him anymore because he's dead, so why would it really matter that much?"

She was probably his age anyway. She might have even been younger than him. So who cares? But inheriting or taking over the king's harem was akin or similar to taking over his kingdom. It was a power grab here.

If you'll remember back in 2nd Samuel when David fled the city, when Absalom took over from the king and David fled the city, Absalom said to the advisors, "What should I do to establish my kingdom here?" What was one of the first things they told him to do? "Get up on the roof and sleep with your father's concubines."

What this guy Adonijah wanted to do was set himself up with some kind of a claim to the throne. You have access to the harem, you're married to your father's wife, you're now somehow connected to the throne. He could either have some kind of a claim to boot Solomon out of his kingship, of his rule, or maybe he'd just be satisfied that if anything should happen to Solomon, he'd be setting himself up to take over afterwards.

If he's got the king's wife and now he can arrange later on to get Solomon bumped off and Solomon's out of the picture, "Hey, here I am. I'm the other brother. Remember me? The older brother. I just happen to have David's wife. That makes me next in line for the king."

So it's power play time here. He's trying to maneuver himself into some kind of position to make himself the next king. He's a politician. He's trying to get himself in a position to be in office. Just like you see politicians today that spend years maneuvering to be in the right position to be president.

Can't run now, can't run the next time around because if a Republican gets elected this time, then we know that that Republican is going to run again in four years. So the best time for us to run if we're a Republican would be in eight years because we're not going to run again.

Positioning and power and everything is planned out and organized years ahead of time, and that's what this guy is doing. He's trying to maneuver himself into some kind of position. I don't exactly know what, but he's got some scheme up his sleeve here.

Bathsheba here plays along. Some commentators think she's just playing along. She really knows what he's doing, but she just says, "Okay, yeah, we'll go along. Can't wait till I tell Solomon this scheme. He's really going to have you for lunch."

But some other commentators think she didn't really catch on to the ruse here. I'm not really sure if she was playing along or if she didn't catch on. But one way or the other, she replies, verse 18, "Very well. I will speak to the king for you."

When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her, and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king's mother, and she sat down at his right hand. Now, there's a guy that read about how to honor your father and your mother.

He had a throne brought in for his mother and sat her down at his right side. "I have one small request to make of you," she said. "Do not refuse me." The king replied, "Make it, my mother. I will not refuse you." I think the understanding here is as long as it's a righteous request. I think she understands that also because he does really refuse her ultimately.

She said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given in marriage to your brother Adonijah." King Solomon answered his mother, "Why do you request Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? You might as well request the kingdom for him. After all, he is my older brother. Yes, for him and for Abiathar the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah."

You see here, he has an understanding of what's going on here. "You might as well request the kingdom for him." He gets the connection. Why are you asking for my father's concubine? Someone from his harem, his wife? Why are you asking for one of them for my older brother?

You'd be setting him up to take over the throne. It would be also like giving her to one of these other guys, Abiathar and Joab. The three of them ganged up on me. They tried to take the throne from me illegitimately.

Then King Solomon swore by the Lord: "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request. And now, as surely as the Lord lives—he who has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a dynasty for me as he promised—Adonijah shall be put to death today."

So King Solomon gave orders to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he struck down Adonijah and he died. Whether or not Bathsheba knew what was going on here, I don't know, but Solomon knew. He figured it out, and he took this pledge before God here and said, "This is it. This guy is going to die."

He didn't kill him yet. It's interesting because at the end of the previous chapter, Adonijah was afraid of Solomon and said, "Let King Solomon swear to me today he will not put his servant to death with the sword." Solomon said, "If he shows himself to be a worthy man, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground. But if evil is found in him, he will die."

I think you can see here evil was found in him. You put all that together here. Solomon promised Adonijah, "Look, if evil is found in you, you're going to die." And Adonijah could have lived a long and prosperous life, maybe been the police commissioner in Jerusalem or something useful like that, if the guy had stayed out of trouble.

There were plenty of other young, beautiful women he could have found to be his wife. He didn't need to ask for someone from his father's harem and so offend his brother. He didn't have to do this, but what he wanted was power. He wasn't happy to just be the police commissioner in Jerusalem. He wanted to be the king.

Solomon knew it was too risky to have him around. Solomon here acknowledging, "As surely as the Lord lives, he who has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a dynasty for me as he promised," giving total and complete acknowledgment to God here. Adonijah will be put to death today. So he gave the order to strike him down, and he died.

To Abiathar the priest, the king said, "Go back to your fields in Anathoth." Now, remember, this guy was another one that had joined up with Joab and Adonijah and supported Adonijah for king. To Abiathar the priest, the king said, "Go back to your fields in Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I will not put you to death now, because you carried the ark of the Sovereign Lord before my father David and shared all my father's hardship."

So Solomon removed Abiathar from the priesthood of the Lord, fulfilling the word the Lord had spoken at Shiloh about the house of Eli. You know, a hundred years before, Eli's two sons back in the days of Samuel, Eli's two sons had basically desecrated the house of the Lord.

They were doing all kinds of things. They were sleeping with women who came to the house of the Lord to make offerings. They were asking for money from people. They were stealing from the offering plate. They were taking things that belonged to the Lord. They were doing every kind of despicable thing.

Eli didn't do anything about it. He did not discipline his kids. If you look way back at the beginning of 1st Samuel, there's a prophecy there that the priesthood was going to leave the house of Eli. Here it is, the fulfillment of it some 100 years or so later.

I'm not even certain here that Solomon is consciously aware that he's fulfilling that prophecy. But at the same time, out of some kind of respect for this guy, Solomon does not kill him. He says, "You deserve to die, but I'm not going to put you to death now."

He reserves the right to do it later. I don't know if he ever did or not. He said, "Look, you carried the ark of the Sovereign Lord before my father David and you shared in hardship with him." So he's going to remove him from the priesthood and basically put him out to pasture.

Verse 28. When the news reached Joab, who had conspired with Adonijah, though not with Absalom. Again, Joab had been a very faithful, very loyal supporter of King David, just not very good at following directions. When the news reached Joab, who had conspired with Adonijah, though not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar.

I guess he thought, "I'm next. Adonijah got creamed and Abiathar got sent out of town, and well, my number's going to come up here soon also." King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and was beside the altar. Then Solomon ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada, "Go strike him down."

Benaiah entered the tent of the Lord and said to Joab, "The king says, 'Come out!'" But he answered, "No, I will die here." Benaiah reported to the king, "This is how Joab answered me." And the king commanded Benaiah, "Do as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my father's house of the guilt of the innocent blood that Joab shed.

The Lord will repay him for the blood he shed, because without the knowledge of my father David, he attacked two men and killed them with the sword, both of them: Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel's army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah's army.

They were better men and more upright than he. May the guilt of their blood rest on the head of Joab and his descendants forever. But on David and his descendants, his house and his throne, may there be the Lord's peace forever."

So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and struck down Joab and killed him, and he was buried on his own land in the desert. The king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in Joab's position and replaced Abiathar with Zadok the priest.

So again, we see Abiathar the priest is gone. He's out of town, put out at pasture. Joab runs in and grabs hold of the altar there. He thinks, "They're not going to kill me in here. I'm holding onto the altar. I'll be safe in here."

But in the law of Moses, it says a guilty man's going to be killed even in there if he's holding onto the altar. It was a pagan practice not to kill anybody near an altar. But it was God's practice that the death penalty would be executed regardless of where the person was if they were guilty.

This man had plenty of blood on his hands and he had gotten away with murder, literally gotten away with murder. Some people feel that he had been blackmailing David. Some commentators feel, well, he knew about the whole thing with Bathsheba and Uriah.

He knew that David had sinned with Bathsheba and had Uriah killed and maybe he was blackmailing David. That's why he got away with so much. Some commentators feel that way. I'm not saying I feel that way.

Some people feel that that's why David let him get away with so much and live so long. I don't know if that's true or not. If he did know that and he was blackmailing David, I think David would have just killed him himself, because if you're dead you can't blackmail somebody anymore. So that sounds kind of crazy to me, but some people feel that way.

Benaiah became the new commander of the army after he struck down Joab, and Zadok became the new top priest after Abiathar got sent out to pasture. Now we're only left with this guy Shimei, who we read about earlier, who had been calling curses down on David. Solomon has to deal with him. We'll close up with this part of it.

Then the king sent for Shimei and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but do not go anywhere else. The day you leave and cross the Kidron Valley, you can be sure you will die. Your blood will be on your own head."

We continue to see Solomon dispense justice with a little bit of mercy and use a lot of wisdom and give everybody, I think, a little measure of grace. He sent this priest out to live somewhere, put him out to pasture, Abiathar, just a little measure of grace.

This guy Shimei here should have just got the death penalty. Just a little measure of grace. I read one commentary who said this guy was under house arrest. But he really wasn't under house arrest. He was under city arrest. He was allowed to live in Jerusalem.

And he just couldn't cross the valley outside of town. So he could make his way around town anywhere he wanted, and he managed to do that for three years. He said, "The day you leave and cross the Kidron Valley, you can be sure you will die. Your blood will be on your own head."

Shimei answered the king, "What you say is good. Your servant will do as my lord the king has said." And Shimei stayed in Jerusalem for a long time. So again, here's the guy getting a break. You can stay alive, you can buy yourself some more time.

I'll let you keep on living if you follow this rule here. And he does it for three whole years. Three years. But three years later, two of Shimei's slaves ran off to Achish son of Maakah, king of Gath. Shimei was told, "Your slaves are in Gath."

At this, he saddled his donkey and went to Achish at Gath in search of his slaves. So Shimei went away and brought the slaves back from Gath. When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned, the king summoned Shimei and said to him, "Did I not make you swear by the Lord and warn you on the day you leave to go anywhere else you can be sure you will die?

At that time you said to me, 'What you say is good. I will obey.' Why then did you not keep your oath to the Lord and obey the command I gave you?" The king also said to Shimei, "You know in your heart all the wrong you did to my father David. Now the Lord will repay you for your wrongdoing. But King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will remain secure before the Lord forever."

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