Troublesome Topic: Solomon’s Rocky Ascension to the Throne

David waited. Rather than making Solomon a king alongside him (called coregency) he did nothing. David waited so long that he got weak and sick with an ailment which resulted in him not being able to retain his body heat. From that point on he was confined to his bed most of the time. However, even though he was confined to his bed, he did not make Solomon a co-regent, as we would expect him to. During David’s illness there was a vacuum of power; no one was leading the nation.

Why?

I can see two reasons: Solomon was apparently still quite young, definitely under thirty, and according to Alfred Eidersheim, possibly as young as 20,. But that alone would probably not have stopped David from naming Solomon as a co-regent and naming a priest or advisor as a tutor for Solomon, should David pass away before Solomon reached the age of 30. I think the real reason was that Solomon’s affair had left a bad taste in David’s mouth, so he doubted Solomon and was watching to see if his repentance was genuine. David knew his own weakness for women and hoped that his son would steer away from those traps. But alas, the apple had not fallen far from the tree.

David waited so long without doing anything that his oldest living son, Adonijah, (his name means “Adonai is LORD), got the idea that David was never going to do anything, so he tried to usurp the throne. The Bible tells us that Adonijah had never been corrected by his father (I Kings 1:6), so why would he respect the words of his father and the directive of God Himself, both of which indicated that Solomon would follow David as king?

Adonijah gathered around him all those that he knew would support him, including David’s general, Joab, and Abiathar, the high priest (I Kings 1:7). This tells us these people also thought Adonijah should rightfully be the next king and not Solomon. Those gathered named him king and then they made lots of noise. After that they sat down to a feast Adonijah had prepared. It was served outside because of the number of guests.

News got to the prophet Nathan and he went to tell David, with Bathsheba’s help. David felt his hand was being forced. He definitely did not want Adonijah to be the next king because he was not living according to the motto “Adonai is LORD” as his name indicated. David had hoped to wait a little longer and then make Solomon king. But there was no later; the time was now. So he sent them to an outdoor place where a group of people could gather and had them name Solomon king, after which they made a lot of noise.

Adonijah’s group was eating their celebratory feast when they heard the other group making noise. They looked at each other and wondered what could be happening to cause such a stir. Then a messenger arrived and breathlessly explained that David had just made Solomon king.

Here we see an interesting reaction of Adonijah’s guests to this news. They fled! They feared for their lives. They got as far away from Adonijah as they could. 

Didn’t they see that coming? When they went to make Adonijah king didn’t they realize that David would respond by quickly making Solomon king in fulfillment of the words he had spoken earlier to Bathsheba?

No. It appears they did not expect David to do that.

Why not?

 I think it was more than just Solomon’s youthfulness. I think they saw David hesitating and knew it was for a deeper reason. In my opinion, a sexual affair prior to that time put Solomon in a bad position, caused David to hesitate, and opened the door for Adonijah. The response of his guests tells me that, no, they did not expect David to name Solomon King. They thought Solomon had lost his chance.

If Solomon had not gotten that foreign girl pregnant maybe David would not have waited so long and Solomon would have been made king in a more normal fashion, without the drama and the close calls. There would have been a large celebration with the proper amount of what we call “hype.” Think about this, by the end of his reign, David was arguably one of the most powerful kings in the world, yet he did not plan a peaceful and momentous transfer of power to the son he had chosen. In the end, the transfer of power was rushed, ugly, and at risk of being unsuccessful.

Why?

All this points to something not being right. That is why I think Naamah was the one that Solomon was talking about when he implies in Ecc 7:26 that a woman in his past had burned him. He calls this seducing woman “more bitter than death.” If Adonijah had been able to keep the kingship it is likely that it would have spelled death for Solomon and his mother Bathsheba.

If Naamah was the one to burn him, why did he put her son, Rehoboam, on the throne after him? Good question; I will come back to that in a future lesson.

 The description above demonstrates that there is a reasonable explanation for why the accounts in I Chronicles chapter 29 and I Kings chapter 1 are different. I Chronicles 29:22 only says that Solomon was anointed a second time, but does not explain why that was needed. The account in I Kings chapters 1 and 2 only describes the first anointing which was rushed, not well attended and not as spectacular as one would expect for the son of a king.

Something caused a delay which meant that Solomon almost lost his chance to become the king. I believe the cause of the delay was a sexual affair with a foreign princess.

The next lesson is: Solomon’s Proper Inauguration