Scripture Daily

Context No. 1280 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 2:18-24: in context

18Bathsheba said, “All right. I will speak for you to the king.” 19Bathsheba therefore went to King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose up to meet her and bowed himself to her, and sat down on his throne and caused a throne to be set for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right hand. 20Then she said, “I ask one small petition of you; don’t deny me.” The king said to her, “Ask on, my mother, for I will not deny you.” 21She said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as wife.” 22King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my elder brother; even for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.” 23Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, “God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life. 24Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on my father David’s throne, and who has made me a house as he promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death today.”

Adonijah, who had tried to seize the throne before Solomon, comes to Bathsheba with a request: ask King Solomon to give me Abishag, the young woman who had attended the aged David, as my wife. It sounds like a small, personal matter, and Bathsheba agrees to carry it to her son. But Solomon reads it instantly for what it is. Taking a wife from the former king's household was a claim on the throne itself. He responds sharply: you might as well ask the kingdom for him. And recognizing the veiled bid for power, Solomon orders Adonijah's execution.

The interesting thing here is how a seemingly small request revealed a heart. Adonijah dressed his ambition in a modest, personal form, just one young woman, a small thing, and even Bathsheba was taken in enough to carry the request. But Solomon saw what lay beneath it: in that culture, claiming the old king's concubine or attendant was a move toward claiming his throne, and Adonijah, who had already once reached for the crown, was reaching again, more subtly. The request looked innocent; the intent behind it was another grab for power. There is a principle in that worth noticing, that our requests and desires often reveal more than we intend, that what we ask for can expose the ambition or the appetite hiding underneath. Adonijah's small ask was a window into a heart that had not stopped grasping for the throne. And it is worth turning the light on ourselves: what do my desires and requests, even the ones I dress up as small and reasonable, reveal about what my heart is really reaching for? Solomon read Adonijah's heart in his request; our own hearts are often read the same way, in what we quietly ask for.

What do my desires and requests, even the ones I frame as small and reasonable, reveal about what my heart is really reaching for, and would that revealed intent stand up to the light?

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