Scripture Daily

Context No. 3043 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 2:13-17: in context

13Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. She said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably. 14He said moreover, I have something to tell you.” She said, “Say on.” 15He said, “You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign. However, the kingdom is turned around, and has become my brother’s; for it was his from the LORD. 16Now I ask one petition of you. Don’t deny me.” She said to him, “Say on.” 17He said, “Please speak to Solomon the king (for he will not tell you ‘no’), that he give me Abishag the Shunammite as wife.”

Adonijah, whose bid for the throne had failed, comes to Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. She asks warily, do you come in peace? He assures her he does, and then makes what sounds like a modest request: you know the kingdom was mine, and all Israel expected me to reign, but it has passed to my brother, for it was his from the LORD. Now I ask one small thing, that Solomon give me Abishag, David's last attendant, as my wife.

The request seems small but is anything but innocent. Asking for the former king's woman was, in that world, a claim on the throne itself, a maneuver to revive his lost bid for power. Under a humble-sounding petition, just one little thing, lies a renewed grasp for exactly what he had already lost. It is a portrait of an ambition that will not truly submit. He says with his lips that the kingdom was the LORD's to give to Solomon, and then keeps quietly reaching for it. Words of surrender can mask a heart that has not surrendered at all.

Do my words of acceptance and humility ever mask a heart that is still quietly grasping for what I claim to have let go?

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