Scripture Daily

Context No. 3354 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 2:42-46: in context

42The king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, “Didn’t I adjure you by the LORD and warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and walk anywhere else, you shall surely die’? You said to me, ‘The saying that I have heard is good.’ 43Why then have you not kept the oath of the LORD and the commandment that I have instructed you with?” 44The king said moreover to Shimei, “You know in your heart all the wickedness that you did to David my father. Therefore the LORD will return your wickedness on your own head. 45But King Solomon will be blessed, and David’s throne will be established before the LORD forever.” 46So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell on him, so that he died. The kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Solomon had confined Shimei, who once cursed his father David, to the city of Jerusalem under a solemn oath: leave the city, and you will surely die. Shimei agreed, saying the terms were good. But years later he broke the oath, riding off after runaway servants, and Solomon now holds him to his own sworn word.

The account is sobering, but underneath the royal politics is a matter of a broken oath. Shimei had sworn before the LORD and had himself agreed the terms were good, and then, when it suited his own convenience, he disregarded them. Whatever else is at work here, the text frames his fall around his failure to keep the oath he had accepted. There is a warning in it about taking our commitments lightly, agreeing to terms and then breaking them the moment they become inconvenient. An oath sworn before God is not a thing to trifle with; Shimei's casual disregard for his own word brought his ruin.

Do I take seriously the commitments and promises I have made, especially those made before God, rather than disregarding them when they become inconvenient?

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