Scripture Daily

Context No. 497 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 1:28-35: in context

28Then King David answered, “Call Bathsheba in to me.” She came into the king’s presence and stood before the king. 29The king vowed and said, “As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity, 30most certainly as I swore to you by the LORD, the God of Israel, saying, ‘Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place;’ I will most certainly do this today.” 31Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth and showed respect to the king, and said, “Let my lord King David live forever!” 32King David said, “Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada.” They came before the king. 33The king said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon. 34Let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel. Blow the trumpet, and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ 35Then come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne; for he shall be king in my place. I have appointed him to be prince over Israel and over Judah.”

David is very old and near death, and his son Adonijah has just tried to seize the throne, throwing himself a coronation feast and declaring himself king while the old king lay weak in his bed. Into that crisis Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan come to remind David of a promise: he had sworn, long before, that her son Solomon would reign after him. And the dying king, roused, does not waver. As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity, he says, as I swore to you by the LORD, so I will do this day. He then acts at once, ordering Solomon set on the king's own mule, brought to Gihon, and anointed king by priest and prophet with the trumpet sounded.

What stands out is David keeping his word. He is old, frail, easily manipulated in these final chapters, and it would have been the path of least resistance to let events run their course, to let the strong, self-promoting son take what he was grabbing for. Instead David reaches back to an oath he had sworn years earlier and honors it, decisively, today, this day, with no more delay. His word, given before God, still binds him even now, and he spends what strength he has left to make good on it. The promise made long ago is not left to lapse; it is kept.

That confronts me about my own promises. I make commitments, some of them solemn, and then time passes, circumstances change, keeping them grows inconvenient, and it becomes easy to let them quietly lapse, to tell myself the moment has gone. David, at the very end of his strength, drags himself up to fulfill a word he had given, because a promise sworn before God does not expire when it becomes inconvenient. Is there a promise I made and have let quietly slide, and what would it take for me to say, as David did, that I will do this thing today?

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