NAS - 1 Kings Chapter 2 to 3

2 David's Charge to Solomon

¹As David's time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, ²"I am going the way of all the earth. Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man. ³"Keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, ⁴so that the LORD may carry out His promise which He spoke concerning me, saying, `If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

⁵"Now you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed; he also shed the blood of war in peace. And he put the blood of war on his belt about his waist, and on his sandals on his feet. ⁶"So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace. ⁷"But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for they assisted me when I fled from Absalom your brother. ⁸"Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera the Benjamite, of Bahurim; now it was he who cursed me with a violent curse on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the LORD, saying, `I will not put you to death with the sword.' ⁹"Now therefore, do not let him go unpunished, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you will bring his gray hair down to Sheol with blood."

Death of David

¹⁰Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. ¹¹The days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years he reigned in Hebron and thirty-three years he reigned in Jerusalem. ¹²And Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established.

¹³Now Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, "Do you come peacefully?" And he said, "Peacefully." ¹⁴Then he said, "I have something to say to you." And she said, "Speak." ¹⁵So he said, "You know that the kingdom was mine and that all Israel expected me to be king; however, the kingdom has turned about and become my brother's, for it was his from the LORD. ¹⁶"Now I am making one request of you; do not refuse me." And she said to him, "Speak." ¹⁷Then he said, "Please speak to Solomon the king, for he will not refuse you, that he may give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife." ¹⁸Bathsheba said, "Very well; I will speak to the king for you."

Adonijah Executed

¹⁹So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king arose to meet her, bowed before her, and sat on his throne; then he had a throne set for the king's mother, and she sat on his right. ²⁰Then she said, "I am making one small request of you; do not refuse me." And the king said to her, "Ask, my mother, for I will not refuse you." ²¹So she said, "Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as a wife." ²²King Solomon answered and said to his mother, "And why are you asking Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him also the kingdom--for he is my older brother--even for him, for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah!" ²³Then King Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, "May God do so to me and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life. ²⁴"Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of David my father and who has made me a house as He promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death today." ²⁵So King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell upon him so that he died.

²⁶Then to Abiathar the priest the king said, "Go to Anathoth to your own field, for you deserve to die; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David, and because you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted." ²⁷So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD, which He had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

Joab Executed

²⁸Now the news came to Joab, for Joab had followed Adonijah, although he had not followed Absalom. And Joab fled to the tent of the LORD and took hold of the horns of the altar. ²⁹It was told King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tent of the LORD, and behold, he is beside the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go, fall upon him." ³⁰So Benaiah came to the tent of the LORD and said to him, "Thus the king has said, `Come out.'" But he said, "No, for I will die here." And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, "Thus spoke Joab, and thus he answered me." ³¹The king said to him, "Do as he has spoken and fall upon him and bury him, that you may remove from me and from my father's house the blood which Joab shed without cause. ³²"The LORD will return his blood on his own head, because he fell upon two men more righteous and better than he and killed them with the sword, while my father David did not know it: Abner the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. ³³"So shall their blood return on the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever; but to David and his descendants and his house and his throne, may there be peace from the LORD forever." ³⁴Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell upon him and put him to death, and he was buried at his own house in the wilderness. ³⁵The king appointed Benaiah the son of Jehoiada over the army in his place, and the king appointed Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar.

Shimei Executed

³⁶Now the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, "Build for yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, and do not go out from there to any place. ³⁷"For on the day you go out and cross over the brook Kidron, you will know for certain that you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head." ³⁸Shimei then said to the king, "The word is good. As my lord the king has said, so your servant will do." So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

³⁹But it came about at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, "Behold, your servants are in Gath." ⁴⁰Then Shimei arose and saddled his donkey, and went to Gath to Achish to look for his servants. And Shimei went and brought his servants from Gath. ⁴¹It was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and had returned. ⁴²So the king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, "Did I not make you swear by the LORD and solemnly warn you, saying, `You will know for certain that on the day you depart and go anywhere, you shall surely die'? And you said to me, `The word which I have heard is good.' ⁴³"Why then have you not kept the oath of the LORD, and the command which I have laid on you?" ⁴⁴The king also said to Shimei, "You know all the evil which you acknowledge in your heart, which you did to my father David; therefore the LORD shall return your evil on your own head. ⁴⁵"But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the LORD forever." ⁴⁶So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and fell upon him so that he died.

Thus the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon.

3 Solomon's Rule Consolidated

¹Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the LORD and the wall around Jerusalem. ²The people were still sacrificing on the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the LORD until those days.

³Now Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. ⁴The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place; Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. ⁵In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night; and God said, "Ask what you wish Me to give you."

Solomon's Prayer

⁶Then Solomon said, "You have shown great lovingkindness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You; and You have reserved for him this great lovingkindness, that You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. ⁷"Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. ⁸"Your servant is in the midst of Your people which You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. ⁹"So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?"

God's Answer

¹⁰It was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. ¹¹God said to him, "Because you have asked this thing and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice, ¹²behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you. ¹³"I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days. ¹⁴"If you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days."

¹⁵Then Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and made peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.

Solomon Wisely Judges

¹⁶Then two women who were harlots came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷The one woman said, "Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. ¹⁸"It happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us in the house. ¹⁹"This woman's son died in the night, because she lay on it. ²⁰"So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. ²¹"When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead; but when I looked at him carefully in the morning, behold, he was not my son, whom I had borne." ²²Then the other woman said, "No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son." But the first woman said, "No! For the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son." Thus they spoke before the king.

²³Then the king said, "The one says, `This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one'; and the other says, `No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.'" ²⁴The king said, "Get me a sword." So they brought a sword before the king. ²⁵The king said, "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other." ²⁶Then the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son and said, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him." But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him!" ²⁷Then the king said, "Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother." ²⁸When all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.