40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 1:1-27 (Episode 290)

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Chad and Daniel begin the book of 1 Kings in this episode. David is old and out of touch with what is going on in his kingdom. His son Adonijah, beings to set himself up as the next king and gets some important people to agree with him. But Nathan and Bathsheba have different plans. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. Chad, it's an exciting day today. We have wrapped up 2 Samuel last week, and this week we are starting a new book. Always a fun time to be starting a new book, but this book starts right where the other one ends. It's not like a radical shift or anything like that. We're going to get into David and his old age.

you know you would have thought we had david's last words and then we had some other stuff about some past stuff that david did and you kind of thought maybe that was it i mean usually when you get someone's last words you think that that's the end of that but nope first kings is going to start with david as an old man yeah we're i mean this is this is a pretty easy transition a lot of books like you're at the end okay completely new story no completely new story here i mean it's like you barely finish second samuel and then you're just jumping right into the next uh next sequential act in in david's life not a not a huge amount of introduction that we're gonna have to do here no no no i mean it's it it's like the uh kind of from genesis to

exodus right i mean you really you end with with a couple of guys dying and then next thing you know you turn the page and there's exodus one and it's just a continuation of the story so that's where we find ourselves in in first kings in fact uh just to talk about a couple introductory things here in so in the greek translation of called the septuagint of first and second samuel and first and second kings actually all call about the same name so for our first and second samuel first and second kings in our english translations in the greek would have been uh first kingdoms or first reigns as it's sometimes called all the way through four kingdoms so our second our first and second kings would be in the greek translation third and fourth kingdoms so they just understand

basically everything in samuel and everything in kings as one long story which you know it it basically is we start out with samuel's life in the book of samuel and then we go to david and then we go to Saul, then we go to David, and we're going to pick up here in the first chapter with David as an old man. So it's kind of interesting if you think about 1 and 2 Kings as one book, which probably it was originally envisioned to be. At some point, it was split into two. But if you think about the history that it covers, I was just thinking this morning, okay, how could we make a modern parallel here? So I did the numbers, and here's what I came up with. So, beginning of 1 Kings all the way to the end of 2 Kings is about 970 B.C. to 586 B.C., so that's 384 years, so 970 to 586.

So, if we were to use a modern parallel, that'd be like reading a book that tells the story of America from around 1637 to 2021. one that kind of gives you an idea that's almost that's almost the whole thing yeah it's almost holding i mean you think so the mayflower landed on 1620 so basically you can kind of roughly say so you're if you were to read a history book that covered everything from landing the mayflower to 2021 that would cover the same amount of history that we're going to cover same amount of time that we're going to cover in in first and second kings and the general makeup it's pretty easy to divvy up the way the whole story is going to flow. Of course, we're at the point where David is very old, beginning of 1 Kings. So we're going to jump right into Solomon's life. So you can kind of think

of the whole, the two books together as three different acts. So act one is going to be all about Solomon, which is 1 Kings 1-11. And then act two, it's kind of like a split screen. So when we get to that, we'll talk more about it. But think of a split screen on your computer where you're looking at two different things at once that's kind of the way the the the second act of first and second kings is going to be where you have a divided kingdom so after solomon dies there's the split between the northern kingdoms the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom and what's going to happen in first and second kings is we'll go back and forth we'll talk about the north and we'll talk about the south and sometimes we'll talk about them concurrently so you got a split

screen going on that continues all the way to second king's 17 when the northern kingdom is destroyed and then you get to act three which is the rest of the second kings and that's going to focus just on the southern kingdom because they're the only ones who are only ones who are left so i mean there's really i mean there's a lot more that we could say about uh the book itself but we'll of course get on all the get to all those details as we work our work our way through it. Pick up here with the way it starts out. We have a kind of a strange opening scene here. I mean, this is not, if you were thinking about how should I start this new book, we're going to call it First Kings. How do we begin? This is a very odd way to begin,

at least it strikes me that way. We'll talk about why it begins this way, but it is a little bit strange. I mean, I guess if it's going to be First Kings, you're like, well, we got to mention David, I guess, even though I guess to really start with, I guess you could have started with Saul, but he's long gone. So they're going to start with David. And you might think that there might be some lionizing going on of David, but not really. No, no, there's not. There's not much lionizing going on at all. In fact, it's like the narrator is at pains to stress how weak and feeble for sure and sort of just out of it david is he uh he's sort of uh incompetent in in more ways than one as we'll see in just a second he is he is sexually incompetent and then

also he just seems to be completely ignorant of what's going on in his own kingdom so So we'll start out here by setting the scene with where we find David. So he's old and advancing years. That's the way it starts out, verse 1. So we meet David way back in 1 Samuel. He's the young shepherd boy. He's got a history of taking on wild beasts who are threatening his flock. And next thing you know, he's marching out onto the field to face the giant Goliath.

And he becomes the subject of the songs all the girls are singing about. And so we have this picture of a young, brave, strong, faithful David. That's how we first meet him. He's like the young, masculine warrior hero that all young boys want to grow up to be. That's how we're introduced to him. And now we get to the very end of his life. and he's not only old in advance in years but as we're about to find out he he can't even keep himself warm he needs help so it goes on to say although they covered him with clothes

he couldn't get warm so we kind of picture him in bed he's shivering what are they going to do so his servants come up with an idea his servants said to him hey david we got this idea we're going to look for a young woman to be sought for you, our Lord, the King, and we're going to let her wait on the King and be in his, be in his service. At least that's the way most translations translate that word service. It's kind of like the word behind it in, in Hebrew. So Cain is like to be familiar with, to be accustomed to. So it's kind of the, uh, like someone is close to someone else that they're serving. So be in his service, be close to him. But here's our purpose. Let her lie in your arms or in your bosom that my Lord, the King may be warm. So they're basically looking

for literally a bed warmer, but they have to be very specific about exactly what kind of girl is going to be this bed warmer. Verse three says, so they sought, they look for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and lo and behold, they found her. They found this girl by the name of Abishag, which I guess in English we would usually say is Abishag, Abishag, the Shunammite, and they brought her to the king. So Shunammites is someone from a small town northern Israel. It's called Shunam. We're actually going to come across it again when we get to 2nd kings, because there's going to be a widow in the town of Shunem whose son dies, and the last of the prophet will raise him back to life. So this isn't the last time we're going to encounter

a woman who is a Shunemite. This is a young girl, and the Shunemite we're going to encounter later is going to be an older woman who's a widow. But anyway, her name is Abishag, and they bring her to the king we are told that she was very beautiful and was of service to the king and attended to him but now this last line is significant but the king knew her not did not know her of course this is biblical idiom for he did not have sexual intercourse with her the verb there is yada same verb we've seen multiple times that can mean simply to know in the sense of knowing someone knowing who they are but has that more intimate uh familiar meaning meaning that king the king did not have uh did not have sexual relations with her now i think that is important

because it tells us a couple of things not only just that david was old and that he couldn't couldn't stay warm but that he had reached the stage where he was kind of past it you know it was unable to have intercourse anymore and the reason i think this is so significant is because this sets the stage these whole this whole opening scene here with david old in bed shivering the young girl the beautiful young girl in bed warming him up all of this sets the stage for why the events of verse five and following are about to occur so you're saying that this isn't from lack of want to and it wasn't that it's like this guy can't get warm we're just going to put a person in this bed to try to like generate some body heat that was not the totality of what the people

were thinking when they went about this plan probably not i mean we all know david's history with women yeah so they were probably presuming not only that she was going to warm his bed but she would serve another purpose as well yeah uh yeah judging by what we know of david's relationships with women over the years but the fact that uh she would have been a teenager no doubt about it so it's kind of a of course to us it's it's a very weird scene uh here's this young virgin teenager in in bed with this very very old guy who can't keep warm and her whole purpose ends up being nothing more than keeping him keeping him warm but i mean she is in bed with him so and that's going to become significant later on because we're going to find out that uh

somebody the king's son actually wants to have her for for his own but that's something we'll get to uh to later on but anyway that's that kind of sets the stage for what is to follow all right so what does follow verse five tells us that adonijah the son of hagith exalted himself that could also be translated something like put on airs saying i will be king now who's adonijah well adonijah is the uh fourth born of david's sons so of course david had a bunch of sons because he had a bunch of wives had a bunch of concubines too but as far as his the order so far up down to it adonijah here's what he had so the firstborn was amnon now amnon was killed by absalom you remember that way that scene way back in in uh in first samuel or excuse

me in second Samuel, where you have everything happening with Amnon and his, and his, and his half sister. So Amnon was the first born. He was killed by Absalom. The second born is a guy named Kiliob, also known as Daniel has two different names. And we don't know what happened to him, but because he never appears again, and certainly never appears in this particular narrative, we assume that at some point he died, but we don't know why or when, but he's out of the picture anyway. He was the second born. So we go from Amnon to Achilleob. Third born, third in line was Absalom. Well, we know what happened to Absalom because we spent multiple episodes, multiple chapters in second Samarit going over his coup and attempt to take over the kingdom

and then eventual death when he was hanging from the tree when Joab took him out. So he's out of the picture. Now we're down to the fourth born son and the oldest surviving son. So if you're adonijah what are you thinking yourself well you're thinking yourself if anybody deserves to be king it's me right yeah i mean uh the the everything has fallen in your favor for this yeah well i mean um it would you wouldn't even feel like you were doing anything you weren't trying to make some move that wasn't yours to make you're just like well i mean obviously this is it just falls to me yeah it just just makes sense right i mean i had three older brothers but they're all dead and so i'm in line to inherit the throne of my father so he uh it says he exalts

himself or as i said he put on airs he's he's lifting himself up saying i will be king and he's so convinced in fact that he's going to be king that he deserves the the throne of his father that he does everything that kings do it says he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen and 50 men to run before him now that just happens to be the exact same thing that absalom did in fact if you go all the way back to first samuel 8 this is when the people wanted a king and samuel started through this whole list of things that would happen if they got a king and all that stuff was bad. He's going to take your kids. He's going to take your land. He's going to take your crops. He's going to do this. He's going to do that. And it's all for his own sake. But one of the things

that Samuel says back in chapter eight is that these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to be his, to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. So Adonijah is actually being exact, fulfilling this to a T. He's doing exactly what Samuel said kings would do, and he's doing exactly what Absalom, his brother, or his half-brother, had done. Because we read back in 2 Samuel 15 that Absalom got himself a chariot and horses and 50 men to run before him. Which means that if you ever see a guy with chariots and 50 guys with him, he has regal aspirations. Yeah, it's wild that he would do the exact thing knowing how that went. yeah that was that did not end well so to follow after the pattern of Absalom is probably not a

wise decision but as we'll see in just a second he's he's not only like Absalom as far as establishing this kind of reputation for wanting to be king and for wanting to take over the throne of his father David he even sort of looks like Absalom yeah we're gonna find out he's a handsome man which is not the same as being a smart man but it's something but he is very handsome yeah so he does all this now we're told of our six that and this kind of gives another reason for thinking that in doing this he assumed everything would be fine because his father had never at any time displeased him by asking why he'd be done thus and so meaning that at no point did david step forward and say hey kid what are you doing i i i haven't told you you're going to

be king, or you shouldn't be doing this because you're working on an assumption that may not actually work out the way that you want it to. So never at any point had David stepped forward and said, stop this, don't do this, don't assume that this is the way it's going to be. David had said nothing to him, which of course, if you've been following along through 1 and 2 Samuel makes perfect sense because many times David did not say something when he should have. He was silent when he should have spoken. He did not rebuke Amnon. He dealt very poorly in the attempted reconciliation between him and Absalom. There were many times when he almost goes about things in a passive-aggressive sort of way. Like instead of rebuking Joab, he just demotes him

and places his rival in his stead. So David mishandled many a situation. And this is one more example of that. Then we're told, as we already mentioned, that he was a very handsome man and he was born next after Absalom. Of course, Absalom, we're told, was praised. Nobody was praised as much for his handsome appearance

from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. There was no blemish in him. So our model, Absalom, is very much going to be like Adonijah. So that kind of sets the stage. He's the one that's in line to be king. He prepares for himself all of the images of kingship. He's getting ready, you can tell. Dad has never stepped forward and put a stop to this.

He has the looks. He's handsome. So he's going to be what he thinks probably is the perfect candidate to be the replacement. And you can tell by what he's going to do next that he's pretty confident that this is not even a controversial thing. So we're going to find that he goes and confers with Joab, and so he's going to the military guy. He's not trying to raise up his own army or anything. He's going and talking to the commander of the army, and he's going to go to the priests and confer with them. So he just thinks this is a given, man.

This is a foregone conclusion that this is the way things are going to go. So it's not really an insurrection the way that Absalom was, and it's not as though he's—I don't think—there's nothing in here that would suggest he's trying to take this throne before David dies. He's just trying to be real prepared for when it happens. yeah the uh in fact the only indications that we're going to receive that he might have harbored some suspicion at least of some other people in the royal court is the people he doesn't invite to this little uh pre-coronation banquet that he's about to have but besides that every indication is that he thinks he's got this no problem he's the next in line uh dad has never said anything negative to him he's got the looks uh and he's gonna be looking for some support from some of

david's closest advisors and military personnel and you would think if it if it wasn't going to be him in his mind he's he's probably thinking uh you know dad has never said it's not me so must be yeah yeah i mean it's pretty pretty safe assumption to make i would i would think And so the reason I think that he begins to do what he does at this point is because looking at everything that happens in those opening verses with David being old, David being unable to perform sexually anymore and old and in bed. I mean, everything makes it look like David basically no more has the power and the authority and this kind of the sheer physicality to fulfill the role as king. And keep in mind that we are super early here in Israel's experience with kings. I mean, we're still in the first century of them having a king, at least within at least the hundred years of them having a king. So this is only the second king. We had Saul. Now we have David. And there's no established protocol for how you get from one king to another.

So it's not like, you know, it's like these countries that have had a king or a king and a queen for centuries, and they know exactly how this works. you know the king is dead long live the king everybody knows how this works but not in israel because the only transition we've had between one king and another was far from smooth you know the one the first king saul he's trying to kill david who is to be his replacement he's not david's son he's david's son-in-law instead and there's this weird period of strife and civil war between the death of saul and the eventual unification of david being king over all of all of israel so they really don't have anything to build on here so you can kind of you can sort of cut adonijah some slack because you know he's probably thinking well this is you know probably

the way this is going to go yeah it's the way the way other nations do it right and yeah and you know david's got all this uh it's not i don't think david has kept this stuff a secret that like that um that that he believes that it's that it's his line that will continue that will eventually even uh bring about the messiah this isn't all this isn't all just like secret knowledge that david has or anything so i'm sure ad niger and everyone else is assuming like no the line of david is going to be the the kingly line yeah so uh what he does is he he starts getting these these people around him that uh are going to be his political military supporters so he confers with joab our friend that we have talked about much over these last uh episodes so he confers

with with joab and uh so he's got the military side with joab and then with abiathar the priest So he's got the priestly side here. And they followed Adonijah and helped him. So presumably then they're in agreement that he should be the king. And then we have this line here, verse 8. But, what follows the but? But Zadok the priest and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, whoever he is, we don't really know who he is,

but Zadok the priest, so another priest. So Abiathar is on Abijah's side, but Zadok the priest is not. and benaiah the son of jehoiada is not and most importantly probably nathan the prophet is not and neither is shemay or ray and david's mighty men all of them were not with adonijah so already had we have here entering into the picture that there is some disagreement over who should be his who should be his successor so you got some people on adonijah's side and then some people on well whose side we're not told yet we just know that they're not on the side of adonijah for whatever reason and we're not told the reason yet but he's got some people on his side some

people not on his side yeah this uh this we're not with him uh does not mean that they weren't they weren't in the same room with adonijah when when he was conferring and making plans and stuff not with him means that uh they did not support him yeah they weren't on his they weren't on his team they were on somebody else's team uh so uh that's kind of dropped for the moment we'll come back to that in a minute or the narrator will come back to that in a minute he just wants to make sure that we know in verse eight that it wasn't like everybody was like yeah yeah you know go go adonijah we're we're all on your side there were a significant number of very powerful very influential people who were not pro adonijah then we're told what adonijah did so verse nine

says that he had this great sacrificial feast adonijah sacrificed sheep and oxen and fattened cattle by a place called the serpent's stone i'm not sure exactly why it was called that there's some speculation that at some point some sort of worship went on there with a with a snake snake god some kind of cultic object we're not really sure but anyway that's what it's called he uh made the sacrifice by the serpent stone which is beside ain rogel so ain in hebrew which is written in english as en that's actually the word for a spring so ain rogel is the spring of of uh people who clean clothes something like that anyway it's a it's about half a mile to one mile from Jerusalem. So it's very close. That's going to be an important thing to keep

in mind because they're going to hear something in Jerusalem at En-Rogel in just a minute. So they're by the serpent stone beside En-Rogel, and he invites, that is Adonijah, invites all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the royal officials. Notice this, the royal officials of Judah, not of Israel, but of Judah. The reason this is important is because we've already seen, And we're going to see much more of this, of course, in the next two books. We've already seen that there is this ancient, maybe antagonism isn't the right word, but there's a very thin fault line between the tribe of Judah and the rest of the tribes, which is sometimes called Judah and Israel.

We saw this in the case of the coup of Absalom, where the tribe of Judah was definitely on David's side, whereas most of the tribes were not. They came back to David. But there is this, I don't know what to call it, kind of a competition or a one-upmanship or maybe sometimes an antagonism between the tribe of Judah and the rest of these tribes. So he invites all his brothers, king's sons, and all the royal officials of his own tribe, of Judah. But he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the mighty men. Or, now another person enters the picture here. The last guy on the list that he did not invite was Solomon, his brother.

Yeah, and we are told explicitly that he did invite David's sons, except for that one. Except for that one. And this should give you a hint to maybe who those who he didn't invite are supporting. Yes, right, right. So the introduction here of Solomon's name is the clue to the non-pro-Adenijah party, who they were going to be pro-for. So it's going to be the pro-Solomon party.

So all of this is kind of leading up to what we're now about to get into. This is all, in some ways, the backdrop for what's going to begin in verse 11. You've got an old, decrepit David in bed with this virgin teenager to keep him warm. He doesn't know what's going on. He is no longer able to have sexual intercourse. He's very close to the end of his life. He's basically clueless as to what's happening in his kingdom. and then his oldest son his oldest living son begins to set the stage get everything ready

for him to take his dad's place he even throws this great party this sacrificial feast where there's you know the animals would be sacrificed but most of the the meat would be given back for this great carnivorous feast that they're going to have and everybody's there with a few exceptions and it's those exceptions that are about to become the major players in in the rest of the story so who are these who are these extra players and what's about to happen verse 11 nathan of course remember nathan nathan is the prophet who is pivotal in two important scenes from david's earlier life nathan is the one who comes to david after david has murdered uriah and taken uriah's life by sheba as his own so nathan comes and he tells the story of the rich

man and the poor man and the little bitty lamb that the rich man takes and butchers for this this guest of course the rich man being david so nathan is there to rebuke david and then to absolve him so he's the preacher of law and gospel to david calling him to repent pronouncing the forgiveness upon him in that particular scene and then later in second samuel 7 he's also the one who first of all says you go guy to david when david wants to build a house for god and then god comes to nathan and says no no that's not going to happen david isn't going to build a house for me i'm going to build a house for david and so nathan comes back and delivers this divine proclamation to david so nathan has been there at two very important scenes in david's life

one bad one good and now he's about to show up and basically save the day once more he's the we were talking before we started recording that you know you get the the vision of david is his holy holy prophet this holy man in those other two scenes a little different side of nathan comes out And what's about to happen here, what comes out is you don't really picture some holy man who's there to give these divine pronouncements of, you know, the future of God building a house for David or to call him to repent, pronounce the absolution. Instead, Nathan comes across very much as a scheming politician. Yeah, that's that's the way it strikes me. Oh, yeah. I mean, so Nathan is the guy that when it came time for David to own to his sins, said, you're the man. When it came time for David to want to build a house, he said, you're not the man.

And usually when it refers to Nathan, it talks about like the prophet Nathan. We've already heard of him referred to this way. Right. So it's it did not invite Nathan the prophet. Right. But it moves on to this. It just says, then Nathan. Now, it doesn't say then Nathan the prophet. And I think that perhaps this is intentional, that it's not applying that title, it's not applying that office to Nathan in this moment, because I don't know that this is Nathan the prophet. I think this might just be Nathan. Yeah, because this whole thing comes across as a little bit scheming, to choose actually a pretty mild word as to how this all works out. so here's what here's what goes down so nathan goes to bathsheba so we really haven't heard

much about bathsheba in a long time you know a lot of years have passed she was probably a pretty young wife when everything happened with uriah and david and her and so you know all this time i've been wondering well you know what what happened to her well we know that she gave birth to solomon at some point so when we when we first met her about the only thing that she said was by means of a messenger and it was a pretty short message i'm pregnant yeah that was that was it but the only words given to her way back then well she's gonna have something to say here and she comes across now as a as an older mature wise woman who knows how to get exactly what she wants out of this situation so she's she has some years and some wisdom behind her at this

point she's going to say a lot more than i'm pregnant in in this part of the story so nathan first of all goes to her he realizes he's the one who's privy to all the stuff going on with adonijah and with david so he goes to bathsheba the mother of solomon that's how she is defined to hear and says, have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Hagith has become king and David, our Lord does not yada it, does not know it. So that's that same verb used earlier. He did not know Avishag, the teenage virgin to bed with him. He didn't know her. And now he also does not know what's happening with his own son. So he doesn't know that. Now, therefore, Nathan goes on now therefore come let me give you some advice then this advice is going to save your own

life and the life of your son solomon and i don't think that he was exaggerating there because if you look at almost a history of any country at least in the the ancient world when there was a when there was a turnover of kings the the likelihood of there being some bloodshed in that transition was very high because you could you could have multiple claimants to a throne That's what's going to happen here. So this advice I'm about to give you will save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. So here's what you should do. Nathan goes on.

So go in at once to King David, and here's what you are to say to him. He puts the words in her mouth. Did you not, my lord the king, swear to your servant, saying, Solomon, your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne? Why then is Adonijah king? So those are the words that you are to say. And we're going to see that they're repeated three times in the course of this narrative, each time a little bit differently. But that's basically the main thing that he wants her to say is,

you swore to me, did you not, that Solomon, my son, was to reign after you and to sit on your throne? Then Nathan finishes up by saying, okay, after you've said that, while you're still talking. So you're going to be like in the middle of this conversation with David. And while you're doing that, I'm going to come in after you and I'll confirm your words. It can also be translated, expand upon your words. So that's Nathan's advice to Bathsheba.

So Bathsheba, verse 15, goes to the king in his chamber. And then we're told in parentheses, now the king was very old and Abishag, the Shunammite, was attending to the king. kind of thrown in parentheses so it's a weird picture to to kind of get in your head there's the king in his bedroom not in his throne room it is in bedroom his wife goes into him and there's this young teenage virgin there attending to him so it's it's kind of an odd mixture of individuals to to kind of picture here Bathsheba bows pays homage to the king and he says to her what do desire. And then she says to him, and there's a little bit of a switch here. She doesn't ask a

question so much as make a statement. She says, my Lord. She doesn't say, did you not? She says, you swore. And that Hebrew could be translated as you yourself swore. It's sort of emphatic here. You yourself swore to your servant by the Lord, your God. You didn't just swear, but you swore by Yahweh, your God. And here's what you swore. Solomon, your son shall reign after me and he shall sit on my throne so that's what you swore and then she goes on and now behold adonijah is king although you my lord the king do not know it he sacrificed oxen fattened calves and sheep in abundance and he's invited all the sons of the king abiathar the priest joab the commander of the army but solomon your servant he has not invited and now my lord the king the eyes of all israel

are on you to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my king my lord the king after him otherwise it will come to pass when my lord the king sleeps with his father that i that i and my son solomon will be counted offenders so that's her speech to uh that's her speech to david which is almost exactly what nathan instructed her to to say uh not exactly she changed a couple things yeah it's not verbatim but uh but she knows she knows her husband so she's gonna you know color it up a little bit yeah switch things up a little bit and so here's the thing um we are never given a record of when david supposedly said this to her so we can assume it was a private conversation between david and bathsheba where he said this but nathan knows

about it there's a lot of commentators who assume that this actually never happened they're making the whole thing up their eyes as it were david's just old and he's just like thinking he doesn't remember some oath he made yeah i mean they're basically gaslighting him is what a lot of commentators will say they're basically making up a promise that david supposedly said when he was younger as it were quote-unquote reminding him of what he said earlier and because of that this they kind of have this dual testimony between Bathsheba and Nathan as to what David said to them, even though, of course, David didn't actually say it. That's what the view of some commentators is. I don't really buy that. I mean, I guess it's possible, but I don't really think that it's

probable. This is likely a case where David actually made this promise to Bathsheba, but he does need to be reminded of it because of everything happening with his oldest son, adonijah at this point so to wrap this up verse 22 while she was still speaking to the king so this this whole scenario is going down just like nathan had planned it so she's still talking saying these things when nathan the prophet comes in and they told the king here's nathan the prophet and he comes in before the king bows down with the face to the ground and nathan says bathsheba by the way leaves because she's going to be called back in a minute so bathsheba leaves the room nathan says my lord the king and this is the part that just kills me because he acts very surprised by this

like he's just learned about this my lord the king have you said adonijah shall reign after me and he shall sit on my throne because here's what's happened he's gone down to sacrifice oxen fat and cattle sheep in abundance he's invited all the king's sons the commanders of the army abiathar and they're eating and drinking before him saying long live king adonijah and then verse 26, sort of in righteous indignation, like he's very offended. He says, but me, me of all people, your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah, and your servant Solomon, none of us have been invited to this. Has this thing been brought about by my lord the king, and you have not told your servants who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him? So Nathan sets this all up as

if he's just learned these events he is shocked and very disconcerted by them in fact he's offended by them because he hasn't been invited to this and has david not told him of his plans for who's to take his place afterward so the scenario created here by nathan with the help of bathsheba is to throw things directly in in in front of david and say hey we need you to do something about this this is what's happening and you need to make a decision as to who is to replace you because if you don't your replacement is for sure going to be your son adonijah yeah and that and that is uh that is 40 minutes so we had to we had to leave it right there at a cliffhanger uh where nathan and besheba are pretty good actors i guess i mean uh i mean i know david's an old man and

And maybe he's not completely with it, but we'll see if this acting job works or not. We'll see if David is saying, I never said that or what. I mean, of course, this is a clever play where they're saying, hey, all this is going on. Did you do this? Did you do this? Are you aware of this? And so David, they're giving, they're creating the opportunity for David to say no and to do something else. yeah and the craziest thing about all this at least from my perspective is that and we'll talk about this next in the next episode the crazy thing about all this is that this is all uh a large part of the backdrop of what happens on palm sunday so we'll we'll get to that we'll get

to those details next time around but uh uh this is with all the intrigue and the the play acting and everything else going on, it's a pretty wild backdrop to actually what is one of the significant events in the life of Jesus. We'll flesh that out next time. All right. Sounds good. I'll see you then.