1 Kings 1:11-53: The Crowning of Solomon

Introduction:

Resistance to the true king, this is the tale of human history and the central struggle in the text before us.  As usual we see sinful men used of the devil to promote themselves like the antichrist into the place of the true king.  We see resistance and subterfuge attempting to gather strength to overthrow God’s will to have His ruler in place.  The ruler of the people of Israel is not merely a political position, it has been identified in promise and prophecy as the seat from which the nations will be ruled and satan overcome.  It was the centre of the religious life of the only nation God had identified as the people He would dwell with at the time.  The throne of Israel then must be one of the most battle intensive areas in history as the devil continuously attempts to take the throne and if he cannot take it to dilute it with compromise, or poison it with sin, or as in the garden lead the king into sin that God would judge and destroy him.  Adonijah attempting to take the throne from Solomon may appear on the outside to be a case of sibling rivalry but it is something greater.

Adonijah seems well set being handsome, the eldest and having the support of key men in the establishment to monopolise on this time of weakness in David.  Our portion documents in detail how certain kingdom minded people were used to set things in motion that God’s promised king would in fact take the throne.  We want to examine this text in two parts. We want to look firstly at Nathan and Bathsheba as kingdom minded servants who God used to bring about the coronation of Solomon.  And then we want to look at Solomon becoming king and the responses of Benaiah and Adonijah to that.

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