1 Kings 1:21

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹Then Nathan said to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, "Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king, and our lord David does not know it? ¹²Now please, come and let me advise you. Save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. ¹³Go at once to King David and say, 'My lord the king, did you not swear to your maidservant, "Surely your son Solomon will reign after me, and he will sit on my throne"? Why then has Adonijah become king?' ¹⁴Then, while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words." ¹⁵So Bathsheba went to see the king in his bedroom. Since the king was very old, Abishag the Shunammite was serving him. ¹⁶And Bathsheba bowed down in homage to the king, who asked, "What is your desire?" ¹⁷"My lord," she replied, "you yourself swore to your maidservant by the LORD your God: 'Surely your son Solomon will reign after me, and he will sit on my throne.' ¹⁸But now, behold, Adonijah has become king, and you, my lord the king, did not know it. ¹⁹And he has sacrificed an abundance of oxen, fattened calves, and sheep, and has invited all the other sons of the king, as well as Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army. But he did not invite your servant Solomon. ²⁰And as for you, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you to tell them who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

sleep: 1 Kings 2:10, Genesis 15:15, Deuteronomy 31:16

that I: That is, when Adonijah is established on the throne, I and my son Solomon shall be put to death as state criminals. The history of the world demonstrates, that the lust of dominion has tempted men to commit the most enormous crimes. A father has destroyed his son, a son deposed a father, and a brother murdered a brother, in order to obtain a crown!

offenders: Heb. sinners, 1 Kings 2:15, 1 Kings 2:22-24

Reciprocal: Genesis 43:9 - will be 1 Samuel 10:24 - God save the king 2 Samuel 7:12 - sleep 1 Kings 1:12 - save 1 Kings 11:43 - slept 2 Kings 10:35 - Jehu slept 2 Kings 13:13 - slept 2 Kings 14:16 - Jehoash 1 Chronicles 17:11 - go to be 2 Chronicles 9:31 - slept 2 Chronicles 32:33 - slept 1 Thessalonians 4:13 - which are

Cross-References

Genesis 1:18
to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:24
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and wild animals according to their kinds." And it was so.

Genesis 1:25
God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it."

Genesis 1:31
And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning-the sixth day.

Genesis 6:20
Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive.

Genesis 7:14
they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature.

Genesis 8:17
Bring out all the living creatures that are with you-birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground-so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it."

Genesis 8:19
Every living creature, every creeping thing, and every bird-everything that moves upon the earth-came out of the ark, kind by kind.

Genesis 9:7
But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out across the earth and multiply upon it."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers,.... That is, shall die, and be buried in the sepulchre of his ancestors, where he shall lie till he awakes in the morning of the resurrection:

that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders; or "sinners" g; not as if she would be reckoned an adulteress, and her son as illegitimate, as some think, and so be branded and treated as such; but as being traitors, making pretensions to the throne, she on the behalf of her son, and he for himself, when he had no right to it, being the younger son, and not declared successor by his father.

g הטאים "peccatores", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shall sleep - This euphemism for death, rare in the early Scriptures - being found only once in the Pentateuch (margin reference.), and once also in the historical books before Kings 2 Samuel 7:12 - becomes in Kings and Chronicles the ordinary mode of speech (see 1 Kings 2:10; 1 Kings 11:43, etc.; 2Ch 9:31; 2 Chronicles 12:16, etc.). David uses the metaphor in one psalm Psalms 13:3. In the later Scriptures it is, of course, common. (Jeremiah 51:39; Daniel 12:2; Matthew 9:24; John 11:11; 1 Corinthians 11:30; 1Co 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:14, etc.)

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 1:21. Shall be counted offenders. — When Adonijah and his party shall find that I and my son have had this promise from thee by oath, he will slay us both.