In the First Book of Kings, Solomon is made king against the rightful heir, by an ingenious conspiracy between a wily prophet, Nathan, and a wily beauty, Bathsheba,—Solomon’s mother, whom David had obtained by murdering her husband.
It may be remembered here that David had by Bathsheba a son named Nathan (2 Sam. v. 14; 1 Chron. iii. 5), elder brother of Solomon, from whom Luke traces the genealogy of Joseph, father of Jesus, while Matthew traces it from Solomon. It appears curious that the prophet Nathan should have intrigued for the accession of the younger brother rather than the one bearing his own name. It will be seen, however, by reference to 2 Samuel xii. 24, that Solomon was the first legitimate child of David and Bathsheba, the son of their adultery having died. John Calvin having laid it down very positively that “if Jesus was not descended from Solomon, he was not the Christ,” some theologians have resorted to the hypothesis that Nathan married an ancestress of the Virgin Mary, and that Luke gives her descent, not that of Joseph; but apart from the fact that Luke (iii. 23) begins with Joseph, it is difficult to see how the requirement of Calvin, that Solomon should be the ancestor of Jesus, is met by his mother’s descent from Solomon’s brother. It is clear, however, from 2 Sam. xii. 24, 25, that this elder brother of Solomon, Nathan, is a myth. Otherwise he, and not Solomon, was the lawful heir to the throne (legitimacy being confined to the sons of David born in Jerusalem), and Jesus would not have been “born King of the Jews” (Matt, i. 2), nor fulfilled the Messianic conditions. It is even possible that Luke wished to escape the implication of illegitimacy by tracing the descent of Jesus from Solomon’s elder brother. But the writer of 1 Kings i. had no knowledge of the Christian discovery that, in the order of legal succession to the throne, the sons of David born before he reigned in Jerusalem were excluded. Adonijah’s legal right of succession was not questioned by David (1 Kings i. 6).
When David was in his dotage and near his end this eldest son (by Haggith), Adonijah, began to consult leading men about his accession, but unfortunately for himself, did not summon Nathan. This slighted “prophet” proposed to Bathsheba that she should go to David and tell him the falsehood that he (David) had once sworn before Jahveh that her son Solomon should reign; “and while you are talking,” says Nathan, “I will enter and fulfil” (that was his significant word) “your declaration.” The royal dotard could not gainsay two seemingly independent witnesses, and helplessly kept the alleged oath. David announced this oath as his reason,—apparently the only one,—for appointing Solomon. The prince may be credited with being too young to participate in this scheme.
Irregularity of succession and of birth in princes appeals to popular superstition. The legal heir, regularly born, seems to come by mere human arrangement, but the God-appointed chieftain is expected in unexpected ways and in defiance of human laws and even moralities. David, or some one speaking for him, said, “In sin did my mother conceive me,” and the contempt in which he was held by his father’s other children, and his father’s keeping him out of sight till the prophet demanded him (1 Sam. xvi. 11), look as if he, also, may have been illegitimate. Solomon may have been technically legitimate, but in any case he was the son of an immoral marriage, sealed by a husband’s blood. The populace would easily see the divine hand in the elevation of this youth, who seems to have been himself impressed with the like superstition.
Unfortunately, Solomon received his father’s last injunctions as divine commands. At the very time when David is pictured by the Chronicler in such a saintly death-bed scene, parting so pathetically with his people, and giving such unctuous and virtuous last counsels to Solomon, he is shown by the historian of Kings pouring into his successor’s ear the most treacherous and atrocious directions for the murder of certain persons; among others, of Shimei, whose life he had sworn should not be taken. Shimei had once called David what Jahveh also called him, a man of blood, but afterwards asked his forgiveness. Under a pretence of forgiveness, David nursed his vengeance through many years, and Shimei was now a white-haired man. David’s last words addressed to Solomon were these:
“He (Shimei) came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by Jahveh, saying, ‘I will not put thee to death with the sword.’ Now therefore hold him not guiltless, for thou art a wise man, and wilt know what thou oughtest to do unto him; and thou shalt bring his hoar head down to the grave in blood.”
Such, according to an admiring annalist, were the last words uttered by David on earth. He died with a lie in his mouth (for he had sworn to Shimei, plainly, “Thy life shall not be taken”), and with murder (personal and vindictive) in his heart. The book opens with a record that they had tried to revive the aged king by bringing to him a beautiful damsel; but lust was gone; the only passion that survived even his lust, and could give one more glow to this “man of blood,” was vengeance. Two aged men were named by him for death at the hands of Solomon, who could not disobey, this being the last act of the forty years of reign of King David. His dying word was “blood.” One would be glad to believe these things mythical, but they are contained in a record which says:
“David did that which was right in the sight of Jahveh and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”
This traditional incident of getting Uriah slain in order to appropriate his wife, made a deep impression on the historian of Samuel, and suspicious pains are taken (2 Sam. xii.) to prove that the illegitimate son of David and Bathsheba was “struck by Jahveh” for his parents’ sin, and that Solomon was born only after the marriage. Even if the youth was legitimate, the adherents of the king’s eldest son, Adonijah, would not fail to recall the lust and murder from which Solomon sprang, though the populace might regard these as signs of Jahveh’s favor. In the coronation ode (Psalm ii.) the young king is represented as if answering the Legitimists who spoke of his birth not only from an adulteress, but one with a foreign name:
“I will proclaim the decree: