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The noise of Adonijah's revels had not disturbed his quiet. Such neglect was criminal in the circumstances, and brings out forcibly the weary indifference which had crept over him. Contrast that picture with the early days of swift energy and eager interest in all things. Is this half-comatose old man the David who flashed like a meteor and struck swift as a thunderbolt but a few years before?
Adonijah's motive in aspiring to the throne was not that he might the better care for the welfare of others, but that he might selfishly enjoy wealth and honour. He cared much for outward show, while he failed to cultivate inward worth, preparing for himself chariots, horsemen, and a retinue of servants, but never displaying a love of justice or ability in statesmanship.
So Solomon's mother went presently to her son, to speak to him about what she had promised, upon Adonijah's supplication to her. And when her son came forward to meet her, and embraced her, and when he had brought her into the house where his royal throne was set, he sat thereon, and bid them set another throne on the right hand for his mother.
The new king was apparently some nineteen or twenty years old on his accession. He stepped at once out of seclusion and idleness to bear the whole weight of the kingdom. The glories of David's reign, his brother Adonijah's pretensions to the crown, the smouldering hostility of Saul's old partisans, made his position difficult and his throne unsteady.
Not many years later Adonijah, another brother, with the connivance of Joab, David's rugged old general, and Abiathar, the elder high priest, attempting to steal the throne, Zadok the high priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the most famous and heroic of Israel's captains after Joab, together with Bathsheba, the beautiful and ambitious mother of Solomon, succeeded in thwarting Adonijah's base designs and roused in David for a short time his old-time energy.
Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, and Nathan, the prophet, hurried in to tell David of Adonijah's revolt against his authority, and that at his coronation-festival, then begun, even Joab, the commander-in-chief, and Abiathar, the priest, were present. Then David's old decision and promptitude reasserted themselves once more.
The news produced the same consternation as that which was produced among the conspirators at Adonijah's banquet, when they heard of the measures taken by the dying David. There was a panic-stricken dispersion, and every one pretended to be grieved, or ignorant of what was going on. Caius, in stupified silence, expected death instead of empire. Macro alone did not lose his presence of mind.
Adonijah's sin appears at first sight so unnatural that, in justice to him as well as for our own instruction, we should try to discover the sources whence this stream of evil flowed which was so bitter and so desolating in its results. This is not an easy task, because the full details of his life are not recorded.
Surely they must have had some pangs as they sat at Adonijah's feast, when they thought of the decrepit old king lying in his chamber up on Zion, and remembered what he and they had come through together. III. We may note the pathetic picture of decaying old age which is seen in David. He was not very old in years, being about seventy, but he was a worn-out man.
The false must be displaced by the true the world by the Christ the usurper by the Divinely-appointed King. It was thus that Adonijah's scheme was defeated.
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