I Kings 1:1

When king David had become so old that they could no longer warm him by covering him with clothes, his servants advised him to increase his vitality by lying with a young and robust virgin, and selected the beautiful Abishag of Shunem to perform this service. This circumstance, which is a trivial one in itself, is only mentioned on account of what follows - first, because it shows that David had become too weak from age, and too destitute of energy, to be able to carry on the government any longer; and, secondly, because Adonijah the pretender afterwards forfeited his life through asking for Abishag in marriage. - The opening of our book, והמּלך (and the King), may be explained from the fact that the account which follows has been taken from a writing containing the earlier history of David, and that the author of these books retained the Vav cop. which he found there, for the purpose of showing at the outset that his work was a continuation of the books of Samuel. בּיּמים בּא זקן as in Jos 13:1; Jos 23:1; Gen 24:1, etc. "They covered him with clothes, and he did not get warm." It follows from this that the king was bedridden, or at least that when lying down he could no longer be kept warm with bed-clothes. בּגדים does not mean clothes to wear here, but large cloths, which were used as bed-clothes, as in Sa1 19:13 and Num 4:6. יחם is used impersonally, and derived from חמם, cf. Ewald, 193, b., and 138, b. As David was then in his seventieth year, this decrepitude was not the natural result of extreme old age, but the consequence of a sickly constitution, arising out of the hardships which he had endured in his agitated and restless life. The proposal of his servants, to restore the vital warmth which he had lost by bringing a virgin to lie with him, is recommended as a…

David, as recorded in the foregoing chapter, had, by the great mercy of God, escaped the sword of the destroying angel. But our deliverances from or through diseases and dangers are but reprieves; if the candle be not blown out, it will burn out of itself. We have David here sinking under the infirmities of old age, and brought by them to the gates of the grave. He that cometh up out of the pit shall fall into the snare; and, one way or other, we must needs die. 1. It would have troubled one to see David so infirm. He as old, and his natural heat so wasted that no clothes could keep him warm, Kg1 1:1. David had been a valiant active man and a man of business, and very vehement had the flame always been in his breast; and yet now his blood is chilled and stagnated, he is confined to his bed, and there can get no heat. He was now seventy years old. Many, at that age, are as lively and fit for business as ever; but David was now chastised for his former sins, especially that in the matter of Uriah, and felt from his former toils and the hardships he had gone through in his youth, which then he made nothing of, but was now the worse for. Let not the strong man glory in his strength, which may soon be weakened by sickness, or at last will be weakened by old age. Let young people remember their Creator in the days of their youth, before these evil days come. What our hand finds to do for God, and our souls, and our generation, let us do with all our might, because the night comes, the night of old age, in which no man can work; and, when our strength has gone, it will be a comfort to remember that we used it well. 2. It would have troubled one to see his physicians so weak and unskilful that they knew no other way of relieving him than by outward applications. No cordials, no…

1:1–2:12 The book of 1 Kings opens by emphasizing the continuity of the Lord’s covenant with David (see 2 Sam 7:11-16). Solomon was the legitimate and divinely chosen heir to what God had granted his father David. The challenges to Solomon’s succession to the throne (1 Kgs 1:1–2:46) foreshadowed challenges to his kingship at the end of his reign (11:1-43) and the continuing struggles between Israel and Judah thereafter. 1:1-3 At seventy years of age (2 Sam 5:4-5), David was feeble, perhaps because of years of warfare and stress. He needed a young person to impart warmth, a medical remedy also described in Josephus’s Antiquities and by the Greek physician Galen. David’s diminishing powers encouraged Adonijah’s attempts to take the throne.