Wesley Corpus

Chapter I David declines in health, ver. 1 - 4. Adonijah aspires to the kingdom, ver. 5 - 10. Nathan and Bathsheba procure an order for the succession of Solomon, ver. 11 - 31. The anointing of Solomon, and the peoples joy, ver. 32 - 40. The dispersion of Adonijah's party, ver. 41 - 49. Solomon dismisses Adonijah, ver. 50 - 53. Old - Being in the end of his seventieth year. No heat - Which is not strange in a person who had been exercised with so many hardships in war, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows, for his own sins (as divers of his Psalms witness) and for the sins and miseries of his children and people. Besides, this might be from the nature of his bodily distemper. Servants - His physicians. Virgin - Whose natural heat is fresh and wholesome, and not impaired with bearing or breeding of children. The same counsel doth Galen give for the cure of some cold and dry distempers. Stand - That is, minister unto him, or wait upon him, in his sickness, as occasion requires. Lie in his bosom - As his wife: for that she was so, may appear by divers arguments. First, otherwise this had been a wicked course; which therefore neither his servants durst have prescribed, nor would David have used, especially being now in a dying condition. Secondly, it appears from this phrase of lying in his bosom, which is everywhere in scripture mentioned as the privilege of a wife. Thirdly, this made Adonijah's crime in desiring her to wife, so heinous in Solomon's account, because he saw, that by marrying the king's wife he designed to revive his pretence to the kingdom. Knew her not - Which is mentioned to note the continuance and progress of the king's malady. Then - Upon notice of the desperateness of the king's disease, and the approach of his death. Exalted - Entertained high thoughts and designs. I will - As the right of the kingdom is mine, ver.6, so I will now take possession of it. Prepared - As Absalom had done upon the like occasion, 2Sam 15:1. Displeased him - This is noted as David's great error, and the occasion of Adonijah's presumption. Saying - He neither restrained him from, nor reproved him for his miscarriages: which David well knew was a great sin.