For Teaching

1 Kings 2: What the Passage Says

173 claims across 46 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Kings 2 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

David gives Solomon his final instructions: keep God's law, deal with Joab and Shimei, and show kindness to Barzillai's sons. David dies after forty years as king, and Solomon takes the throne. Adonijah asks for Abishag as his wife, and Solomon reads the request as a bid for the kingdom and has him killed. Solomon then removes Abiathar from the priesthood, has Joab killed at the altar, and later has Shimei killed for breaking the terms set for him, and the kingdom is firmly established.

Claim by Claim

2:1
- The days of David drew near for him to die.
- David gave a charge to Solomon his son.
- David spoke to Solomon.
2:2
- David said he was going the way of all the earth.
- David told Solomon to be strong.
- David told Solomon to show himself a man.
2:3
- David told Solomon to keep the charge of the LORD his God.
- Keeping that charge means walking in the LORD's ways.
- Keeping that charge means keeping the LORD's statutes, commandments, judgments, and testimonies.
- These are written in the law of Moses.
- David said the purpose was that Solomon would prosper in all that he does.
- David said the purpose was that Solomon would prosper wherever he turns.
2:4
- David said a further purpose was that the LORD would confirm the word he spoke concerning David.
- The LORD's word was conditional: if David's sons take heed to their way.
- The condition includes walking before the LORD in truth.
- The condition includes walking before the LORD with all their heart and all their soul.
- The LORD said that then a man of David's line would never be cut off from the throne of Israel.
2:5
- David said Solomon knows what Joab son of Zeruiah did to David.
- David said Solomon knows what Joab did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel.
- The two commanders were Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether.
- Joab killed them.
- Joab shed the blood of war in a time of peace.
- Joab put the blood of war on the belt around his waist.
- Joab put the blood of war on the sandals on his feet.
2:6
- David told Solomon to act according to his wisdom.
- David told Solomon not to let Joab's gray head go down to Sheol in peace.
2:7
- David told Solomon to show loyal kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite.
- David told Solomon to let them be among those who eat at his table.
- David said they came to him when he fled from Absalom.
- David said Absalom was Solomon's brother.
2:8
- David said Shimei son of Gera is with Solomon.
- Shimei was a Benjamite from Bahurim.
- Shimei cursed David with a grievous curse.
- Shimei cursed David on the day David went to Mahanaim.
- Shimei came down to meet David at the Jordan.
- David swore to Shimei by the LORD.
- David swore that he would not put Shimei to death with the sword.
2:9
- David told Solomon not to hold Shimei guiltless.
- David said Solomon is a wise man.
- David said Solomon knows what he ought to do to Shimei.
- David told Solomon to bring Shimei's gray head down to Sheol with blood.
2:10
- David slept with his fathers.
- David was buried in the city of David.
2:11
- David reigned over Israel forty years.
- David reigned seven years in Hebron.
- David reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.
2:12
- Solomon sat on the throne of David his father.
- Solomon's kingdom was firmly established.
2:13
- Adonijah son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon.
- Bathsheba asked whether he came peaceably.
- Adonijah answered that he came peaceably.
2:14
- Adonijah said he had something to say to her.
- Bathsheba told him to speak.
2:15
- Adonijah said Bathsheba knows the kingdom was his.
- Adonijah said all Israel set their faces on him to reign.
- Adonijah said the kingdom had turned about and become his brother's.
- Adonijah said the kingdom came to his brother from the LORD.
2:16
- Adonijah said he asks one petition of her.
- Adonijah asked her not to deny him.
- Bathsheba told him to speak.
2:17
- Adonijah asked Bathsheba to speak to Solomon the king.
- Adonijah said the king will not deny her.
- Adonijah asked that the king give him Abishag the Shunammite as a wife.
2:18
- Bathsheba said it was well.
- Bathsheba said she would speak to the king on his behalf.
2:19
- Bathsheba went to king Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah.
- The king rose to meet her.
- The king bowed himself to her.
- The king sat down on his throne.
- The king had a throne set for the king's mother.
- She sat at his right hand.
2:20
- Bathsheba said she asks one small petition of him.
- Bathsheba asked him not to deny her.
- The king told her to ask.
- The king called her his mother.
- The king said he would not deny her.
2:21
- Bathsheba asked that Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah as a wife.
- Bathsheba called Adonijah Solomon's brother.
2:22
- King Solomon answered his mother.
- Solomon asked why she asks Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah.
- Solomon told her to ask the kingdom for him as well.
- Solomon said Adonijah is his elder brother.
- Solomon named Abiathar the priest along with Adonijah.
- Solomon named Joab son of Zeruiah along with Adonijah.
2:23
- King Solomon swore by the LORD.
- Solomon invoked God to do so to him and more also.
- Solomon said Adonijah had spoken this word against his own life.
2:24
- Solomon swore by the living LORD.
- Solomon said the LORD established him.
- Solomon said the LORD set him on the throne of David his father.
- Solomon said the LORD made him a house.
- Solomon said the LORD did this as he had promised.
- Solomon said Adonijah would be put to death that day.
2:25
- King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah son of Jehoiada.
- Benaiah struck Adonijah down.
- Adonijah died.
2:26
- The king spoke to Abiathar the priest.
- The king told him to go to his own fields at Anathoth.
- The king said Abiathar deserved death.
- The king said he would not put him to death at this time.
- The reason was that Abiathar carried the ark of the Lord GOD before David.
- The reason was that Abiathar was afflicted in all that David was afflicted.
2:27
- Solomon drove Abiathar out from being priest to the LORD.
- This fulfilled the word of the LORD.
- The LORD had spoken that word concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.
2:28
- The news came to Joab.
- Joab had turned after Adonijah.
- Joab had not turned after Absalom.
- Joab fled to the tent of the LORD.
- Joab took hold of the horns of the altar.
2:29
- King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the LORD.
- King Solomon was told that Joab was beside the altar.
- Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada.
- Solomon told Benaiah to go and strike Joab down.
2:30
- Benaiah came to the tent of the LORD.
- Benaiah told Joab that the king says to come out.
- Joab refused.
- Joab said he would die there.
- Benaiah brought word back to the king.
- Benaiah reported what Joab said and how he answered.
2:31
- The king told Benaiah to do as Joab had said.
- The king told Benaiah to strike Joab down.
- The king told Benaiah to bury Joab.
- The king said this would take away the innocent blood Joab shed from Solomon.
- The king said this would take away that blood from the house of his father.
2:32
- The LORD will return Joab's blood on his own head.
- Joab struck down two men more righteous and better than himself.
- Joab killed them with the sword.
- David Solomon's father did not know of it.
- One of the men was Abner son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel.
- The other was Amasa son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah.
2:33
- Their blood will return on the head of Joab.
- Their blood will return on the head of Joab's descendants forever.
- There will be peace forever from the LORD for David, his descendants, his house, and his throne.
2:34
- Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up.
- Benaiah struck Joab down.
- Benaiah killed him.
- Joab was buried in his own house in the wilderness.
2:35
- The king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada in Joab's place over the army.
- The king put Zadok the priest in Abiathar's place.
2:36
- The king sent and called for Shimei.
- The king told Shimei to build himself a house in Jerusalem.
- The king told Shimei to live there.
- The king told Shimei not to go out from there anywhere.
2:37
- The king said that on the day Shimei goes out and crosses the brook Kidron, he should know for certain he will surely die.
- The king said Shimei's blood would be on his own head.
2:38
- Shimei told the king the word was good.
- Shimei said he would do as his lord the king had said.
- Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.
2:39
- At the end of three years two of Shimei's servants ran away.
- They ran away to Achish son of Maachah, king of Gath.
- Shimei was told that his servants were in Gath.
2:40
- Shimei arose.
- Shimei saddled his donkey.
- Shimei went to Gath to Achish to look for his servants.
- Shimei went and brought his servants back from Gath.
2:41
- Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned.
2:42
- The king sent and called for Shimei.
- The king asked whether he had not made Shimei swear by the LORD.
- The king said he had warned Shimei.
- The warning was that on the day Shimei went out and walked anywhere he would surely die.
- The king said Shimei had answered that the word was good and that he had heard it.
2:43
- The king asked why Shimei had not kept the oath of the LORD.
- The king asked why Shimei had not kept the commandment the king charged him with.
2:44
- The king said further to Shimei that Shimei knows all the wickedness his heart knows.
- That wickedness was what Shimei did to David, Solomon's father.
- The LORD will return Shimei's wickedness on his own head.
2:45
- King Solomon will be blessed.
- The throne of David will be established before the LORD forever.
2:46
- The king commanded Benaiah son of Jehoiada.
- Benaiah went out and struck Shimei down.
- Shimei died.
- The kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1: David was the king of Israel. When a king died, his son usually became king next. So David told Solomon how to rule.
2:2: "Go the way everyone on earth goes" is a Hebrew way of saying "I am about to die." "Be a man" here carries the sense of showing courage and resolve, not of growing up.
2:3: Where the King James and this rendering print LORD in capital letters, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God (the four letters YHWH, often written Yahweh). Jewish readers said "the Lord" aloud instead of pronouncing it, and English translations follow that practice with the capitals. The four words "rules, commands, decisions, instructions" translate four Hebrew terms for parts of the law given through Moses; piling them up is a way of saying "everything he has laid down," not four separate categories a reader must distinguish.
2:4: "The promise he made about me" refers to the message David received from the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 7), that David's descendants would keep the throne. The promise as David repeats it here is conditional: it holds if his descendants keep faith.
2:5: Zeruiah was David's sister, so Joab was David's nephew as well as his army commander. Abner had been the general of Saul's rival house before joining David, and Joab killed him privately (2 Samuel 3); Amasa had commanded the army of David's rebel son Absalom, and David appointed him over Joab, who then killed him too (2 Samuel 20). "Spilled the blood of war during a time of peace" means Joab killed in a truce as if it were battle. Blood on the belt and sandals is a picture of guilt he still carries, and, in Israelite thinking, guilt that clings to the household that failed to answer for it.
2:6: "Die of old age in peace" translates a phrase about a gray head going down to Sheol, the Hebrew name for the place of the dead, where everyone was thought to go. To go there "in peace" meant to die old and unpunished.
2:7: Eating at the king's table was a formal standing: a lifelong allowance and royal protection, not an occasional dinner invitation. Barzillai had supplied David with food and supplies during Absalom's revolt (2 Samuel 17, 19).
2:8: Shimei belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Saul, the king David replaced; his hostility was family and tribal politics. A curse was not just rude words but a formal calling-down of harm, taken seriously as an act with force behind it. David swore not to kill Shimei himself, an oath sworn in the LORD's name and binding on David personally, which is the loophole he points Solomon toward in the next verse.
2:9: David's oath in verse 8 bound David personally, not his son. The instruction here works around it: Solomon made no such promise, so he is free to act. "Bring his hoar head down to the grave with blood" means a violent death rather than a natural one.
2:10: "Died and joined his ancestors" is the standard formula for the death of a king, drawn from burial in the family tomb. The City of David is the old fortified hill of Jerusalem that David captured and made his capital.
2:11: During the first seven years at Hebron, David ruled only the southern tribe of Judah; the northern tribes accepted him later, after which he moved his capital to Jerusalem.
2:13: Adonijah was Solomon's older half-brother, who in the previous chapter had a coronation feast held for himself while David was dying, and lost the throne when David named Solomon instead. Bathsheba's question is not politeness; a defeated rival arriving unannounced could mean trouble.
2:15: Israel had no fixed law of succession. Adonijah was David's oldest surviving son and could reasonably expect the crown, which is why the throne was open to being contested at all.
2:17: Abishag was the young woman brought to the elderly David to keep him warm in his last illness (1 Kings 1). Whether or not the marriage was consummated, she counted as part of the old king's household of women, and taking a dead or deposed king's women was a public claim on his throne, which is why Solomon reacts as he does in verse 22.
2:19: The mother of a reigning king held a recognized position at court, with her own seat beside the throne; the right-hand side was the place of honor. Solomon standing and bowing is court protocol for that office, which is what makes his flat refusal a few lines later so pointed.
2:22: Abiathar the priest and Joab the general had both backed Adonijah's attempt on the throne (1 Kings 1). Solomon's answer treats the marriage request as the same move by other means, since Adonijah was the elder brother and would have been the expected heir.
2:23: "May God punish me, and worse" is a standard oath formula. The speaker calls down a penalty on himself if he fails to do what he says, and deliberately leaves the penalty unnamed.
2:24: "Gave me a family line" translates "made me a house", house meaning a dynasty of descendants, not a building.
2:25: Benaiah commanded David's personal bodyguard of foreign mercenaries, a force answerable directly to the king rather than to Joab's army.
2:26: Anathoth was a village a few miles northeast of Jerusalem set aside for priests; sending Abiathar to his own fields there is banishment from the court, not exile abroad. The ark was the gold-covered chest holding the tablets of the covenant, carried by priests and treated as the place of God's presence with Israel.
2:27: Eli was the priest at the sanctuary of Shiloh generations earlier, told that his family would lose the priesthood because of his sons' conduct (1 Samuel 2). Abiathar was descended from Eli, so his dismissal is presented as the end of that line.
2:28: The tent of the LORD was the portable sanctuary; the temple had not yet been built. The altar's four upper corners rose into projections called horns, and grabbing them was a recognized appeal for sanctuary, though Israelite law (Exodus 21:14) allowed a deliberate murderer to be taken from the altar and killed. Joab's earlier record is noted because he stayed loyal to David during Absalom's revolt but backed Adonijah in this one.
2:31: "Innocent blood" is a legal term for a killing that has never been answered for. In Israelite thinking such blood left a standing debt on the household of whoever was responsible until it was settled, which is why Solomon speaks of clearing it away from his father's family.
2:32: "Bring his bloodshed back on his own head" is a legal idiom: the responsibility, and the penalty, fall on the killer himself rather than on anyone else.
2:34: Burial on one's own family property was normal; "out in open country" renders a word for the rough grazing land outside the towns, where Joab's estate lay.
2:35: Zadok was the other chief priest, who had supported Solomon against Adonijah. With Abiathar removed, the priesthood passes entirely to Zadok's line.
2:36: This is house arrest rather than mercy. Kept inside the capital, Shimei is cut off from his own tribe of Benjamin and from any support he might gather among the families still loyal to Saul.
2:37: The Kidron is the ravine immediately east of Jerusalem. Crossing it is the first step of the road toward Bahurim, Shimei's home territory among his own tribe of Benjamin, so the boundary Solomon draws is not arbitrary. "Your death will be your own fault" translates "your blood will be on your own head": no one else bears the legal responsibility.
2:39: The servants were slaves, legally Shimei's property, which is why he could pursue them. Gath was one of the five Philistine cities, outside Israelite control and a standing refuge for runaways and exiles.
2:42: The point of the charge is the oath. Shimei had sworn in the LORD's name, so breaking the terms was treated as an offense against God as well as a violation of the king's order, and it removed any protection he had.
2:44: In the King James, to be "privy to" something means to know about it secretly. Solomon means Shimei knows perfectly well what he did.

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