“David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years” (2 Sam. 5:4, ESV). The Book of Kings begins with David of old: “Now King David was old and advanced in years” (1 Kgs. 1:1a, ESV). The story begins with the degenerated David and implies that someone will rise in power sooner or later. The servants found the old David a beautiful young woman, Abishag the Shunammite, to keep him warm. Of course, it was more than keeping him “warm.”
By bringing a beautiful virgin to be his nurse, serving him and sleeping with him, they hope to infuse David with energy, both royal and sexual. Sexual potency and royal power are seen as linked: if the king is sexually impotent, the country and culture will become spiritually slack and listless. Abishag is thus reduced to a sexual function with political ramifications.[1]
The servants hoped to regenerate the degenerated David through this virgin. The text mentions Abishag’s beauty twice (vv. 3, 4). “She was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not” (1:4). The NLT makes it more explicit: “But the king had no sexual relations with her.” Due to her beauty, David might want it, but he couldn’t. He might even lose his appetite. No matter what, David was dysfunctional in a lot of ways. The virgin brought out the weakest side of the king. What a contrast between a young virgin and an old king.
Immediately, “Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king.’” (1:5a) Adonijah was David’s fourth son born in Hebron (2 Sam. 3:2-5). The eldest son, Amnon, was murdered by the third son, Absalom. Absalom was killed by Joab, the general commander. The second son, Kileab, was missing or dead. (The text doesn’t say.) As the eldest surviving son, Adonijah seized the moment to rise in power. Even in David’s old age, he couldn’t stay away from being betrayed and hurt. Those who know you the most hurt you the most. I believe David understood and lived with it throughout his life.
When David was out of control, Adonijah wanted to be in control. We don’t see any family allegiance in David’s family. What we only see is power struggle within it. From a rising king (age 30) to a dying king (age 70), David spent forty years to build a kingdom. But did he forfeit his family? How did he live as a father in these forty years? How did he interpret family? Did his family reflect some aspects of his relationship with God? As John Goldingay insightfully comments:
Saul and David might have lived happy and honorable lives as farmer and shepherd if they had not been made king. Saul is wise enough to try to hide from the summons to leadership, though he does so only half-heartedly. It is difficult to determine whether he or David pays the bigger moral and religious price for being king. In each case, the second half of their story is one of religious and moral collapse, with a terrible price paid in family relationships.[2]
[1] Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthly Spirituality for Everyday Christians (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p. 219. Peterson partially agrees with this interpretation of the text. He refuses to only see Abishag as sex object or political tool. Rather, he prefers to view her as “a witness to the sanctity of death, a sacred presence to David in his dying.” (p. 219) I really don’t think so.
[2] John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 550.
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