1 Kings 1:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore his servants His physicians; said, Let there be sought for the king a young virgin Whose natural heat is fresh and wholesome, and not impaired with bearing or breeding children. The same counsel is given by Galen for the cure of some cold and dry distempers. Let her stand before the king That is, minister unto him, or wait upon him in his sickness, as occasion requires. And let her lie in his bosom As his wife; for that she was so, may appear by divers arguments. 1st, Otherwise this had been a wicked course; which, therefore, neither his servants would have dared to prescribe, nor would David have used, especially being now in a dying condition. 2d, It appears from this phrase of lying in his bosom, which is everywhere in Scripture mentioned as the privilege of a wife. 3d, 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.