SCENES IN THE CLOSING CAREER OF A GREAT KING
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
The opening word, “now,” is and, the cop. ו indicating the unbroken connexion of this book with a prior record. Originally the books of “Kings” were a continuation of those of “Samuel,” and constituted one whole narrative, styled respectively the First, Second, Third and Fourth Books of Kings; and the four books bear a common heading in the LXX. and Vulgate.—
1 Kings 1:1. David was old—In his seventieth year (compare 1 Kings 2:11 with 2 Samuel 5:4; 2 Samuel 5:6).
1 Kings 1:2. Get heat—An established medical fact that the aged and sickly may thus derive vital warmth from the young and healthy. Josephus calls these “servants” who advised this course physicians (Ant. vii. 14, § 3).
1 Kings 1:3. Shunemite—Shunem, five miles south of Tabor, on the table-land of Esdraelon.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 1:1-4
THE WINTER OF LIFE
I. Overtakes men in the highest rank. “Now King David was old and stricken in years.” Even the monarch is not exempt from the paralysing influence of life’s winter. David had just escaped from the terrible plague which had smitten fatally 70,000 of his subjects, only to waste away more gradually under the remorseless ravages of time, from which there is no escape but in death. If men escape one peril it is only to meet another. The holiest soul dwells not in an impregnable fort. The aged king had projected a great work—the building of the temple—and made vast preparations for it. He was not permitted to finish it. As the frosts of winter arrest the growth and development of the most magnificent tree, so the progress of life’s bleak winter interrupts the work of the most gifted.
II. Chills the vital sources of the naturally robust. “And they covered him with clothes, and he gat no heat.” As a youth, David was noted for beauty and physical strength—“was ruddy and of a fair countenance.” He scarcely knew the limit of his power. He hesitated not to attack and slay a lion and a bear—was the victor of Goliath—the terror of the Philistines—the hero of a hundred fights. But, as the shadows of the grave creep into the midst of the gayest scenes of our mortal life, so, in the mid-career of those exploits which raised him into fame, there were admonitory blasts of the coming of that winter which must ere long freeze the vital energies at their source. Exposure, hardship, suffering and sorrow, wore down a constitution naturally robust; and now, in his 0th year—a period when many are still vigorous—David was greatly enfeebled. He was also suffering from a wasting disease to which frequent allusion is made in the Psalms. Coverings and garments can only preserve and accumulate the heat actually existing in the body, but cannot supply that which is gone. An affecting picture of the pitiable weakness of a once powerful and victorious monarch! Let not the mighty man glory in his might.
III. Is but temporarily alleviated by the best considered human devices. The cherishing of Abishag was—
1. Advised by the court physicians. An expedient not unusual in similar cases, when internal cordials failed, and with the limited skill of the faculty in the use of warmth-creating potions.
2. Was innocent. Suggested for no other than purely medical reasons. In those days, when polygamy was not forbidden by the Jewish law, and when perverted views as to the relation of the sexes were so prevalent, Abishag was recognized as David’s wife. She ministered to him also as a nurse. Sophocles lauded old age as a deliverance from the tyranny of the passions, as an escape from some furious and savage master.
3. Suspended only for a brief season the inevitable progress of decay. Medical skill is no more efficacious for the monarch than for the humblest subject. David died within the year. A moment comes in the winter of life when the warm pulse is stilled, and the once stalwart frame is locked in the icy embrace of death.