²³ So Solomon took the throne of the Lord in place of his father, David, and he succeeded in everything, and all Israel obeyed him. ²⁴ All the officials, the warriors, and the sons of King David pledged their loyalty to King Solomon. ²⁵ And the Lord exalted Solomon in the sight of all Israel, and he gave Solomon greater royal splendor than any king in Israel before him.

Solomon Establishes His Rule

¹³ One day Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, came to see Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. “Have you come with peaceful intentions?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said, “I come in peace. ¹⁴ In fact, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What is it?” she asked.

¹⁵ He replied, “As you know, the kingdom was rightfully mine; all Israel wanted me to be the next king. But the tables were turned, and the kingdom went to my brother instead; for that is the way the Lord wanted it. ¹⁶ So now I have just one favor to ask of you. Please don’t turn me down.”

“What is it?” she asked.

¹⁷ He replied, “Speak to King Solomon on my behalf, for I know he will do anything you request. Ask him to let me marry Abishag, the girl from Shunem.”

¹⁸ “All right,” Bathsheba replied. “I will speak to the king for you.”

¹⁹ So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak on Adonijah’s behalf. The king rose from his throne to meet her, and he bowed down before her. When he sat down on his throne again, the king ordered that a throne be brought for his mother, and she sat at his right hand.

²⁰ “I have one small request to make of you,” she said. “I hope you won’t turn me down.”

“What is it, my mother?” he asked. “You know I won’t refuse you.”

²¹ “Then let your brother Adonijah marry Abishag, the girl from Shunem,” she replied.

²² “How can you possibly ask me to give Abishag to Adonijah?” King Solomon demanded. “You might as well ask me to give him the kingdom! You know that he is my older brother, and that he has Abiathar the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah on his side.”

²³ Then King Solomon made a vow before the Lord: “May God strike me and even kill me if Adonijah has not sealed his fate with this request. ²⁴ The Lord has confirmed me and placed me on the throne of my father, David; he has established my dynasty as he promised. So as surely as the Lord lives, Adonijah will die this very day!” ²⁵ So King Solomon ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada to execute him, and Adonijah was put to death.

²⁶ Then the king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go back to your home in Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I will not kill you now, because you carried the Ark of the Sovereign Lord for David my father and you shared all his hardships.” ²⁷ So Solomon deposed Abiathar from his position as priest of the Lord, thereby fulfilling the prophecy the Lord had given at Shiloh concerning the descendants of Eli.

²⁸ Joab had not joined Absalom’s earlier rebellion, but he had joined Adonijah’s rebellion. So when Joab heard about Adonijah’s death, he ran to the sacred tent of the Lord and grabbed on to the horns of the altar. ²⁹ When this was reported to King Solomon, he sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada to execute him.

³⁰ Benaiah went to the sacred tent of the Lord and said to Joab, “The king orders you to come out!”

But Joab answered, “No, I will die here.”

So Benaiah returned to the king and told him what Joab had said.

³¹ “Do as he said,” the king replied. “Kill him there beside the altar and bury him. This will remove the guilt of Joab’s senseless murders from me and from my father’s family. ³² The Lord will repay him^[a] for the murders of two men who were more righteous and better than he. For my father knew nothing about the deaths of Abner son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and of Amasa son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah. ³³ May their blood be on Joab and his descendants forever, and may the Lord grant peace forever to David, his descendants, his dynasty, and his throne.”

³⁴ So Benaiah son of Jehoiada returned to the sacred tent and killed Joab, and he was buried at his home in the wilderness. ³⁵ Then the king appointed Benaiah to command the army in place of Joab, and he installed Zadok the priest to take the place of Abiathar.

³⁶ The king then sent for Shimei and told him, “Build a house here in Jerusalem and live there. But don’t step outside the city to go anywhere else. ³⁷ On the day you so much as cross the Kidron Valley, you will surely die; and your blood will be on your own head.”

³⁸ Shimei replied, “Your sentence is fair; I will do whatever my lord the king commands.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem for a long time.

Solomon Asks for Wisdom

3 Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and married one of his daughters. He brought her to live in the City of David until he could finish building his palace and the Temple of the Lord and the wall around the city.

¹⁶ (Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down. He gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she married Solomon.

² At that time the people of Israel sacrificed their offerings at local places of worship, for a temple honoring the name of the Lord had not yet been built.

³ Solomon loved the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship.

² Solomon called together all the leaders of Israel—the generals and captains of the army,^[a] the judges, and all the political and clan leaders. ³ Then he led the entire assembly to the place of worship in Gibeon, for God’s Tabernacle^[b] was located there. (This was the Tabernacle that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had made in the wilderness.)

⁴ David had already moved the Ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the tent he had prepared for it in Jerusalem. ⁵ But the bronze altar made by Bezalel son of Uri and grandson of Hur was there^[c] at Gibeon in front of the Tabernacle of the Lord. So Solomon and the people gathered in front of it to consult the Lord.^{[d] 6} There in front of the Tabernacle, Solomon went up to the bronze altar in the Lord’s presence and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings on it.

⁷ That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!”

⁶ Solomon replied, “You showed great and faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued to show this great and faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.

⁷ “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. ⁸ And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! ⁹ Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”

¹⁰ The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. ¹¹ So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies— ¹² I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! ¹³ And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life! ¹⁴ And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”

¹⁵ Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream. He returned to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, where he sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then he invited all his officials to a great banquet.

Solomon Judges Wisely

¹⁶ Some time later two prostitutes came to the king to have an argument settled. ¹⁷ “Please, my lord,” one of them began, “this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a baby while she was with me in the house. ¹⁸ Three days later this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there were only two of us in the house.

¹⁹ “But her baby died during the night when she rolled over on it. ²⁰ Then she got up in the night and took my son from beside me while I was asleep. She laid her dead child in my arms and took mine to sleep beside her. ²¹ And in the morning when I tried to nurse my son, he was dead! But when I looked more closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t my son at all.”

²² Then the other woman interrupted, “It certainly was your son, and the living child is mine.”

“No,” the first woman said, “the living child is mine, and the dead one is yours.” And so they argued back and forth before the king.

²³ Then the king said, “Let’s get the facts straight. Both of you claim the living child is yours, and each says that the dead one belongs to the other. ²⁴ All right, bring me a sword.” So a sword was brought to the king.

²⁵ Then he said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to one woman and half to the other!”

²⁶ Then the woman who was the real mother of the living child, and who loved him very much, cried out, “Oh no, my lord! Give her the child—please do not kill him!”

But the other woman said, “All right, he will be neither yours nor mine; divide him between us!”

²⁷ Then the king said, “Do not kill the child, but give him to the woman who wants him to live, for she is his mother!”

²⁸ When all Israel heard the king’s decision, the people were in awe of the king, for they saw the wisdom God had given him for rendering justice.

Solomon’s Officials and Governors

4 King Solomon now ruled over all Israel, ² and these were his high officials:

⁷ Solomon also had twelve district governors who were over all Israel. They were responsible for providing food for the king’s household. Each of them arranged provisions for one month of the year. ⁸ These are the names of the twelve governors: