350 THE KING'S MIRROR 



ask; and I surely intend that you shall have what you 

 have come to ask for. But it surely behooves you to 

 keep in mind that you should ask only for what I may 

 freely grant." Then said Bathsheba the queen to the 

 king: " I have come to ask you to give your brother 

 Adonijah Abishag to wife." 



Then King Solomon replied in great wrath: " What 

 is at the bottom of this request that Abishag be given 

 to Adonijah ? If you prefer that he should have the 

 kingship rather than I, then ask the kingdom for him; 

 for you know that my brother Adonijah is older than I 

 and once assumed the royal title, being chosen by the 

 chief lords before my father had appointed me to be 

 ruler in obedience to the will of God. Joab the most 

 powerful of the lords and captains and Abiathar the 

 bishop have evidently continued plotting with him even 

 to this day. Abishag is of the noblest kinship in the city 

 and the whole realm; furthermore, she is honored by all 

 as the first queen because of the care that she gave my 

 father in his old age. If she is given to Adonijah to be 

 his wife, the people will regard him as most worthy to 

 sit in David's seat, since he is thought worthy to lie in 

 the bed and in the arms in which David himself lay. 

 Now when Adonijah had committed treason against his 

 father, I offered to share the responsibility for his sin 

 before God because of our kinship. But now he has re- 

 peated and trebled the treason against me, his brother, 

 which he first committed against his father. Therefore 

 I swear by the God Who has placed me on David's 

 throne that Adonijah shall suffer for his guilt, as shall 

 every one of the others who are with him in this traitor- 



