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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 1:1 - 1:1
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When king David had become so old that they could no longer warm him by covering him with clothes, his servants advised him to increase his vitality by lying with a young and robust virgin, and selected the beautiful Abishag of Shunem to perform this service. This circumstance, which is a trivial one in itself, is only mentioned on account of what follows - first, because it shows that David had become too weak from age, and too destitute of energy, to be able to carry on the government any longer; and, secondly, because Adonijah the pretender afterwards forfeited his life through asking for Abishag in marriage. - The opening of our book, וְהַמֶּלֶךְ (and the King), may be explained from the fact that the account which follows has been taken from a writing containing the earlier history of David, and that the author of these books retained the Vav cop. which he found there, for the purpose of showing at the outset that his work was a continuation of the books of Samuel. בַּיָּמִים בָּא זָקֵן as in Jos 13:1; Jos 23:1; Gen 24:1, etc. “They covered him with clothes, and he did not get warm.” It follows from this that the king was bedridden, or at least that when lying down he could no longer be kept warm with bed-clothes. בְּגָדִים does not mean clothes to wear here, but large cloths, which were used as bed-clothes, as in 1Sa 19:13 and Num 4:6. יִחַם is used impersonally, and derived from חָמַם, cf. Ewald, §193, b., and 138, b. As David was then in his seventieth year, this decrepitude was not the natural result of extreme old age, but the consequence of a sickly constitution, arising out of the hardships which he had endured in his agitated and restless life. The proposal of his servants, to restore the vital warmth which he had lost by bringing a virgin to lie with him, is recommended as an experiment by Galen (Method. medic. viii. 7). And it has been an acknowledged fact with physicians of all ages, that departing vitality may be preserved and strengthened by communicating the vital warmth of strong and youthful persons (compare Trusen, Sitten Gebräuche u. Krankheiten der Hebräer, p. 257ff.). The singular suffix in לַאדֹנִי is to be explained on the ground that one person spoke. בְתוּלָה נַעֲרָה, a maid who is a virgin. לִפְנֵי עָמַד, to stand before a person as servant = to serve (cf. Deu 1:38 with Exo 24:13). סֹכֶנֶת, an attendant or nurse, from סָכַן = שָׁכַן, to live with a person, then to be helpful or useful to him. With the words “that she may lie in thy bosom,” the passage passes, as is frequently the case, from the third person to a direct address.