Solomon’s Coronation and Coregency: Identifying Three Stages in the Succession

by Todd Bolen¹

Introduction

A reconstruction of Solomon’s accession to the throne is complicated by the two distinct accounts in Kings and Chronicles. In recent decades, evangelical scholars have proposed reconstructions that entail four or more distinct coronation events and assume a two-year coregency between David and Solomon. A reevaluation of the relevant biblical texts demonstrates that there is no basis for a two-year coregency, and further study identifies three stages in Solomon’s accession to the throne, corresponding to the three stages in Saul’s and David’s accessions.

Four texts in Chronicles and one text in Kings relate to Solomon’s accession:

1.      When Adonijah attempts to make himself king, David sends Solomon to the Gihon Spring to be anointed king (1 Kgs 1:32–40).

2.      David tells Solomon that the Lord revealed to him that he would have a son named Solomon who would build the temple during his reign (1 Chr 22:6–10).

3.      When David is old, he makes his son Solomon king over Israel (1 Chr 23:1).

4.      David gathers the tribes together and tells them that the Lord chose Solomon as king. David charges Solomon to be obedient and build the temple (1 Chr 28:1–29:22a).

5.      The people acknowledge Solomon as king a second time, anointing him as king (1 Chr 29:22b–25).

Recent Proposals

This subject has received little attention in scholarly literature. Those who do not consider Chronicles to be historically trustworthy do not attempt to harmonize its account with that of Kings. Conservative scholars often do not engage with the issue. In more recent years, the proposal of Eugene Merrill seems to have been adopted without the careful analysis it deserves.

Merrill’s History

Eugene Merrill’s excellent Kingdom of Priests has had a dominating influence among evangelicals in the field of ancient Israel studies for more than thirty years now.² He begins his reconstruction of Solomon’s accession by identifying the statement in 1 Chronicles 23:1 as a distinct event that established Solomon as coregent. Then “about two years later,” as Merrill dates it, the events of 1 Kings 1:32–40 and 1 Chronicles 29:22b occurred in quick succession, at which time Solomon was again acknowledged as king. He claims that these two accounts exhibit a “clear linkage” with respect to 1 Chronicles 29:22b’s mention of “a second time,” the unique reference to Solomon’s anointing in both accounts, and the presence of Zadok.³

It is not clear where Merrill puts his proposed two-year coregency for Solomon in the narrative of 1 Chronicles. On the one hand, he states that Adonijah’s plot and Solomon’s coronation occurred about two years after Solomon’s appointment as coregent. But he also puts a two-year interval between 1 Chronicles 28:1–29:22a and 29:22b.⁴

Merrill also does not distinguish between the events of 1 Kings 1:32–40 and those of 1 Chronicles 29:22b, effectively blurring the two together.⁵ This allows him to maintain 1 Chronicles 29:22b as the “second time” in relation to 1 Chronicles 23:1, without regard for the anointing at the Gihon Spring in 1 Kings 1:32–40.

Merrill’s Commentary

In A Commentary on 1 & 2 Chronicles, published in 2015, Merrill maintains the two-year coregency, but he places it between 1 Kings 1:32–40 and 1 Chronicles 23:1, apparently equating the latter with the national assembly in 1 Chronicles 29.⁶ He acknowledges but does not accept the objection that David seems to be on his deathbed in 1 Kings 1. He does not seem to recognize the improbable scenario of Joab and Abiathar, both supporters of Adonijah, retaining their positions for two years while Solomon was coregent.

Kaiser’s History

In A History of Israel, Walter Kaiser repeats Merrill’s assertion of a two-year coregency, citing 1 Kings 1:38–40 as the occasion for Solomon’s installation as coregent.⁷ Kaiser does not cite Merrill in this regard, nor does he attempt to explain the sequence of succession events or to defend a duration of two years.

Young’s Chronology

In order to allow sufficient time for David to prepare temple building materials after Solomon’s anointing, Rodger Young writes that “we might guess a two-year overlap of the reigns of David and Solomon.”⁸ He notes that Solomon was anointed twice as coregent, but he cites three texts (1 Kgs 1:39; 1 Chr 23:1; 29:22) without clarifying how they are related to each other. He acknowledges that the length of the coregency is nowhere stated.

Steinmann’s Chronology

In From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology, Andrew Steinmann writes that Solomon was made coregent in 1 Chronicles 23:1 and that the temple preparations described in 1 Chronicles 23–29 required approximately two years, giving Solomon a two-year coregency.⁹ Following Young, he adjusts his chronology to account for the coregency, dating Solomon’s accession to 971 and David’s death to approximately 969, thus bringing down the dates of Saul’s and David’s reigns by two years each (1049–1009 and 1009–969, respectively).

Kalimi’s Interpretation

Though not an evangelical scholar, Isaac Kalimi’s recent interpretation bears consideration, especially given the lack of discussion of this subject more broadly. Kalimi rejects the idea of two coronations of Solomon, taking the Kings and Chronicles accounts as independent descriptions of a single event, for he cannot explain why, if there were two anointings, either Kings or Chronicles would leave the second one out.¹⁰ He rejects the idea that 1 Chronicles 23:1 was a separate coronation and regards “a second time” in 1 Chronicles 29:22 to be a later gloss intended to harmonize the anointing with 1 Chronicles 23:1. He does not comment on the length of the coregency.

Others

Leon Wood and David O’Brien speak of a “brief” coregency, but they do not attempt to reconstruct the events or harmonize the accounts.¹¹ The issue is not discussed in the histories of John Bright; J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes; Bill T. Arnold and Richard S. Hess; Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman; or John Merrill and Hershel Shanks.¹²

Problems with Recent Proposals

My first concern is that the question of Solomon’s coregency has not been dealt with carefully. Much of Israel’s ancient history has been lost to time, but the details in Kings and Chronicles are significant enough to warrant an attempt at reconstructing the historical sequence.

Second, Merrill’s view has served as the basis for the histories of others, but it is at places unclear or inconsistent. The most consistent feature is the assertion that the coregency lasted for two years, but it is not clear where these two years belong in the sequence. The duration of two years is never explained or defended, and it seems that different explanations would be required if the coregency was before the 1 Kings 1 event or after.

Third, the lack of clarity results in up to five different coronation events prior to David’s death. The suggestion that there were so many would strike some observers as far-fetched. It also makes it difficult to account for certain features of the narrative, such as Adonijah’s attempt to make himself king, if Solomon had already been publicly recognized as coregent.

Agreement with Recent Proposals

It is worth stating explicitly that I believe a coregency existed between the time that Solomon was anointed at the Gihon Spring and David’s death. My rejection of a two-year time frame should not be construed as denying that Solomon served as coregent. I do not believe that the biblical text provides enough information to determine the length of that period, though it seems to have been quite short, possibly as little as a month. But it is important to distinguish between speculation and fact, and the two-year figure has been repeated enough now that readers may not realize that it lacks any basis in the text.

I also agree that there was a series of stages in Solomon’s coronation. The questions here are how to harmonize Kings and Chronicles and what constitutes distinct events in the succession.

Finally, there can be no question that temple preparations took a significant amount of time. I believe it started early in David’s reign when the Lord told David that he would raise up his son to build the temple (2 Sam 7:12–13). It was underway when David was dedicating plunder from his military operations to the Lord (2 Sam 8:11–12). And it continued as David cut timber, quarried stone, wrote psalms, and appointed musicians, gatekeepers, and treasury officers (1 Chr 22:2–4, 14–16; 23:2–5; 25:1; 28:11–19). The process probably was underway for a couple of decades, though activity may have been most intense in the final decade. If one insists that temple preparation began only after Solomon’s coronation, it seems that a two-year coregency is much too short for all that was involved.¹³

Three Important Questions of Interpretation

1. Does 1 Chronicles 23:1–2 Describe a Distinct Coronation Event?

Now David became old and full of days, and he made his son Solomon king over Israel. And he gathered together all the leaders of Israel with the priests and the Levites (1 Chr 23:1–2).¹⁴

These verses have been understood to refer to the initial installation of Solomon as coregent, in contrast with the later mention in 1 Chronicles 29:22 that “they made Solomon the son of David king a second time.” This could be the basis for a two-year coregency, if the temple preparations described between these two references are deemed to have taken approximately two years.¹⁵

A significant problem with this view is that it does not account for Solomon’s anointing in 1 Kings 1, where Nathan and Bathsheba panic because the succession had not yet been made public. Solomon had not been publicly installed as coregent, and so the solution was to anoint him king at the spring for all to see. Adonijah sought to capitalize on the nation’s ignorance of David’s chosen heir and on his father’s passiveness in order to make his coregency a fait accompli (1 Kgs 1:20).

First Chronicles 23:1, however, does not describe a distinct event prior to the hasty coronation of Solomon in 1 Kings 1. Instead, it functions as a literary heading to introduce a new section that describes the process by which David installed Solomon on the throne. In order to make his son Solomon officially his successor, David needed to gather the nation together, including its leaders, priests, and Levites. But these individuals need first to be defined, and so 1 Chronicles 23–27 does just that, with 1 Chronicles 28:1 continuing to recount how David gathered together all of these officials in a national ceremony in which he gave his final words and commissioned his son as king.¹⁶ In other words, 1 Chronicles 23:1 begins a unit that culminates in Solomon’s coronation in chapter 29, giving at length the names of many who assembled to witness the event.¹⁷ The coronation mentioned in 1 Chronicles 23:1 is only accomplished in 1 Chronicles 29:22.¹⁸ This understanding of 1 Chronicles 23:1 is the standard interpretation, recognized as such by Merrill, who writes that “virtually all scholars agree that chapters 23–26 form a unified block of material designed to provide a smooth transition from David to his heir-apparent Solomon.”¹⁹

2. What is the Previous Reference to the Chronicler’s “a Second Time”?

“So they ate and drank that day before Yahweh with great gladness. And they made Solomon the son of David king a second time, and they anointed him as ruler for Yahweh and Zadok as priest” (1 Chr 29:22).

Eliminating 1 Chronicles 23:1 as a distinct event resolves the difficulty with identifying the reference to “a second time” in 1 Chronicles 29:22. Since the 1 Kings 1 coronation must have occurred prior to the national assembly in 1 Chronicles 29:22, it makes a ready candidate for the first anointing of Solomon. Indeed, it was not ideal for a king to be anointed twice, but the hasty trip to the Gihon Spring was necessary in order to preempt Adonijah’s attempt to make himself king.²⁰ Thus the author of Chronicles observes the reality that this was in fact the second occasion when Solomon was anointed.

Taking “a second time” as referring to the 1 Kings 1 anointing assumes that the writer of Chronicles was familiar with the account of Kings and could write as if his readers were also familiar with it. But this is not disputed, as all scholars date the writing of Chronicles later than the writing of Kings. There are also many instances where Chronicles assumes the reader is aware of the storyline from Kings.²¹ In this particular context, the following may be observed: (1) only Zadok is anointed priest in 1 Chronicles 29:22, which makes sense given Abiathar’s allegiance to Adonijah in 1 Kings 1:7 and which anticipates 1 Kings 2:35; (2) the explicit mention of David’s sons pledging their submission to Solomon (1 Chr 29:24) also assumes that the reader was familiar with their previous support of Adonijah in 1 Kings 1:9.²²

3. Is There a Time Interval in 1 Chronicles 29:22?

וַיֹּאכְל֨וּ וַיִּשְׁתּ֜וּ לִפְנֵ֧י יְהוָ֛ה בַּיּ֥וֹם הַה֖וּא בְּשִׂמְחָ֣ה גְדוֹלָ֑ה וַיַּמְלִ֤יכוּ שֵׁנִית֙ לִשְׁלֹמֹ֣ה בֶן־דָּוִ֔יד וַיִּמְשְׁח֧וּ לַיהוָ֛ה לְנָגִ֥יד וּלְצָד֖וֹק לְכֹהֵֽן׃

There is no reason to posit an interval of two years, or any amount of time, in the middle of 1 Chronicles 29:22. The narrative flows quite well from celebration to anointing, and the wayyiqtōl sequence gives no indication of a break or an interval. There is a clear time marker in the previous verse (“the next day”), and it would be strange for the author to note that but not indicate a much more extended passing of time in the following verse. But more than that, the whole unit of 1 Chronicles 23–29 is intended to build up to the climax of Solomon’s anointing and being placed on the throne. After declaring the anointing of Solomon, the Chronicler writes that “Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king…. And Yahweh highly exalted Solomon in the sight of all Israel” (1 Chr 29:23–25). Verse 22b reads better as the conclusion of this extended sequence than it does as a distinct event removed in time from the celebration and sacrifices.

A Reconstruction of Solomon’s Succession

I believe that an accurate harmonization of the events of 1 Kings 1 and 1 Chronicles 22–29 results in identifying three stages in Solomon’s succession. Curiously enough, these three stages correspond to the three stages in Saul’s and David’s accessions.

Stage #1: Private Selection

In the first stage, Solomon was privately identified as the next king by the Lord and by David. This occurred when the Lord spoke to David through Nathan in giving him the Davidic Covenant (1 Chr 22:6–10; cf. 2 Sam 7:5–16; 1 Chr 17:4–14). David revealed this declaration to Bathsheba, and presumably to other officials in his administration, but no public announcement was made (1 Kgs 1:17; 1 Chr 22:17–19).²³ This initial stage corresponds with Samuel’s private anointings of Saul and David (1 Sam 9:25–10:9; 16:6–13).

Stage #2: Hasty Ceremony

As David’s oldest surviving son, Adonijah believed that he had the right to be the next king. Since David had not publicly announced Solomon’s succession, Adonijah saw an opening he could exploit. He assumed that if he made himself king, his aging father would not interfere. David had overlooked the grievous sins of his sons Amnon and Absalom, and he had not challenged Adonijah with some of his questionable activities. Now unable even to keep himself warm in bed, David seemed unlikely to act (1 Kgs 1:1–6).

Adonijah’s plot was supported by key leaders in David’s administration, including the general Joab, the priest Abiathar, army commanders, other officials of Judah, along with Adonijah’s own brothers (1 Kgs 1:7–9, 25). Since David had not held a public coronation ceremony for Solomon and had not made him coregent, these leaders could support Adonijah without directly opposing David. But Adonijah had to act before David held a national assembly to install Solomon as his successor.

Nathan responded quickly to the news of Adonijah’s coronation ceremony, persuading Bathsheba to alert David. Bathsheba presented the situation quite directly: “As for you now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him” (1 Kgs 1:20). This confirms the point made above that David had not already made Solomon coregent, for if he had, the nation would not have been uncertain about David’s chosen heir. Adonijah was attempting to make himself David’s coregent, a position that would not have been open had Solomon been installed.

David responded by directing the prophet Nathan, the priest Zadok, and the military leader Benaiah to take Solomon on the king’s mule to the Gihon Spring. There the prophet and priest anointed Solomon, declared him to be king, and brought him to sit on David’s throne. David’s declaration about Solomon was unambiguous: “I have commanded him to be ruler over Israel and Judah” (1 Kgs 1:35). Solomon, now a coregent, had full authority to rule over the nation. As was the custom in the ancient world, David remained king alongside his son until his death.²⁴

Adonijah’s celebration was cut short when the conspirators realized their effort had failed with David’s public installation of Solomon on the throne. Adonijah fled to the horns of the altar, but Solomon forgave him and gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty (1 Kgs 1:43–53).

But this coronation, effective though it was in establishing Solomon as coregent, did not satisfy the needs of the royal office, for the ceremony was hasty and only a small portion of the nation was present. This ceremony, legitimate but lacking national participation, is similar in ways to Saul’s coronation where some spoke against him and to David’s coronation by the tribe of Judah (1 Sam 10:17–27; 2 Sam 2:4).²⁵

Stage #3: Public Celebration

While the hasty anointing at the Gihon Spring was sufficient to make Solomon Israel’s legitimate king, David rightly desired a more formal assembly where the entire nation could gather and properly celebrate his designated successor. This was the “second time” when Solomon was anointed (1 Chr 29:22). This national acclamation can be compared with those of Saul and David (1 Sam 11:14–15; 2 Sam 5:1–3).

How much time transpired between the two coronations of Solomon cannot be known, but it likely was a short time, given David’s desire to honor the new king before all the people. It may have taken a month to send messengers out throughout the land to call all twelve tribes to Jerusalem, but not necessarily much more (cf. 2 Chr 30:1–2). A short timeframe makes good sense given the possibility that the feeble David could die at any time as well as the punishment given to Joab and Abiathar after David’s death.

This public ceremony resulted in the acclamation of Solomon as king by the entire nation. A second event was appropriate because the first did not include much of the nation, and it also allowed Solomon’s brothers and other officials who had sided with Adonijah to repent and demonstrate their loyalty to David’s chosen son. David may well have viewed this celebration as parallel to his coronation by all twelve tribes of Israel (2 Sam 5:1–3; cf. 1 Sam 11:12–15). The event was appropriately glorious, with thousands of sacrifices offered to the Lord, great feasting in the Lord’s presence, and a magnificent prayer by David in which he acknowledged that the kingdom was never really his or Solomon’s, but the Lord’s (1 Chr 29:10–22).

Stages in the Accession of Saul, David, and Solomon

	Saul	David	Solomon
Private Designation	Samuel anointed Saul in private (1 Sam 9:25–10:8)	Samuel anointed David in private (1 Sam 16:1–13)	The Lord told David in private that he had chosen Solomon (1 Chr 22:6–10; cf. 1 Kgs 1:13)
Initial Public Acceptance	Saul acclaimed by the people, though not all supported him (1 Sam 10:17–27)	David anointed king by the tribe of Judah (2 Sam 2:4)	Solomon hastily anointed at Gihon Spring (1 Kgs 1:32–40)
National Confirmation	All the people confirmed Saul as king and celebrated (1 Sam 11:14–15)	All twelve tribes anointed David king over Israel (2 Sam 5:1–3)	The nation acknowledged Solomon as king and celebrated (1 Chr 29:1–25)

Conclusion

This reconstruction harmonizes the narratives of Kings and Chronicles, with each narrative account detailing the private selection of Solomon and a public anointing. Put together, the sequence of three designations of Solomon follows the pattern already established with David and Solomon. The harmonization of the hasty coronation in 1 Kings 1 with the later public ceremony in 1 Chronicles 29 is supported by the Chronicler’s reference to “a second time.” This reconstruction dispenses with the unsupported theory that Solomon was coregent for two years, suggesting that David’s son ruled alongside him for a shorter, but indeterminate, amount of time. After I developed this proposed harmony, I discovered that this same approach was already articulated by the first-century historian Josephus (Ant. 7.345–82), as well as the medieval Jewish commentators David Kimchi and Pseudo-Rashi. ²⁶ This is a better solution than those proposed in recent years.

1. Dr. Bolen is Professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s University in Santa Clarita, California.[↩]
2. Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008). The first edition was published in 1987. The second edition is cited here for convenience, but the relevant passages are unchanged from the first edition.[↩]
3. Ibid., 265, n. 41.[↩]
4. Ibid., 265. Merrill cites Williamson in defense of this time interval in this verse, but I cannot find anything in Williamson about a time interval or a need for it. Williamson’s conclusions are largely compatible with those presented in this paper, including reading 1 Chr 23:1 as a heading and relating the reference of “a second time” to the 1 Kgs 1 event. Cf. H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 186–87.[↩]
5. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 298.[↩]
6. Eugene H. Merrill, A Commentary on 1 & 2 Chronicles, Kregel Exegetical Library (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2015), 273.[↩]
7. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and Paul D. Wegner, A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age through the Jewish Wars, rev. ed. (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2017), 385. This reference to 1 Kings was added in the second edition.[↩]
8. Rodger C. Young, “Tables of Reign Lengths from the Hebrew Court Recorders,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005): 227. Young arrived at his figure independently of Merrill and Kaiser (personal communication).[↩]
9. Andrew E. Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 2011), 112–13, 121–22.[↩]
10. Isaac Kalimi, “The Rise of Solomon in the Ancient Israelite Historiography,” in The Figure of Solomon in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Tradition: King, Sage, and Architect, ed. Jozef Verheyden (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 27–28.[↩]
11. Leon J. Wood and David O’Brien, A Survey of Israel’s History (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 237–38.[↩]
12. John Bright, A History of Israel, 4th ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000); J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006); Bill T. Arnold and Richard S. Hess, Ancient Israel’s History: An Introduction to Issues and Sources (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014); Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2015); John Merrill and Hershel Shanks, eds., Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2021). There is no discussion in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, ed. Bill T. Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2005).[↩]
13. Those who follow Merrill’s chronology in placing the Davidic covenant, with its promise of a temple-building son, in the last five years of David’s life would not be able to extend David’s preparations beyond these five years. For arguments against that chronological proposal, see Todd Bolen, “The Date of the Davidic Covenant,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 65 (2022): 61–78.[↩]
14. Unless otherwise noted, all English Scripture citations are drawn from the Legacy Standard Bible (lsb), 2021.[↩]
15. As noted above, this is the reasoning given by Young and Steinmann.[↩]
16. The wayyiqtōl in 1 Chr 23:2 expresses logical succession, signifying that David made his son Solomon the king by gathering the leaders, priests, and Levites together for a national coronation ceremony. This ceremony is only described in 1 Chr 28:1, after the personnel are identified in the intervening chapters.[↩]
17. First Chronicles 23:2 refers to the gathering of all the leaders of Israel (שָׂרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל), priests, and Levites. The priests and Levites are identified in great detail in chs. 23–26 and the leaders in ch. 27. First Chronicles 28:1 initiates the narrative of the national gathering by David’s summons to all the leaders of Israel (שָׂרֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) without specifically mentioning the presence of priests and Levites. Their presence, however, is indicated by the content of David’s speech with its focus on temple instructions (28:11–19; 29:1–8), the massive sacrificial service which would have necessitated their involvement (29:21), and the anointing of Zadok as priest (29:22).[↩]
18. As Williamson writes, “23:1 is intended as a general heading to the rest of the Chronicler’s account of David’s reign (cf. 29:22ff.); there is no suggestion that Solomon was made king at precisely this point, before the ordering of the Levites, etc.” (1 and 2 Chronicles, 159).[↩]
19. Merrill, A Commentary on 1 & 2 Chronicles, 272. In a footnote, Merrill quotes Simon J. De Vries who points out that 23:1 “serves as ‘the title to the whole section,’ that is to chs. 23–29” (1 and 2 Chronicles, Forms of the Old Testament Literature [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 187). John W. Wright shows the coherence of 1 Chronicles 23–29, specifically with how officials chosen in chapters 23–27 are in place for the ceremony in 28–29 (“The Legacy of David in Chronicles: The Narrative Function of 1 Chronicles 23–27,” Journal of Biblical Literature 110 [1991]: 229–42). As Kalimi observes, the literary approach of general to particular is common in Chronicles (“Rise of Solomon,” 28).[↩]
20. The fact that Saul, David, and Solomon were each confirmed or anointed twice reflects not the ideal but the challenges to their legitimacy as king.[↩]
21. Sara Japhet, I and II Chronicles: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 16–18.[↩]
22. Cf. Martin J. Selman, 1 Chronicles: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 272–73.[↩]
23. This knowledge is reflected in a number of comments made in connection with Adonijah’s attempt to make himself king, including his exclusion of Solomon—alone among David’s sons—from the ceremony, the threat to the lives of Solomon and Bathsheba, and Adonijah’s statement that the Lord had made Solomon king (1 Kgs 1:10, 21; 2:15).[↩]
24. Edward Ball, “Co-regency of David and Solomon,” Vetus Testamentum 27 (1977): 268–79.[↩]
25. For a somewhat different reading of Saul’s succession, see V. Philips Long, “How Did Saul Become King? Literary Reading and Historical Reconstruction,” in Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context, ed. A. R. Millard, James K. Hoffmeier, and David W. Baker (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 271–84; Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 276–85. Long recognizes the three stages given here but sees the public coronation in 1 Sam 10:17–27 as an unplanned result of Saul’s failure to obey Samuel’s command in 1 Sam 10:7 to attack the Philistines. Samuel’s intention, according to Long, was that Saul would proceed directly from victory over the Philistines to national confirmation at Gilgal, but Saul derailed that plan with his immediate disobedience. Whether that is the case or not, the point here is that the pattern of designation, initial public acceptance, and national confirmation is evident in Saul’s accession as well, even if it did not follow Samuel’s original design. Furthermore, the argument here is not that this three-stage succession was a desirable paradigm to be followed but simply that the same pattern can be observed in each case. The second stage is somewhat negative in each instance, reflecting either opposition to the Lord’s anointed or failure by the Lord’s anointed or both.[↩]
26. Kalimi, “Rise of Solomon,” 27.[↩]