'King' in the Bible

Now King David had become old, {advanced in years}, and they covered him with garments, but he was not warm.

His servants said to him, "Let them search for a young virgin for my lord the king, and let her stand before the king. Let her be of use for him, and let her lie in your lap that my lord the king may be warm."

So they sought a beautiful young woman in all the territory of Israel, and they found Abishag the Shunnamite and brought her to the king.

Now the young woman was very beautiful; she was of use for the king, and she served him, but the king did not {have sexual relations with her}.

Now Adonijah the son of Haggith was exalting himself, saying, "I will be king," so he prepared for himself a chariot and horsemen and fifty men running before him.

And Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fattened animals near the stone of Zoheleth, which is beside En Rogel. He invited all of his brothers, the sons of the king, and all the men of Judah, the servants of the king.

Then Nathan said to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, "Have you not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith has become king, but our lord David does not know?

Come, go to King David and say to him, 'Have you not, my lord the king, sworn to your servant, "Surely Solomon your son shall become king after me. And he will sit on my throne"? But why is Adonijah king?'

While you are still there speaking with the king, I will enter after you, and {I will confirm your words}."

So Bathsheba went to the king in the private room. Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunnamite was attending the king.

Bathsheba knelt and bowed down before the king, and the king asked, "{What do you want}?"

She said to him, "My lord, you swore by Yahweh your God to your servant, 'Solomon your son surely shall become king after me, and he will sit upon my throne!'

But now, look! Adonijah has become king! And now, my lord the king, you do not know!

He has sacrificed oxen and sheep and fattened animals {in abundance}, and he has invited all the sons of the king, Abiathar the priest, Joab the commander of the army, but Solomon your servant he did not invite.

But as for you, my lord the king, the eyes of all of Israel are on you, to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

It shall be that when my lord the king sleeps with his ancestors, I and my son Solomon will be [considered as] sinners."

While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet came [in].

They told the king, "Nathan the prophet is here." He came into the presence of the king and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.

Nathan said, "My lord the king, have you said, 'Adonijah shall be king after me and he shall sit on my throne'?

"For he went down today and sacrificed oxen, sheep, and fattened animals {in abundance}. He invited all the sons of the king, the commanders of the army, and Abiathar the priest, and look, they are eating and drinking before him. They have also said, "Long live King Adonijah!

If it was from my lord the king that this thing has happened, [then all is well,] but if not, you must let your servants know who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him."

Then King David answered and said, "Summon Bathsheba for me." Then she came before the king and stood in his presence.

Then the king swore and said, "{As Yahweh lives}, who has saved my life from all trouble,

surely as I swore to you by Yahweh the God of Israel, saying, 'Solomon your son shall surely be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place,' surely I shall do so this [very] day."

Then Bathsheba knelt with her face to the ground and did obeisance to the king, and she said, "May my lord, King David, live forever."

Then King David said, "Summon Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada," and they came before the king.

The king said to them, "Take with you all the servants of your lord, and let them make Solomon my son ride on my mule, and bring him down to Gihon.

Let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there as king over Israel. Blow on the trumpet and say, 'Long live King Solomon!'

Then you shall go up after him, and let him come and sit on my throne; he shall be king in my place. I have appointed him to be leader over Israel and Judah."

Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, "Amen! So may Yahweh, the God of my lord the king, confirm it!

As Yahweh was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David."

Then Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites, and the Pelethites went down, and they let Solomon ride on the mule of King David, and they brought him to Gihon.

Then Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tent, and he anointed Solomon. They blew on the trumpet, and all the people said, "Long live King Solomon!"

Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, "But our lord King David has made Solomon king!

He sent Zadok the priest with the king, and Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites, and the Pelethites; they made him ride on the king's mule.

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed him as king at Gihon, and they have gone up from there rejoicing. The city has gone wild; this [is] the sound which you heard.

The servants of the king also came to congratulate our lord King David, saying, 'Your God has made the name of Solomon better than your name and his throne greater than your throne!' So the king worshiped on the bed.

What is more, the king said, 'May Yahweh the God of Israel be blessed, who has given this day one sitting on my throne, and my eyes are seeing [it]!'"

Solomon was told, "Look, Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon, and he has grasped the horns of the altar, saying, 'Let King Solomon swear to me {first} that he will surely not kill his servant with the sword!'"

Then King Solomon sent and brought him down from upon the altar. He came and did obeisance to King Solomon. Solomon said to him, "Go to your house."

He said, "You know that the kingship was mine and that all Israel had set their face toward me as king, but the kingship turned around and became my brother's, for it was from Yahweh for him [to have it].

He said, "Please speak to King Solomon, for he will not refuse you, so that he will give to me Abishag the Shunnamite as wife."

Then Bathsheba said, "Very well, I will speak to the king concerning you."

Bathsheba came to King Solomon to speak to him concerning Adonijah, and the king got up to meet her, bowed down to her, and then sat on his throne. Then he set up a throne for the king's mother, and she sat on his right.

She said, "I have one small request I am asking from you. Do {not refuse me}." The king said to her, "Ask, my mother, for I will {not refuse you}."

King Solomon answered and said to his mother, "Why are you asking Abishag the Shunnamite for Adonijah? Ask for him also the kingdom, for he is my brother, older than I; and [ask] for him also Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah."

Then King Solomon swore by Yahweh, saying, "Thus may God do to me and thus may he add, if Adonijah hasn't spoken this thing at the expense of his life.

King Solomon sent through the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, so he struck him, and he died.

To Abiathar the priest, the king said, "Go to Anathoth, to your field, for {you deserve to die}, but on this day I will not kill you, for you carried the ark of the Lord Yahweh before David my father, and because you endured hardship in all the hardship that my father endured."

It was told to King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tent of Yahweh and was beside the altar. So Solomon sent [word] to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go and fall upon him."

So Benaiah went to the tent of Yahweh, and he said to him, "Thus says the king: 'Come out.'" And he said, "No, for I want to die here." So Benaiah returned a word to the king, saying, "Thus Joab spoke, and thus he answered me."

Then the king said to him, "Do as he spoke; fall upon him and bury him, and so you shall remove the innocent blood that Joab shed from on me and from on the house of my father.

Then the king appointed Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his place over the army, and the king appointed Zadok the priest in place of Abiathar.

Then the king sent and summoned Shimei, and he said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but you must not go out {anywhere whatsoever} from there.

Shimei said to the king, "The word is good that my lord the king has spoken to me; thus will your servant do." So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

It happened that at the end of three years, two of Shimei's slaves fled to Achish, son of Maacah, the king of Gath. They told Shimei, saying, "Your slaves [are] here in Gath."

the king sent and summoned Shimei, and he said to him, "Did I not make you swear by Yahweh? I warned you, saying, 'On the day you go out and you go {anywhere whatsoever}, know for certain that {you will surely die}.' And you said to me, 'The word is good; I accept.'

Then the king said to Shimei, "You know all the evil which your heart knows, what you did to David my father. Now Yahweh will return the evil on your head,

but King Solomon will be blessed and the throne of David will be established before Yahweh forever."

Then the king commanded Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he went out and fell upon him, and he died. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Solomon intermarried with Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and he took the daughter of Pharaoh and brought her to the city of David until he finished building his house, the house of Yahweh, and the walls of Jerusalem all around.

So the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice, for the great high place [was] there. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

So then, O Yahweh, you are my God. You have made your servant king in place of David my father [though] I [am] a young boy. I do not know going out or coming in.

Then two prostitutes came to the king, and they stood before him.

Then the other woman said, "No, for my son [is] the living one, and your son [is] the dead one." The other kept on saying, "No, for your son [is] the dead one, and my son [is] the living one," and so they argued in front of the king.

Then the king said, "This one [is] saying, 'This [is] my son, the living one, but your son [is] the dead one,' and the other one keeps saying, 'But no! Your son [is] the dead one, and my son [is] living!'"

So the king said, "Bring me a sword," and they brought the sword before the king.

Then the king said, "Divide the living child into two, and give half to the one and half to the other."

Then the woman whose son [was] the living one spoke to the king because her compassion was aroused for her son, and she said, "Please, my lord, give her the living child, but certainly do not kill him!" The other one [was] saying, "As for me, so for you! Divide [him]!"

Then the king answered and said, "Give the living child to her, and do not kill him; she [is] his mother."

When all of Israel heard the judgment that the king had rendered, they {stood in awe} of the king, because they realized that the wisdom of God was in him to execute justice.

King Solomon was king over all Israel.

Azariah the son of Nathan [was] over the governors, and Zabud the son of Nathan was a priest, an advisor to the king.

Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, and they sustained the king and his palace, {each one was to sustain for each month of the year}.

Geber the son of Uri [was] in the land of Gilead, the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, and of Og, the king of Bashan; one governor which [was] over the land.

These governors sustained King Solomon and all who came near to the table of King Solomon, each [in] his month; they did not omit anything.

Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him as king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend for David.

Then King Solomon conscripted a forced labor from all Israel, and the forced labor [numbered] thirty thousand men.

When the king commanded, they quarried great stones [and] precious stones to lay [the] foundation of the house [with] hewn stones.

Now the house that King Solomon built for Yahweh [was] sixty cubits [in] its length and twenty cubits [in] its width and thirty cubits [in] its height.

King Solomon invited and received Hiram from Tyre.

He [was] the son of a widow woman from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, an artisan of bronze. He was filled with wisdom and with ability and with the knowledge to do all the work with the bronze. And he came to King Solomon, and he did all of his work.

Hiram also made the basins and the shovels and the bowls for drinking wine; and so Hiram finished doing all of the work {that he was to do} for King Solomon in the house of Yahweh:

and the pots, the shovels, and the bowls for drinking wine. All the vessels of the tent which Hiram had made for King Solomon [for] the house of Yahweh [were] polished bronze.

The king had cast them in the plain of the Jordan with the casting mold [set in] the ground between Succoth and Zarethan.

[When] all of the work which king Solomon did on the house of Yahweh was completed, Solomon brought out the holy objects of his father David, the silver and the gold and the vessels, [which] he put in the treasury rooms of the house of Yahweh.

At that time, Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the leaders of the {families} of the {Israelites} before King Solomon, in order to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh from the city of David, that is, Zion.

All the men of Israel assembled before King Solomon at the festival in the month of Ethnaim, that is, the seventh month.

King Solomon and all the assembly of Israel who were assembling with him in the presence of the ark [were] sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted nor numbered because of abundance.

[Then] the king turned his face around, and he blessed all of the assembly of Israel. (Now all the assembly of Israel was standing).

Then the king and all of Israel with him offered a sacrifice in the presence of Yahweh.

Solomon sacrificed the fellowship offerings which he offered to Yahweh: twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep; and the king and all of the {Israelites} dedicated the house of Yahweh.

On that day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard before the house of Yahweh because he offered there the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the fellowship offerings because the bronze altar that was in the presence of Yahweh was too small to hold the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings.

On the eighth day, he sent the people away, and they blessed the king, and they went to their tents rejoicing and {in good spirits} because of all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people.

It happened at the end of twenty years [in] which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the house of the king,

[since] Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with wood of cedar and with wood of cypresses and with the gold according to all his desire, then King Solomon gave twenty cities in the land of the Galilee to Hiram.

Then Hiram sent to the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.

This [is] the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the house of Yahweh and his house, the Millo, the walls of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire. He had also killed the Canaanites who were living in the city and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, the wife of Solomon.

King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-Geber which [is] near Elath on the shore of the {Red Sea} in the land of Edom.