Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ADONIJAH

(Heb. ʾăḏōnîyâ, ʾăḏōnîyāhû)

1. David’s fourth son, born in Hebron to his wife Haggith (2 Sam. 3:4 = 1 Chr. 3:2).

David’s choice of this name, one of the earliest Israelite couplings of ʾāḏôn, “lord,” with a theophoric element, may represent his ambition to adopt — or adapt himself to — the Canaanite royal traditions of Judea and Jerusalem, seeing himself as the legitimate heir to the royal Canaanite line in Jerusalem.

In keeping with the Canaanite dynastic tradition, Adonijah, the king’s eldest living son, on seeing his father’s enfeebled state, formed a party within the royal court to advance his claim on the throne. This consisted of Joab, commander of the army (his brother Abishai was probably dead by this time), and Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, the priest of Nob who had survived the massacre by Saul to join David. Adonijah’s aspirations were cut short by the stronger party of Solomon, which comprised Bathsheba, Zadok, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah ben Jehoiada, by this time commander of the bodyguard and the Cherethites and Pelethites, and perhaps even the “champions” (cf. 1 Kgs. 1:5-53). These, with the cooperation of the senile and impotent David, anointed Solomon in Adonijah’s stead.

Though Solomon initially spared his elder brother’s life, Adonijah’s obeisance appears to have been largely political and for the moment. His true intentions were revealed by his request to Solomon to have Abishag the Shunammite, the now departed David’s beautiful — and still virgin — wife, as his own. Solomon sagaciously recognized in this request his brother’s attempt to assume his late father’s royal virility by taking the young wife his late father had been unable to impregnate. Consequently, Solomon ordered Benaiah to kill Adonijah, along with Joab. Thus Adonijah became the last of David’s sons to die in the long and bloody struggle over their father’s throne.

D. G. Schley

2. A Levite among those who taught the Law throughout the cities of postexilic Judah (2 Chr. 17:8).

3. An “associate” of the Levites who signed the covenant with Nehemiah (Neh. 10:16[MT 17]).

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ADONIJAH

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)