Thread by @GbengaWemimo

The king became too frail to move about
They even had to get a young maiden to keep him warm at night
And he was only 70 years old
A man who was once so full of life was fast ebbing away
The smart move was for him to choose his successor
They all waited with bated breathe to see

the king's choice
One thing was certain, his successor would be one of his sons
The crown prince had been tragically slaughtered a few years ago
The one who killed the crown prince had also been killed after he usurped the throne but failed to win the battle against the king's

mighty men
The next in line was Adonijah
He was the obvious choice at that moment in time
The only objection against his ascension would be his ancestry
Hews would rather have a King with a pure bloodline
Adonijah's mother was from Geshur
Gashur was a tiny kingdom that paid

tribute to Israel in exchange for her protection
It was one of the nations with a valid treaty with David
An argument can be made either way
To be or not to be
But then there are no better options
Nobody wanted anything to do with Solomon
He was the son of the woman who tempted

the king into committing an unforgivable error
Uriah was a great man in David's army, he was loyal, dedicated, committed and absolutely dependable
His loyalty was his undoing because he would have easily lived if he did as the king told him when he was summoned home from the war

for the purpose of sleeping with his defiled wife
He disobeyed the king and refused to sleep with his wife out of loyalty to the King and the King's army
Even when the King piled him with alcohol in the hope that he would go home and put a nail in the coffin of the arrangement

made by the king and the unfaithful wife to cover their crime
He had the presence of mind not to share the woman's bed
Such a fine specimen of a man and such a waste
Bathsheba's role in the death of her husband was too grievous to forgive
Nobody respected her as a queen
Nobody

would consider her son for the throne
The precedent such would set stank to the high heavens
Joab and Abiathar made these permutations
The times were uncertain and nobody knew when the king's demise would be announced
One thing was certain, the king was in his last days and they

needed to secure their future
The influence of Joab was like an iron grip all over Israel
Was he not the man who conquered and delivered Jerusalem to David?
The role of Abiathar as David's personal priest of many years is also pivotal
If the two of them backed a candidate
Any

candidate, they were sure the people would accept their decision as valid
The Israelites had proved to be quite fickle and swayable when it comes to the issue of who ruled them
Just a few years before then, they fell for the antics of Absalom
A prince with the blood of his brothe

on his neck, who even spent several years in exile
All he did was show his fine face at the King's palace gates, act like he really cared about the people and put on a show with some chariots and riders for the people's entertainment
Before long, he had won the people's heart

He won it so deeply that the people were willing to look the other way when he chased his father off the throne and slept with his father's concubines in public!
Wow
Never in the history of Israel had one committed so many abominable acts and yet was so easily forgiven
Absalom

was like the devil
His charm and appeal to people's vanity and sensibilities was an aberration
Everybody found him irresistible
Even the King, his father, pleaded with the soldiers not to kill him after all the offenses he committed
But Joab was not fooled
He knew the snake had

to be killed in order to preserve the king and the integrity of the throne
He did the needful and restored the King to his throne
As a man, Joab considered himself to have done so much for King David and Israel as a whole
He always looked out for the interest of the King from day

one
He handed the throne to David by killing Abner, Saul's general at the very beginning
Israel owed him quite a lot, and so did King David
While Abner and Joab plotted
Nathan and Bathsheba also had a meeting
They knew Adonijah was the obvious choice of the kingmakers but when

Solomon was born, God gave Nathan a message for David
The message said "This baby is my beloved, I am naming him Jedidiah"
Nathan considered this a prophecy
Bathsheba considered this God's will
All they needed was the king's consent
Bathsheba especially knew once David died, she

would be stripped of dignity
David's power was what had kept the wolves at bay
Adonijah might decide to send Solomon on exile or to kill him because he would always be a threat to the throne
Either way, if Solomon didn't become the king, she would lose out and so would her son

She approached the king directly and presented her case to him
Nathan also went to the King and supported this claim
Just then a fast rider approached the palace with a terrible news
Joab and Abiathar had decided to seize the initiative
by crowning Adonijah king
It was a now or

never moment
It is either the King was still the one to make the choice of his successor or the choice had been taken away from him
Joab and Abiathar had gambled everything in that one move
If the king made a counter move they were dead but the information they were given stated

clearly that the king had dementia and could barely remember his own name
This information was fed to them by a reliable source from the palace and they were sure a sick king wouldn't challenge their decision
The gamble failed
As soon as they made their move, the King played his

hand
It was checkmate
The King ordered his royal mules, entourage, and cabinet to take Solomon through the city and proclaim him as king
The king also order that the crown be brought to him as he would crown Solomon king himself before the people of Israel
Joab, Abiathar and

Adonijah suddenly found themselves on the other side of the law
Their crime was treason
It is punishable by death
Joab suddenly realized that the goodwill he had always enjoyed in Israel was dependent on the King's will
He had no stock whatsoever with the people without David

Abiathar realized that a King could be crowned without his blessings even though he was David's priest for many years
Adonijah realized that the spies he placed in the palace had been compromised somehow
Everything depended on the information he received and the betrayal had cost

him the throne if not his life
The people deserted them as soon as they realized the King had made his choice
Nobody wanted to be labeled an enemy to the crown like Sheba son of Bicri a few years before who lost his head for encouraging the tribes to desert David
They heard the

sound of the Shofar that announced the ascension of Solomon as king and shuddered
It was as they feared
Joab was killed for this and other previous crimes
Abiathar was spared but retired
As for Adonijah, he could have lived had he not underestimated Solomon's wisdom

-GSW-