“So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.”
King James Version (KJV)
1:1 Old - Being in the end of his seventieth year. No heat - Whichis not strange in a person who had been exercised with so many hardships inwar, and with such tormenting cares, and fears, and sorrows, for his own sins(as divers of his Psalms witness) and for the sins and miseries of hischildren and people. Besides, this might be from the nature of his bodilydistemper.
1:2 Servants - His physicians. Virgin - Whose natural heat is freshand wholesome, and not impaired with bearing or breeding of children.The same counsel doth Galen give for the cure of some cold and drydistempers. Stand - That is, minister unto him, or wait upon him, in hissickness, as occasion requires. Lie in his bosom - As his wife: for thatshe was so, may appear by divers arguments. First, otherwise this had beena wicked course; which therefore neither his servants durst have prescribed,nor would David have used, especially being now in a dying condition.Secondly, it appears from this phrase of lying in his bosom, which iseverywhere in scripture mentioned as the privilege of a wife. Thirdly,this made Adonijah's crime in desiring her to wife, so heinous inSolomon's account, because he saw, that by marrying the king's wife hedesigned to revive his pretence to the kingdom.
1:4 Knew her not - Which is mentioned to note the continuance andprogress of the king's malady.
1:5 Then - Upon notice of the desperateness of the king's disease, andthe approach of his death. Exalted - Entertained high thoughts anddesigns. I will - As the right of the kingdom is mine, ver.#6|, so Iwill now take possession of it. Prepared - As Absalom had done uponthe like occasion, #2Sam 15:1|.