31 Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth, and paid homage to the king, and said, a“Let my lord King David live forever!”
32 And King David said, “Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada.” So they came before the king.
33 The king also said to them, a“Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own bmule, and take him down to cGihon.
34 There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet aanoint him king over Israel; and bblow the horn, and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’
35 Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place. For I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah.”
36 Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, a“Amen! May the Lord God of my lord the king say so too.
37aAs the Lord has been with my lord the king, even so may He be with Solomon, and bmake his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.”
38 So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, aBenaiah the son of Jehoiada, the bCherethites, and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and took him to Gihon.
39 Then Zadok the priest took a horn of aoil from the tabernacle and banointed Solomon. And they blew the horn, cand all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!”
40 And all the people went up after him; and the people played the flutes and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth seemedto split with their sound.
41 Now Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the horn, he said, “Why is the city in such a noisy uproar?”
Mules and horses seem to have been first employed by the Israelites in the reign of David, and the use of the former was at first confined to great personages II Samuel 13:29; II Samuel 18:9. The rabbis tell us that it was death to ride on the king' s mule without his permission; and thus it would be the more evident to all that the proceedings with respect to Solomon had David' s sanction.
Gihon - Probably the ancient name of the valley called afterward the Tyropoeum, which ran from the present Damascus Gate, by Siloam, into the Kedron vale, having the temple hill, or true Zion, on the left, and on the right the modern Zion or ancient city of the Jebusites. The upper "source" of the "waters of Gihon," which Hezekiah stopped (see the margin reference), was probably in the neighborhood of the Damascus Gate.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing 1 Kings 1:33:
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