Dear Friends,

As you looked at the notes on I Kings yesterday you may have had questions about Solomon’s dealings with Shimei. Today’s devotional will help answer them. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• 1 Kings 2:36-46

  1 Kings 2:36-46     English Standard Version (ESV)
  36 Then the king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there to any place whatever. 37 For on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall die. Your blood shall be on your own head.” 38 And Shimei said to the king, “What you say is good; as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

  39 But it happened at the end of three years that two of Shimei’s servants ran away to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. And when it was told Shimei, “Behold, your servants are in Gath,” 40 Shimei arose and saddled a donkey and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants. Shimei went and brought his servants from Gath. 41 And when Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and returned, 42 the king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the Lord and solemnly warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever, you shall die’? And you said to me, ‘What you say is good; I will obey.’ 43 Why then have you not kept your oath to the Lord and the commandment with which I commanded you?” 44 The king also said to Shimei, “You know in your own heart all the harm that you did to David my father. So the Lord will bring back your harm on your own head. 45 But King Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the Lord forever.” 46 Then the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck him down, and he died.

  So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

I Kings 2:36-46

“The fourth candidate of Solomon’s campaign to put down his opposition was Shimei, a Benjamite of the house of Saul and son of Gera…. Cursing David, he had thrown stones at him when David was fleeing from Absalom his son. In spite of the grievous consequences of cursing God’s anointed, David refused to let his cousin Abishai slay Shimei, and when David returned in victory, Shimei repented and David forgave him (2 Sam. 16:5-14; 19:16-23)….
“By putting him under a limited house arrest with the condition that he remain in Jerusalem, Solomon wisely allowed Shimei a reprieve from execution…. The reprieve, however, did not work. Shimei broke the agreement, and Solomon had him killed. In so doing, Solomon not only obeyed his dying father’s last wish, but he diminished the likelihood of another Benjamite uprising like the one that threatened his father’s rule (2 Samuel 20). The brook of Kidron, which Solomon named as the limit beyond which Shimei could not cross, was the boundary between the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. Solomon was therefore restricting Shimei’s access to his tribal kinsmen and thereby reducing the possibility of future trouble.”

[Russell Dilday, “1, 2 Kings,” Mastering the Old Testament IX, (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1987), p. 62]