'King' in the Bible

Now King David was old and far on in years; and though they put covers over him, his body was cold.

So his servants said to him, Let search be made for a young virgin for my lord the king, to take care of him and be waiting on him; and you may take her in your arms, and so my lord the king will be warm.

So after searching through all the land of Israel for a fair young girl, they saw Abishag the Shunammite, and took her to the king.

Now she was very beautiful; and she took care of the king, waiting on him at all times; but the king had no connection with her.

Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, lifting himself up in pride, said, I will become king; and he made ready his carriages of war and his horsemen, with fifty runners to go before him.

Then Nathan said to Bath-sheba, the mother of Solomon, Has it not come to your ears that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has made himself king without the knowledge of David our lord?

Come now, go to King David and say to him, Did you not, O my lord, take an oath to me, your servant, saying, Truly Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom? why then is Adonijah acting as king?

And while you are still talking there with the king, see, I will come in after you and say that your story is true.

Then Bath-sheba went into the king's room; now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was waiting on him.

And Bath-sheba went down on her face on the earth before the king giving him honour. And he said, What is your desire?

And she said to him, My lord, you took an oath by the Lord your God and gave your word to your servant, saying, Truly, Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom.

And now, see, Adonijah has made himself king without my lord's knowledge;

And has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab, the captain of the army; but he has not sent for Solomon your servant.

And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, waiting for you to say who is to take the place of my lord the king after him.

For as things are, it will come about, when my lord the king is sleeping with his fathers, that I and Solomon my son will be made outlaws.

And while she was still talking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

And they said to the king, Here is Nathan the prophet. And when he came in before the king, he went down on his face on the earth.

And Nathan said, O my lord king, have you said, Adonijah is to be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom?

Because today he has gone down and has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the king's sons to come to him, with the captains of the army and Abiathar the priest; and they are feasting before him and crying, Long life to King Adonijah!

Has this thing been done by my lord the king, without giving word to your servants who was to be placed on my lord the king's seat after him?

Then King David in answer said, Send for Bath-sheba to come to me. And she came in and took her place before the king.

And the king took an oath, and said, By the living Lord, who has been my saviour from all my troubles,

As I took an oath to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Certainly Solomon your son will become king after me, seated on my seat in my place; so will I do this day.

Then Bath-sheba went down on her face on the earth before the king giving him honour, and said, May my lord King David go on living for ever.

And King David said, Send for Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king.

And the king said to them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and put Solomon my son on my beast, yes, mine, and take him down to Gihon;

And there let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet put the holy oil on him to make him king over Israel; and sounding the horn say, Long life to King Solomon!

Then come up after him and he will come in and take his place on the seat of my kingdom; for he is to be king in my place, and I have given orders that he is to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.

And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, answering the king, said, So be it: and may the Lord, the God of my lord the king, say so.

As the Lord has been with my lord the king, even so may he be with Solomon and make the seat of his authority greater than that of my lord King David.

So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, went down and put Solomon on King David's beast and took him to Gihon.

And Zadok the priest took the vessel of oil out of the Tent, and put the holy oil on Solomon. And when the horn was sounded, all the people said, Long life to King Solomon!

And Jonathan, answering, said to Adonijah, Not so, but our lord King David has made Solomon king:

And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet put the holy oil on him and made him king in Gihon; and they came back from there with joy, and the town was all worked up. This is the noise which has come to your ears.

And the king's servants came to our lord King David, blessing him and saying, May God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and the seat of his authority greater than your seat; and the king was bent low in worship on his bed.

Then the king said, May the God of Israel be praised, who has given one of my seed to be king in my place this day and has let my eyes see it.

And they gave Solomon word of it, saying, See, Adonijah goes in such fear of King Solomon, that he has put his hands on the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon first give me his oath that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.

So King Solomon sent, and they took him down from the altar. And he came and gave honour to King Solomon; and Solomon said to him, Go to your house.

So that the Lord may give effect to what he said of me, If your children give attention to their ways, living uprightly before me with all their heart and their soul, you will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

David was king over Israel for forty years: for seven years he was king in Hebron and for thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

And he said, You saw how the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had the idea that I would be their king; but now the kingdom is turned about, and has become my brother's, for it was given to him by the Lord.

Then he said, Will you go to Solomon the king (for he will not say, No, to you) and put before him my request that he will give me Abishag the Shunammite for a wife?

And Bath-sheba said, Good! I will make your request to the king.

So Bath-sheba went to King Solomon to have talk with him on Adonijah's account. And the king got up to come to her, and went down low to the earth before her; then he took his place on the king's seat and had a seat made ready for the king's mother and she took her place at his right hand.

Then she said, I have one small request to make to you; do not say, No, to me. And the king said, Say on, my mother, for I will not say, No, to you.

Then King Solomon made answer and said to his mother, Why are you requesting me to give Abishag the Shunammite to Adonijah? Take the kingdom for him in addition, for he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, are on his side.

Then King Solomon took an oath by the Lord, saying, May God's punishment be on me if Adonijah does not give payment for these words with his life.

And King Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and he made an attack on him and put him to death.

And to Abiathar the priest the king said, Go to Anathoth, to your fields; for death would be your right reward; but I will not put you to death now, because you took up the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and you were with him in all his troubles.

And they said to King Solomon, Joab has gone in flight to the Tent of the Lord and is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, make an attack on him.

And Benaiah came to the Tent of the Lord and said to him, The king says, Come out. And he said, No; but let death come to me here. And Benaiah went back to the king and gave him word of the answer which Joab had given.

And the king said, Do as he has said and make an attack on him there, and put his body into the earth; so that you may take away from me and from my family the blood of one put to death by Joab without cause.

And the king put Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, in his place over the army; and Zadok the priest he put in the place of Abiathar.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Make a house for yourself in Jerusalem and keep there and go to no other place.

And Shimei said to the king, Very well! as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do. And for a long time Shimei went on living in Jerusalem.

But after three years, two of the servants of Shimei went in flight to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. And word was given to Shimei that his servants had gone to Gath.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Did I not make you take an oath by the Lord, protesting to you and saying, Be certain that on the day when you go out from here, wherever you go, death will overtake you? and you said to me, Very well!

And the king said to Shimei, You have knowledge of all the evil which you did to David my father; and now the Lord has sent back your evil on yourself.

But a blessing will be on King Solomon, and the kingdom of David will keep its place before the Lord for ever.

So the king gave orders to Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada; and he went out and, falling on him, put him to death. And Solomon's authority over the kingdom was complete.

Solomon became the son-in-law of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter as his wife, keeping her in the town of David, till the house he was building for himself, and the house of the Lord and the wall round Jerusalem, were complete.

And the king went to Gibeon to make an offering there, because that was the chief high place: it was Solomon's way to make a thousand burned offerings on that altar.

And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David my father; and I am only a young boy, with no knowledge of how to go out or come in.

And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal.

Then two loose women of the town came and took their places before the king;

And the other woman said, No; but the living child is my son and the dead one yours. But the first said, No; the dead child is your son and the living one mine. So they kept on talking before the king.

Then the king said, One says, The living child is my son, and yours is the dead: and the other says, Not so; but your son is the dead one and mine is the living.

Then he said, Get me a sword. So they went and put a sword before the king.

And the king said, Let the living child be cut in two and one half given to one woman and one to the other.

Then the king made answer and said, Give her the child, and do not put it to death; she is the mother of it.

And news of this decision which the king had made went through all Israel; and they had fear of the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to give decisions.

Now Solomon was king over all Israel.

And Solomon put twelve overseers over all Israel, to be responsible for the stores needed for the king and those of his house; every man was responsible for one month in the year.

Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.

Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David.

And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name.

And these words of Solomon made Hiram glad, and he said, Now may the Lord be praised who has given to David a wise son to be king over this great people.

Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number;

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year that Solomon was king of Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, the building of the Lord's house was started.

Then King Solomon sent and got Hiram from Tyre.

He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; he was full of wisdom and knowledge and an expert worker in brass. He came to King Solomon and did all his work for him.

And Hiram made the pots and spades and the basins. So Hiram came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of the Lord:

And the pots and the spades and the basins; all the vessels which Hiram made for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

So all the work King Solomon had done in the house of the Lord was complete. Then Solomon took the holy things which David his father had given, the silver and the gold and all the vessels, and put them in the store-houses of the house of the Lord.

And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, the seventh month.

And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there, were with him before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered.

Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

From the day when I took my people Israel out of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; but I made selection of David to be king over my people Israel.

Now the king, and all Israel with him, were making offerings before the Lord.

And Solomon gave to the Lord for peace-offerings, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel kept the feast of the opening of the Lord's house.

The same day the king made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering there the burned offering and the meal offering and the fat of the peace-offerings; for there was not room on the brass altar of the Lord for the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat of the peace-offerings.

And on the eighth day he sent the people away, and, blessing the king, they went to their tents full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David his servant and to Israel his people.

Then I will make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

(Hiram, king of Tyre, had given Solomon cedar-trees and cypress-trees and gold, as much as he had need of,) King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee.

And Hiram sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ...

And King Solomon made a sea-force of ships in Ezion-geber, by Eloth, on the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which the king did not make clear to her.

And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.