‘King David mourned for his dead son, Amnon, and also for the fugitive Absalom, although guilty of fratricide (2 Samuel 13:39)’ (http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/absalom.htm) and ‘Eventually, David permitted Absalom’s return to Jerusalem’ (ibid). However, Absalom took this opportunity ‘not merely to succeed his father as king, but to replace his father while he was still reigning’ (ibid). Cunningly, Absalom ‘managed to gain the support of a large portion of the people… then moved to Hebron, the previous capital city of Judah, and declared himself king – thereby triggering a civil war between himself and his father (2 Samuel 15:1-12)’ (ibid).
However Absalom was so successful at the beginning of the civil war that ‘David found it necessary to flee from Jerusalem to Mahanaim, across the Jordan (ibid), consequently it was settled in a battle where Absalom ‘lost 20,000 of his troops’ (ibid) and met his own death, soon after he ‘got his head caught in the branches of an oak tree… while (he was) making a hasty retreat riding a mule’ (ibid).
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| Absalom, caught in the tree |
Nonetheless, Absalom’s death did not pave the way smoothly for Solomon’s succession. When King David was seventy years old, on his deathbed, he ‘confirmed to his wife Bathsheba that Solomon, her son, would be his heir to the throne’ (http://rinahshal.tripod.com/id161.html). At that time, it was Adonijah, David’s fourth son, who ‘considered himself next in line to the throne’ (ibid), due to the facts that ‘David’s first and third sons were already dead and his second son never showed any interest in the throne’ (ibid). On top of that, actually Adonijah was much older than Solomon as well.
Full text is available at: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/succession-from-king-david-to-king-solomon/
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