Commentaria in III Regum
25. AND KING SOLOMON SENT BY THE HAND OF BANAIAS,—that is, he sent Banaias, that Adonias might be slain by his hand. It is a Hebraism. Cajetan asserts that Solomon sinned by rashness of judgment in that he condemned his brother for lèse-majesté by a single judgment, unless that was the custom. But even a single one, says Serarius, if it be certain, would suffice today, especially where the king is in danger of being deprived of the kingdom by a rival, as here. Add that Solomon here punished the first seizure of the kingdom made by Adonias, by which he had had himself anointed and crowned king. For although Solomon had pardoned that, he did so on the condition that he should henceforth be faithful to him, and keeping himself quietly at home should give no suspicion of ambition and of affecting the kingdom; and if he gave it, he would be punished not only for the suspicion but for the past seizure of the kingdom. But Adonias, asking Abisag as wife, gave Solomon just occasion to suspect that he was again aspiring to the kingdom. For why does he shamelessly and arrogantly, against the law of nature and the divine law, ask for the queen, his father’s wife, unless to occupy his father’s throne through her and become king? Wherefore he was justly and deservedly punished by Solomon. For Solomon feared him, as ambitious and restless, always about to plot new things, and to aspire to the kingdom due to him by right of primogeniture: so that while he lived he would never be secure in the kingdom. He killed him, therefore, to procure for himself security and for the kingdom quiet. See here again how unhappy David was in his sons. For Amnon defiled Thamar, Absalom killed him and rebelled against his father, Adonias aspired to the kingdom, and therefore was slain by his brother. This was the punishment and penance inflicted on David by God for the adultery and the murder of Urias, 2 Kings 12:10, when he said: “Wherefore the sword shall never depart from thy house.” Behold what a slight pleasure begot what calamities for him, and what a train and tail of misfortunes it drew after it.
26. THE KING SAID ALSO TO ABIATHAR THE PRIEST (the pontiff): GO TO ANATHOTH, TO THY OWN FIELD, FOR THOU ART INDEED WORTHY OF DEATH,—as if to say: Thou deservest to be killed, because thou didst conspire against me with Adonias, and didst anoint him king. Yet I will not kill thee, because thou wast a faithful pontiff to David my father; but only lest thou plot new things among my brethren and citizens against me. Go therefore to thy field in Anathoth, rest there and mind thy affairs, and do not henceforth meddle with mine and those of the kingdom. By this very act Solomon indirectly deposed Abiathar and deprived him of the pontificate, because the pontiff had to reside at Jerusalem, to direct the priests ministering in the temple, to preside over the Synagogue and the council of the Sanhedrin, to be the king’s counsellor, to teach the people, etc. Wherefore, Abiathar being sent away, Solomon put Sadoc in his place.
27. THAT THE WORD OF THE LORD MIGHT BE FULFILLED, WHICH HE SPOKE CONCERNING THE HOUSE OF HELI IN SILO,—1 Kings 2:30, where God threatens Heli and his posterity with the loss of life as well as of the pontificate, and adds verse 35: “And I will raise me up a faithful priest,” namely Sadoc. [Solomon, therefore, a wise man, using this occasion of Abiathar’s rebellion, by God’s inspiration fulfilled these threats against Heli, and this promise of restoring Sadoc to the pontificate, and so brought the pontificate back from the family of Ithamar and Heli, from which Abiathar was, to the original and genuine stock of Eleazar, from which Sadoc was. He did this in punishment of the sins both of Heli and of Abiathar; for the latter was guilty of a capital crime and of lèse-majesté, because he had favored Adonias against Solomon, who had been appointed king by God and by his father David: wherefore he cast him into exile, but an honorable one; for he sent him to his native land to his estates, that there he might quietly pass the life which he was pardoning him. Let no one therefore conclude from this that Emperors and Kings have a right over Pontiffs, so as to be able to appoint and depose them. For Solomon deposed Abiathar not by his own authority, but by God’s. For God had first assigned the pontificate to Aaron, and then to Eleazar as the first-born, and to his posterity. From there the pontificate had deviated to Heli, who was of Ithamar; God therefore commanded that it be brought back to the family of Eleazar, namely to Sadoc; and Solomon did this by God’s instigation and command, not as King but as Prophet, as executor of divine justice, as Bellarmine shows, book 2 On the Pontiff, chapter 29. Add that now in the new law the pontificate is far holier and loftier than it was in the old law: wherefore even if the pontiff had then been subject to the king, as Abulensis thinks, he is not so now, because the Pontiff is now the vicar of Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. See what was said at Numbers 25:21.]
28. AND THE NEWS CAME TO JOAB THAT JOAB HAD TURNED AFTER ADONIAS, AND HAD NOT TURNED AFTER SOLOMON,—so it must be read with the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint, the Roman edition and the rest: wrongly, therefore, in the Royal and some other editions is read: And the news came to Solomon. The sense is, as if to say: The news came to Joab, announcing to him that Adonias had been slain, that he who had favored Adonias and had conspired with him against Solomon might provide for himself by flight, lest he too, as a partner and sharer in the conspiracy of Adonias, be slain by Solomon.
AFTER SOLOMON,—so it must be read with the Septuagint, the Roman edition and the rest. But the Hebrew and Chaldee now have, after Absalom, which Vatablus explains thus, as if to say: Joab, although at the beginning he was faithful to David, and did not turn after Absalom, yet afterwards was unfaithful, because he conspired with Adonias against Solomon, who had been appointed king by David. Others think that Solomon is called Absalom, because Absalom in Hebrew is the same as father of peace; while Solomon is the same as peaceful, and therefore father and arbiter of peace. So Ochozias by metathesis is called Joachaz.
It is more probable that the modern Hebrew and Chaldee texts are corrupt, and that St. Jerome read in the Hebrew after Solomon instead of after Absalom. For so the Septuagint read, and the antithesis requires it. So Sanchez.
30. I WILL NOT COME OUT.—Joab hoped that the holiness of the place would protect him, and that Solomon’s religion would not allow him to be slain there, and therefore he would not go out from it. But his expectation deceived him: for on account of the atrocity of his crimes he was slain in that very place.
31. DO AS HE HATH SAID, AND KILL HIM,—in the tabernacle, from which Joab will not come out, but wishes to be slain and die in it. For a voluntary murderer, such as Joab was, who treacherously killed Abner and Amasa, did not enjoy the impunity and immunity of a sacred place, according to Exodus 21:14: “If a man kill his neighbor on purpose, and by lying in wait for him, thou shalt take him away from my altar, that he may die.” Much more is this ordained by law, not divine but human, in the New Testament, in which Christians ought to be holier than the Jews, and further removed from voluntary homicide. See the chapter, among others, On the Immunity of Churches, and Francis Suarez, treatise On the Immunity of the Church, chapters 9 and 10. Furthermore, no law had then been laid down that the tabernacle was polluted by human slaughter, as it has now been laid down that a Christian Church in which slaughter is committed is held to be polluted, and must be blessed again. Nor, says Salianus, could that altar, which was accustomed to be continually stained with blood, be profaned by the shedding of blood: the whole violation of the place consisted in violence, which directly annulled the privilege of the place; for it is certain that places of asylum are so called because it was not lawful to drag the guilty from their bosom, as it were. And therefore Solomon rightly believed that it came to the same whether Joab was killed at the altar or dragged from it and slain elsewhere; for in either way the place was violated, unless a dispensation of the law had intervened, which was not required here on account of the enormity of the crimes, as I said.
44. THE LORD HATH RETURNED THY WICKEDNESS UPON THY OWN HEAD.—that the curse with which thou didst curse my father David should fall back upon thy guilty head. For he so ordered all things that thou, accepting the penalty of death proposed to thee by me if thou shouldst cross the Jordan, wouldst be condemned by thy own sentence, and by crossing the Jordan make thyself guilty of death. Semei was therefore guilty of death on a twofold title. First, because he had transgressed the Jordan against the command of Solomon, given under penalty of death and accepted by himself. So Theodoret, Josephus, Serarius and others. Second, because he had cursed David, and this above all Solomon intended here to punish by his father’s command; but yet because David his father had given him pardon for all his life, Solomon did not wish simply to alter what had been given by his father, but to limit it by an honorable condition, which because Semei violated, Solomon therefore revoked his father’s pardon, and recalled Semei’s guilt and punishment.