1:11-31 Observe Nathan's address to Bathsheba. Let me give thee counsel how to save thy own life, and the life of thy son. Such as this is the counsel Christ's ministers give us in his name, to give all diligence, not only that no man take our crown, Re 3:11, but that we save our lives, even the lives of our souls. David made a solemn declaration of his firm cleaving to his former resolution, that Solomon should be his successor. Even the recollection of the distresses from which the Lord redeemed him, increased his comfort, inspired his hopes, and animated him to his duty, under the decays of nature and the approach of death.

Verse 21. - Otherwise [there is no corresponding word in the Hebrews] it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep [strictly, "lie down:" see on 1 Kings 2:10] with his fathers [this phrase, so common in the books of Kings and Chronicles, only occurs "once in the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 31:16) and once in the historical books before Kings" (Rawlinson). It was evidently the product of an age when the nation was settled, and men had their family sepulchres] that I and my son Solomon shall be counted [Hebrews be] offenders [Hebrews as marg., sinners. The primary meaning of חָטָא is "to miss the mark." Like ἁμαρτάνειν, it came to be used of all erring and transgression. Bathsheba and Solomon would be obnoxious to Adonijah, as representing a rival cause; possibly also as guilty of high treason (Clericus, Bahr, al.)

Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers,.... That is, shall die, and be buried in the sepulchre of his ancestors, where he shall lie till he awakes in the morning of the resurrection:

that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders; or "sinners" (g); not as if she would be reckoned an adulteress, and her son as illegitimate, as some think, and so be branded and treated as such; but as being traitors, making pretensions to the throne, she on the behalf of her son, and he for himself, when he had no right to it, being the younger son, and not declared successor by his father.

(g) "peccatores", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

21. I and my son … shall be counted offenders—that is, slain, according to the barbarous usage of the East towards all who are rivals to the throne.

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