Lives of Scripture

As King David grew old and could not keep warm, his servants searched all Israel for a beautiful young woman to attend him, and found Abishag the Shunammite. She became his attendant and nurse, but Scripture states plainly that David "did not know her" intimately (1 Kings 1:1-4). She next appears after David's death, when Adonijah -- the son who had earlier tried to seize the throne before Solomon was confirmed as king -- came to Bathsheba and asked her to request Abishag as his wife from Solomon (2:13-18). Bathsheba brought the request to Solomon, who reacted with alarm rather than indifference: asking for a former royal attendant carried the weight of a political claim to the throne itself, since taking a king's household could symbolize succession. Solomon responded, "Why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him also the kingdom!" and had Adonijah executed that same day (2:22-25). Abishag herself never speaks or acts in either account; she is entirely passive, first as a caregiver assigned to warm an old king's failing body, then as an unwitting pawn in a deadly succession dispute she had no part in starting. Her story illustrates how vulnerable a woman with no power of her own could be, caught between the ambitions of powerful men in David's court.