Proclaimer Blog
The curious case of Abishag
Truth be told, some by-path meadows are easily avoided. Others are just too tempting, like a cool lake on a hot day. Splash! In you go. I’ve heard of preachers who feel that they have to explore every such cul-de-sac in great detail, but I think that’s missing the point of preaching.
It is not the mission of the sermon to explain every detail in the text. That’s the part of preparation. It is the job of the preacher to understand why things are there and why they’re written the way the they are, and then to let that knowledge shape the sermon. It’s not the same as simply explaining everything (in fact, the preacher who does has generally been more lazy, even though he may convince himself he is being more thorough).
Which brings me to the curious case of Abishag, David’s hot water bottle in 1 Kings 1.1-4. What are we to do with her? I’ve read sermons and commentaries which spend pages (in one case, the entire sermon) making this into a treatise on sexual purity. It goes something like this – look what a godly king David is, even when you put a hot chick in his bed he remains undefiled.
That’s a lot of nonsense in terms of both what verses 1-4 are saying and also what they’re in the passage for. Why do we need to know about this young woman and her hot body (a common medical approach to coldness in old age, by the way). Well, think about it for a moment. Why does the author tell us that they sought a “beautiful young virgin”? Why that detail? It’s to make a point. True, David does not have sexual relations with her (v4), but the sense is surely this: he couldn’t. It’s not just that he wouldn’t.
David is an impotent king in every sense and what is happening in his bed is only a picture of what is happening in the kingdom. He does not even know that the entire royal household (bar one or two) have disappeared off to have an afternoon of mutiny. Some king! Some father (v6)! Some lover! Here then is a crisis moment for the kingdom. Everything is at stake because the great king has grown old, cold and powerless.
The curious case of Abishag is nothing to do with sexual purity and everything to do with the danger the kingdom is now in. Will the promises of God fail? I think you probably know the answer.