ther went presently to
her son, to speak to him about what she had promised, upon Adonijah's
supplication to her. And when her son came forward to meet her, and
embraced her, and when he had brought her into the house where his royal
throne was set, he sat thereon, and bid them set another throne on the
right hand for his mother. When Bathsheba was set down, she said, "O my
son, grant me one request that I desire of thee, and do not any thing
to me that is disagreeable or ungrateful, which thou wilt do if thou
deniest me." And when Solomon bid her to lay her commands upon him,
because it was agreeable to his duty to grant her every thing she should
ask, and complained that she did not at first begin her discourse with
a firm expectation of obtaining what she desired, but had some suspicion
of a denial, she entreated him to grant that his brother Adonijah might
marry Abishag.

3. But the king was greatly offended at these words, and sent away
his mother, and said that Adonijah aimed at great things; and that he
wondered that she did not desire him to yield up the kingdom to him, as
to his elder brother, since she desired that he might marry Abishag; and
that he had potent friends, Joab the captain of the host, and Abiathar
the priest. So he called for Benaiah, the captain of the guards, and
ordered him to slay his brother Adonijah. He also called for Abiathar
the priest, and said to him, "I will not put thee to death because
of those other hardships which thou hast endured with my father, and
because of the ark which thou hast borne along with him; but I inflict
this following punishment upon thee, because thou wast among Adonijah's
followers, and wast of his party. Do not thou continue here, nor come
any more into my sight, but go to thine own town, and live on thy own
fields, and there abide all thy life; for thou hast offended so greatly,
that it is not just that thou shouldst retain thy dignity any longer."
For the forementioned cause, therefore, it was that the house of Ithamar
was deprived of the sacerdotal dignity, as God had foretold to Eli, the
grandfather of Abiathar. So it was transferred to the family of Phineas,
to Zadok. Now those that were of the family of Phineas, but lived
privately during the time that the high priesthood was transferred to
the house of Ithamar, [of which family Eli was the first that received
it,]were these that follow: Bukki, the son of Abishua the high priest;
his son was Joatham; Jo