16 Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance to the king. The king said, “What would you like?” 17 She said to him, “My lord, you swore by Yahweh your God to your handmaid, ‘Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne.’ 18 Now, behold, Adonijah reigns; and you, my lord the king, don’t know it. 19 He has slain cattle and fatlings and sheep in abundance, and has called all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab the captain of the army; but he hasn’t called Solomon your servant. 20 You, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, that you should tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. 21 Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders.”

Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Kings 1:16-21

Commentary on 1 Kings 1:11-31

(Read 1 Kings 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, Revelation 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.