And the king said to Abiathar the priest, Go to Anathoth, to thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death; but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou didst bear the ark of Adonai Jehovah before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted.
Solomon has just taken the throne, and his first acts settle old scores. The man he sends away is the priest who carried the ark and shared David's hardships — so what had Abiathar done, and why does he keep his life?
Solomon's judgments open his reign, and they fall on people who had God's patience and did not use it:
So the reign of righteousness begins with judgment. It falls on all those who were placed under the grace and patience of God, but did not use it to bring their hearts and their actions into line with this rule. Abiathar was all the more guilty because he had carried the ark of the Lord before David, and had also shared his afflictions from the beginning (1 Sam. 22:20). He had had a part in the testimony of the Lord's anointed, and had suffered for it. Solomon recognises this. But there was one case where Abiathar's faithfulness was tested, and where the glory of the son of David was at stake. In that case he failed completely and abandoned his master.
Abiathar had backed Adonijah's grab for the throne. That single choice exposed him:
Abiathar the priest had earlier seemed true to David (2 Sam. 15:24-29). But Adonijah's defection tested him and proved him lacking, so he could no longer be trusted as a faithful priest. Solomon did not put him to death, though he told him he deserved it (v. 26). Instead he banished him from Jerusalem and sent him to Anathoth, his home.
Carrying the ark is what stood between Abiathar and execution. It also makes his part in the plot harder to explain:
Abiathar had carried the ark of God, and this saved him on the day Solomon convicted him. It was very sad that a priest of God should be caught up in a plot to set aside the will of God. God had clearly told David that Solomon was to succeed him as king. If Abiathar had been living close to the king, he would have known the mind of God.
The move he made to secure his position destroyed it:
No doubt Abiathar thought that following Adonijah would secure him the priesthood. He was flattered that Adonijah had consulted him. But instead of being confirmed in the priesthood, Solomon thrust him out. Only his earlier faithfulness saved him from death.
Abiathar's removal also closed a case God had opened long before against the house of Eli:
Abiathar followed David in his wanderings, and he stayed in office all through David's reign. But for his part in Adonijah's conspiracy, Solomon banished him to the priests' town of Anathoth, where he most likely died in disgrace. "So Solomon expelled Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, thus fulfilling the word of the LORD that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh" (1 Kings 2:27). He was the fourth high priest from Eli, and the last of the line of Ithamar to hold this office of dignity and honour. God had announced His judgment on the family nearly a century before. It did not come quickly, but it still came exactly as God had said.
Abiathar's removal also marks a change in where the priest stands:
After the king is brought in, the position of the priesthood changes. It stops being the usual link between the people and God. When God sets Eli aside, He says, "I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest… and he shall go in and out" — not before Me, but "before My anointed forever" (1 Sam. 2:35). Here I have a royal person, another link between God and the people, set above priesthood. So Solomon was quite right in thrusting out Abiathar.
Abiathar had stayed loyal when Absalom rebelled. That earlier test did not cover the later one:
Abiathar should have known that if it was wrong to follow Absalom, it was also wrong to follow his brother Adonijah. It is not enough for us to be faithful in one crisis: we ought to be faithful in every crisis — yes, at all times and in all things.
- Word spoken. God's sentence on Eli's house waited nearly a century. Then it fell just as He said. Delay is not cancellation.
- Test applied. Abiathar looked loyal for a lifetime; Adonijah's plot was the one trial that measured him, and he failed it.
- Grace refused. His guilt was greater, not smaller. He had carried the ark, shared David's sufferings, and had every means of knowing God's mind.
- Mercy given. Past faithfulness did not save his office. It did save his life: he went to his own fields instead of to the sword.
- Order settled. With the king in place, the priest now serves before the anointed one. Righteous rule begins by removing those who will not bend to it.
And Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest to Jehovah, to fulfil the word of Jehovah, which he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.
Solomon's first acts as king settle old accounts, and removing Abiathar looks like politics after a failed coup. Yet the verse ties it to something God had said generations earlier about the family of Eli, the priest at Shiloh.
God announced His judgment on Eli's house in Samuel's day. It fell in stages, and this verse is the last.
The house of Eli continued its priestly duties through the reigns of Saul and David, until Solomon became king. At Saul's command, Doeg the Edomite killed eighty-five of the Lord's priests. That terrible slaughter was part of the judgment God pronounced on Eli's family (1 Sam. 22). Only one, Abiathar, escaped and fled to David... He was the fourth high priest from Eli, and the last of the line of Ithamar to fill this office of dignity and honour. God had pronounced His judgment on the family almost a century before. It was not carried out quickly, but it was carried out just as God had said.
The word came first; the occasion came later. One writer sets Esau beside Abiathar.
Here we find the principle expressed in the words "I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated" (Mal. 1:2-3), spoken thirteen centuries after He had said, "the older shall serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23). It was the Lord's free choice. But He pronounces the sentence only after Esau had shown himself to be the irreconcilable enemy of God and of His people. It is the same with Abiathar. He is cut off from the priesthood one hundred and thirty-five years after the judgment is announced. But first he supplied a reason for that judgment by his alliance with the rebel.
Abiathar did not fall only for an ancestor's fault. He had backed Adonijah's bid for the throne.
Abiathar the priest had seemed true to David before (2 Sam. 15:24-29). But Adonijah's defection tested him and proved him lacking. He could no longer be trusted as a faithful priest. Solomon did not put him to death, though he told him he was worthy of death (v. 26). Instead he banished him from Jerusalem and sent him to Anathoth, his home.
Abiathar had fled to David when Saul massacred the priests, and stayed with him through every hardship. That record makes the ending heavier, not lighter.
Abiathar was all the more guilty because he had carried the ark of the Lord before David. He had also shared in David's afflictions from the beginning (1 Sam. 22:20). So he had had a part in the testimony of the Lord's anointed and had suffered. Solomon recognises this. But there was one case that tested Abiathar's faithfulness, and it concerned the glory of the son of David. There he fails completely and abandons his master. The word of the Lord, long suspended, is fulfilled: Abiathar is rejected.
Commentators notice that Abiathar still appears beside Zadok in a later list (1 Kings 4:4), and read Solomon's act as narrower than total disgrace.
There is no doubt that Solomon had removed Abiathar from office... It seems that, in view of Abiathar's faithfulness in times past, Solomon did not want to deprive him of the dignity of priesthood, although he had removed him from the office of priesthood.
The removal marks a shift in how God deals with His people. The promise to Eli's replacement pointed that way already.
After the king comes in, the position of the priesthood changes. It stops being the usual link between the people and God. When Eli is set aside (1 Sam. 2:35) God says, "I will raise up for myself a faithful priest... and he shall go in and out" — not before Me, but "before my anointed forever." There I have a royal person, another link between God and the people, set up above priesthood. So Solomon was quite right in thrusting out Abiathar.
Solomon is not only closing the past. One writer sees the future in these opening judgments.
Here we have another glimpse of the government of the kingdom in the coming age. In the present age grace reigns through righteousness. In the kingdom age, when the Lord rules over all, righteousness reigns. Judgment will follow disobedience quickly, as it did with Shimei.
The personal edge is obvious. Men of standing were set aside at the very moment the kingdom was established in glory.
...surely they awaken in our consciences the grave importance of seeing that we are true to our Lord Jesus during this time of His personal absence and rejection, so that when He comes we may have His precious commendation — "Well done, good and faithful servant!"
- Word — God spoke this sentence on Eli's house about a century earlier. Delay was not cancellation. This verse closes it.
- Occasion — the word waited for Abiathar's own act. He sided with Adonijah against the king God had chosen.
- Test — a lifetime beside David ended in failure at the one test that touched the glory of the son of David.
- Shift — with the king on the throne, the priest is no longer the usual link between God and the people.
- Preview — Solomon's opening days show how righteousness will govern when Christ reigns.