1 Kings 2:27

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

...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!"