When I was 20, I started a massive Handel phase. In those days, CDs were dominant and I bought Handel’s Zadok the Priest and then a recording of his oratorio Solomon.

Although we’d covered some of King David’s life in Sunday school, the events at the end of his days recalled in Zadok the Priest were a mystery to me. And if I had even learned about King Solomon, I had forgotten all the detail.

And yet, with Zadok the Priest, I had this wonderfully majestic, beautiful piece of music that’s performed in Britain every time we hold a coronation for a new monarch.

So what does it mean?

Well, let’s highlight the key part of the lyrics:

Zadok the priest
And Nathan the prophet
Anointed Solomon king
And all the people
Rejoiced…

The piece recalls the events of 1 Kings in which Adonijah, son of King David, jumps the gun and decides to appoint himself king of Israel and Judah. The act is a case of trying to be first in order to elbow out the competition. However, his father is having none of it: he has already selected another son, Solomon, as his successor.

One can assume that Adonijah was quite arrogant, especially given the Biblical text says: “His father had never rebuked him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?’ He was also very handsome…”

As F.F. Bruce writes in Israel and the Nations:

David, now about seventy years of age, lay on his deathbed. His oldest surviving son, Adonijah, considered that he was the proper successor to his father, and several of his father’s most loyal servants thought so too, among whom were Joab and the priest Abiathar. But Adonijah and his party knew that his succession would not be disputed; they judged it wise therefore to have Adonijah proculaimed as king while his father was yet alive and thus present the nation with a fait accompli. The proclomation was accordingly carried out, with sacrifice and feasting, at a spot about a quarter of a mile south-east of Jerusalem called “Serpent’s Stone”…

But while the ceremony was going on, and shouts of “Long live King Adonijah!” were arising, news of what was happening came to Nathan the prophet, who informed Bathsheba, David’s favourite wife. David had already promised her that her son Solomon would succeed him as king; and this succession would certainly be more pleasing to the people of Jerusalem, who would prefer to be ruled over by a native of their city (as Solomon was) rather than by a son born to David before he became king of Jerusalem. Adonijah and his supporters were probably well aware of this, for when the proclamation ceremony was arranged, no invitation was sent to Solomon, nor yet to those court officials – Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah, capitan of the royal bodyguard – who was known to favour Solomon’s claims.

The upshot was that when King David was told what Adonijah was up to, he got Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet to annoint Solomon king, before getting Solomon to sit on the throne in Jerusalem.

Picture: The anointing of Solomon by Cornelis de Vos (c. 1630)