3 Kings 1:2
His servants therefore said to him: Let us seek for our lord the king, a young virgin, and let her stand before the king, and cherish him, and sleep in his bosom, and warm our lord the king.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dixerunt ergo ei servi sui : Quæramus domino nostro regi adolescentulam virginem, et stet coram rege, et foveat eum, dormiatque in sinu suo, et calefaciat dominum nostrum regem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπον οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ Ζητησάτωσαν τῷ βασιλεῖ παρθένον νεάνιδα, καὶ παραστήσεται τῷ βασιλεῖ καὶ ἔσται αὐτὸν θάλπουσα καὶ κοιμηθήσεται μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, καὶ θερμανθήσεται ὁ κύριός μου ὁ βασιλεύς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֧אמְרוּ ל֣וֹ עֲבָדָ֗יו יְבַקְשׁ֞וּ לַאדֹנִ֤י הַמֶּ֨לֶךְ֙ נַעֲרָ֣ה בְתוּלָ֔ה וְעָֽמְדָה֙ לִפְנֵ֣י הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ וּתְהִי ל֖וֹ סֹכֶ֑נֶת וְשָׁכְבָ֣ה בְחֵיקֶ֔ךָ וְחַ֖ם לַאדֹנִ֥י הַמֶּֽלֶךְ
Haydock's commentary
Servants. Physicians. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] vii. 14.)
People of the faculty still adopt the same sentiments; and when fire and clothes will not procure heat, they advise the application of living creatures. (Bartholin ix.; Galen vii.; Vales. Philos. c. 19.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Nepotian
2. But that I may not seem to quote only profane literature, listen to the mystical teaching of the sacred writings. Once David had been a man of war, but at seventy age had chilled him so that nothing would make him warm. A girl is accordingly sought from the coasts of Israel, Abishag the Shunamite, to sleep with the king and warm his aged frame. Does it not seem to you, if you keep to the letter that killeth, like some farcical story or some broad jest from an Atellan play? A chilly old man is wrapped up in blankets, and only grows warm in a girl’s embrace. Bathsheba was still living, Abigail was still left, and the remainder of those wives and concubines whose names the Scripture mentions. Yet they are all rejected as cold, and only in the one young girl’s embrace does the old man become warm. Abraham was far older than David; still, so long as Sarah lived he sought no other wife. …