3 Kings 1:4
And the damsel was exceeding beautiful, and she slept with the king: and served him, but the king did not know her.
Open 3 Kings 1:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Erat autem puella pulchra nimis, dormiebatque cum rege, et ministrabat ei : rex vero non cognovit eam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἡ νεᾶνις καλὴ ἕως σφόδρα· καὶ ἦν θάλπουσα τὸν βασιλέα καὶ ἐλειτούργει αὐτῷ, καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς οὐκ ἔγνω αὐτήν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְהַֽנַּעֲרָ֖ה יָפָ֣ה עַד מְאֹ֑ד וַתְּהִ֨י לַמֶּ֤לֶךְ סֹכֶ֨נֶת֙ וַתְּשָׁ֣רְתֵ֔הוּ וְהַמֶּ֖לֶךְ לֹ֥א יְדָעָֽהּ
Haydock's commentary
Her. Which shews the virtue and temperance of David. (Menochius)
She was his wife, at least of a secondary order. Adonias flattered himself, on account of Abisag's virginity, that the law did not hinder him from marrying her; (Leviticus xviii. 8.; Kimchi) or he was blinded by ambition. (Calmet)
Heretics and persecutors thus attempt in vain, (Haydock) to defile the Church, the chaste spouse of Jesus, that they may usurp his throne. (Calmet)
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. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Nepotian
3. Who, then, is this Shunamite, this wife and maid, so glowing as to warm the cold, yet so holy as not to arouse passion in him whom she warmed? Let Solomon, wisest of men, tell us of his father’s favorite; let the man of peace recount to us the embraces of the man of war. “Get wisdom,” he writes, “get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee: love her and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her and she shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.”