Solomon is personally a much less interesting character than David; for policy is never so interesting as impulse, and the crimes of policy seem worse than those of passion.  The first act of Solomon was of this sort.  He put his brother Adonijah to death for his attempt to seize the throne.  Joab, who supported Adonijah against Solomon, was also put to death, for which we do not grieve, when we remember his assassination of Abner and Amasa, shedding the blood of war in peace.  But the cold, unscrupulous character of Solomon is seen in his ordering Joab to be slain in the tabernacle while holding the horns of the altar, and causing Adonijah to be taken by force from the same place of refuge.  No religious consideration or superstitious fear could prevent Solomon from doing what he thought necessary for his own security.  He had given Adonijah a conditional pardon, limited to good behavior on his part.  But after his establishment on the throne Adonijah requested the mother of Solomon, Bathsheba, to ask her son to give him for a wife the beautiful Abishag, the last wife of David.  Solomon understood this to mean, what his mother did not understand, that his brother was still intriguing to supplant him on the throne, and with cool policy he ordered him to immediate execution.  Solomon could pardon a criminal, but not a dangerous rival.  He deposed the high-priest for the same reason, considering him to be also dangerous.  Shimei, who seems to have been wealthy and influential as well as a determined character, was ordered not to leave Jerusalem under penalty of death.  He did so, and Solomon put him to death.  David, before his death, had warned Solomon to keep an eye both on Joab and on Shimei, for David could forgive his own enemies, but not those of his cause; he was not afraid on his own account, but was afraid for the safety of his son.

By the death of Joab and Shimei, Solomon’s kingdom was established, and the glory and power of David was carried to a still higher point of magnificence.  Supported by the prophets on the one hand and by the priests on the other, his authority was almost unlimited.  We are told that “Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making merry.  And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt; they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.  And Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl.”  The wars of David were ended.  Solomon’s was a reign of peace.  “And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.  And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.”