ABSTRACT
The two remarkable scenes in the Hebrew bible cited below (separated by only a chapter) focus on Bathsheba, King David’s infamously beautiful, infamous and favourite (but by no means highest-ranking) wife:
Bathsheba bowed down, prostrating herself before king [David] . . . She said to him, ‘My lord, you yourself swore to me [that] Solomon your son shall be king . . . But now Adonijah has become king . . . My lord . . . as soon as my lord the king is laid to rest . . . I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals.
When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him . . . the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat down at his right hand. 1
