Trumpets and Shouts

 DEVOTION

1^ST KINGS

TRUMPETS AND SHOUTS

 

1 Kings 1:32-40

32 King David said, "Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada." When they came before the king, 33 he said to them: "Take your lord's servants with you and set Solomon my son on my own mule and take him down to Gihon. 34 There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and shout, 'Long live King Solomon!' 35 Then you are to go up with him, and he is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed him ruler over Israel and Judah." 36 Benaiah son of Jehoiada answered the king, "Amen! May the LORD, the God of my lord the king, so declare it. 37 As the LORD was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon to make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord King David!" 38 So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites and the Pelethites went down and put Solomon on King David's mule and escorted him to Gihon. 39 Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, "Long live King Solomon!" 40 And all the people went up after him, playing flutes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.

NIV

There is still more to this narrative, but we are at the place where Solomon is anointed as the king of Israel. This place Gihon has two meanings. First, it was the name of one of the rivers in the paradise of God, but in this context, it refers to either a stream, spring, or pool near the city of Jerusalem. It is so close to Jerusalem that it could be in what is now called the Kidron Valley. Interestingly, Solomon was put on his father’s donkey to be anointed as king of Israel. It is also of interest that three men were appointed by David to take Solomon to this place, anoint him, and then take him up to sit on the throne of David. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey that no one had ever ridden before. There are some other parallels or symbols we can learn from. Three men were needed to anoint Solomon as king, or ruler over all Israel. In some sense, three persons anointed Jesus as ruler over all Israel and over all the earth. The Father anointed him; it was the Father who spoke from heaven when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and it was the Spirit who descended upon him in the fashion that a dove would settle on someone’s shoulder. It is the three in one who were all there at once, anointing Jesus as the King of kings. However, in another sense, it was still the Father and the Spirit, but it also includes us, for Jesus to be the anointed one in our lives. Just as the trumpet was sounded and all the people shouted so that the ground shook with the sound, we should sound our trumpet, and shout so loud that the ground would shake beneath us. That is how vocal we should be about Jesus, who is the anointed one. Let us shout for joy, and sound the trumpet.