Leadership Springs

Time was of the essence. The senile King David shivered in the hours before his death, but his scheming son kept his eye focused on his father’s crown. Adonijah was handsome, shrewd and self-serving. Aware that the king favored Solomon as his heir, Adonijah moved quickly to grasp his advantage. (Read 1 Kings 1)

With a small bodyguard, he organized his own coronation. He invited all his royal brothers except Solomon to a lavish feast at the En-Rogel spring outside the southern walls of the city – a country barbeque – to celebrate his accession to the throne and, no doubt, to enlist their support.

But news of his conspiracy leaked out and the prophet Nathan roused the dying king to act. David immediately named Solomon his successor and ordered Nathan to convene the official coronation of Solomon at the other spring – Gihon, a few hundred meters north of En-Rogel.

Nathan and Solomon set out with fan-fare and a royal parade, a marching band of trumpets and flutes and public cheers of celebration which were said to make the earth shake - and which quickly dispelled Adonijah’s conspiracy.

Why did both coronations – the true and the false – happen outside the city at a spring? The text doesn’t say, but I suspect there was something symbolic about anointing the king at a spring. It may have implied that the king was as vital to his people as water is to life.

Or maybe it meant that the king himself needed divine power. Nature religions consider springs and wells as sacred sites where the powers of the earth come to the surface and can be accessed. Israel’s faith saw a spring as a gift of life from the very hand of Yahweh, king of the Universe.

Being crowned near the spring signalled that the king’s authority and power derived from God. It was a symbolic prayer that the spiritual vitality of God, the very powers of creation and God's abundance would flow through the king's reign, that his leadership would reflect the faithful provision of God evidenced in the flow of the spring.

Israel’s coronation psalm, Psalm 110 speaks of water as a dynamic life-force that would sustain God's king through the passing years: “arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn, you will receive the dew of your youth.”

The Bible teaches us to bathe leaders in prayer – “that prayers and intercession be made for everyone-- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives.” 1 Timothy 2:1-2.

Lord, let my prayers serve to refresh the leaders you have appointed in my church, my community, my nation and world. Would you be in them a fountain of wisdom, a well-spring of hope, a stream of courage and creativity and life-giving purpose. And as I pray for them, let me find that same water springing up in my life. Amen.

Photo credits: Ein Rogel; Gihon Spring