The Bible states that the young woman Abishag was selected for her loveliness, to stimulate "heat" in the elderly King David.1
This "heat" wasn’t simply warmth, but the sacred flames of sexual energy, without which no king would be permitted to govern. If an sterile king were to reign as monarch, his native land would grow to become unfruitful. For this reason, when David unsuccessfully "knew" Abishag, a more manly prince (Adonijah) without delay readied himself to take up the king’s authority, and "exalted himself, saying, I will be king".2
David's dying transpired with evocative promptness after his failure of the virility test.
Abishag's name may have been linked to the Hindu abhisekarite, the anointing of kings with the hallowed fluid of the Goddess Sarasvati.3
From the Mediterranean to China, ancient kings received authority from a mating with the Goddess through her priestess-surrogate.4
Mesopotamian kings and their sacred spirits (the gods) were continually depicted as "much-loved" of the Goddess recognized as creator of the earth and "maker of fate, she who decrees the fate of the men and gods."5
Like the eastern Goddess, Abishag symbolized the nation in the same way as Solomon's bride, who was recorded in personal description by the Song of Solomon.
Following David's death, the queen mother decided between two rivals - Solomon and Adonijah. She crowned Solomon with her own hands,6 after the convention of the regal women whose custom it was to establish or topple kings, as in India, Egypt, and the lands of the Fertile Crescent.7
Nonetheless, Adonijah still had plans for the throne, as shown by his request for marriage to Abishag. To thwart this emblematically and politically important marriage from taking place, Solomon had Adonijah murdered.8The Bible falls short of explaining Solomon's astonishingly furious and passionate response to Adonijah's appeal; it can only have one reason - the crown was at risk. This also shows that a sexual liason with Abishag was a precondition for royal office.
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