1-kings 2:25

Solomon sent - Benaiah - and he fell upon him that he died. - Benaiah seems to have been the public state executioner, and yet he was generalissimo of all the forces. See him employed in a similar work, 1 Kings 2:34 (note), 1 Kings 2:46 (note). I suppose him to have been such another general as Suwarrow, butcher-general of the Turks and Poles to the late Empress Catharine of Russia: like mistress, like man. But they have long since been called to an impartial tribunal.

That this was an act of cruelty towards Adonijah, needs no proof. He is suspected, condemned, and slain, without a hearing. Calmet vindicates all this by various assumptions, and lays down a doctrine that is calculated for the meridian of Fez or Morocco; hear him: Un prince, dans ses jugemens, ne peut pas toujours suivre les regles de la plus parfaite morale; la politique, et le bien de l'etat, obligent souvent a des choses opposees aux conseils de l'evangile; "A prince in his judgments cannot always follow the rules of the most perfect morality; policy and the good of the state often require things to be done which are contrary to the counsels of the Gospel." What a diabolic maxim is this! And is this indeed the way that French kings ruled and ministers decreed judgment? Then we need not wonder at a revolution in that state, nor of the scourge that desolated the land. O England! magnify God for your constitution, your constitutional king, and the laws according to which he reigns.

2:25 Benaiah - For the execution of justice was not then committed to obscure persons, as now it is; but to persons of great honour and authority.It is far from clear, that Solomon did right herein, or that Adonijahhad any ill design in asking Abishag.