In this case King Solomon gives clear proof that it is quite permissible to break vows and promises, if what has been asked or granted is contrary to what is right. He granted what his mother Bathsheba the queen had come to request before he knew what it was; but as soon as he was aware that the prayer was a perilous one, he slew the man who had originally made the request. Benaiah did as King Solomon commanded and slew Adonijah. But just as Joab the captain and Abiathar the bishop had shared in the plans to give Adonijah the royal title, they also had a share in his plan to ask for Abishag to wife; and when they heard of Adonijah’s death, they foresaw their own destruction. Benaiah seized Abiathar the bishop and led him before King Solomon; but Joab fled to God’s tabernacle and laid his hand upon the sacred horn of the altar, as if taking vows of chastity and service in God’s holy tabernacle. Benaiah came to God’s sanctuary and said: “Come forth, Joab, the king commands you to come forth out of God’s tabernacle.” But Joab replied: “I have come hither into God’s protection, and I will suffer death here, if I cannot remain in security.” Then Benaiah reported his answer to the king through his messenger; and when the messenger came before the king bringing the bishop Abiathar and related all these things, King Solomon said to him: “Give my command to Benaiah to slay Joab wherever he be found, for his deeds and the decrees of the sacred law slay him and not we.” Benaiah did as King Solomon commanded and slew Joab where he then stood.[342] Footnote 342: Cf. _I Kings_, ii, 28-34. But the king spoke in this wise to the bishop Abiathar: “You know that you have deserved death according to the rules of the holy law; but whereas you lost your father and all your kinsmen in Nob in a single day, because your father had given my father David food, and whereas you also bore the ark of God before my father when he fled before the face of my brother Absalom, therefore it is right that for once you should profit from this and not suffer a sudden death. And for this once you shall purchase your life on the following terms, which you must keep as a constant reminder that you owe penance for the treason which you committed against David: go now to your own fields and abide there as a husbandman and enjoy all your possessions, on the condition, however, that you remain a tiller of the soil. But if you ever stretch forth your hand to perform any priestly service or office, the righteous penalty of the sacred law shall surely come upon your head.”[343] Abiathar went home and did as the king commanded and lived many days; but Shimei died three years later, because he failed to keep what had been commanded, as we have already told. Footnote 343: Cf. _I Kings_, ii, 26-27. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LXVII