David knew he was dying. Cold had settled into his bones so deeply that no amount of clothing could warm him. So he summoned Solomon and gave him the kind of deathbed speech that kings give—part blessing, part warning, part hit list.
"I am going to my grave," David told his son, "and to my fathers, which is the common way all men must go—from which it is no longer possible to return." There is something raw in how Josephus records it. No euphemisms. No gentle metaphors. Just a dying old warrior staring at the end.
The charge itself was twofold. First, the high road: be righteous toward your subjects and religious toward God. Keep the commandments that Moses delivered. Do not let any passion or favoritism lead you to disregard the Torah. If you obey, the kingdom stays with our family forever. If you disobey, you lose God's favor in everything.
Then came the low road—the unfinished business David was too old or too politically constrained to handle himself. Joab, the army commander, had murdered two righteous generals—Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether—out of pure jealousy. David admitted outright that Joab "hath been too hard for me, and more potent than myself, and so hath escaped punishment hitherto." He left the method to Solomon's judgment.
He also gave instructions about two others. Barzillai's son deserved honor and generous treatment—a debt of gratitude for his father's loyalty during David's flight from Absalom. And Shimei son of Gera, who had cursed David and thrown stones during that same flight? David had sworn not to kill him. He told Solomon to "seek out some just occasion, and punish him." The oath was technically kept. The intent was unmistakable.
David died at seventy. He had reigned seven and a half years in Hebron over Judah, then thirty-three years in Jerusalem over all Israel. Josephus's eulogy is among the most generous in the Antiquities: a man of extraordinary valor who led from the front, never commanding others into danger he would not face himself. Prudent, moderate, merciful to the suffering. Righteous and humane. Guilty of only one crime in his entire reign—the matter of Uriah's wife (2 Samuel 11).
He was buried in Jerusalem with immense wealth sealed inside the tomb. How immense? Josephus offers proof: thirteen hundred years later, the high priest Hyrcanus, besieged by the Seleucid king Antiochus, opened one chamber of David's sepulcher and pulled out three thousand talents—enough to buy off an army. Later still, Herod the Great opened another chamber and took even more. Yet neither man ever reached the actual coffins. The bodies of the kings lay buried so deep and so cleverly that even those who entered the tombs could not find them.