2 Samuel 13:34

THE KING'S SURVIVING SONS RETURNED TO JERUSALEM

"But Absalom fled. And the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the Horonaim roads by the side of the mountain. And Jonadab said to the king, "Behold, the king's sons have come; as your servant said, so it has come about." And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came, and lifted up their voice and wept; and the king also and all his servants wept very bitterly."

Amnon, the heir apparent to David's throne, had been shamefully murdered by one of David's own sons; and the words of Nathan must have once more rung in David's ears, "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house" (2 Samuel 12:10). Furthermore, David could not have missed the similarity between Absalom's murder of Amnon and his own murder of Uriah. Both David and Absalom procured the help of others to bring about the murder. The great difference was that Uriah did not deserve to die, whereas Amnon most assuredly did. And look at Amnon's adulterous rape of Tamar. David could not have failed to note the resemblance of this to his own sin in taking Bathsheba. In both instances, the victim was brought to the residence of the adulterer. But these tragic events were by no means the end of God's punishments upon David. More, much more, was in store.

The Septuagint (LXX) has additional material concerning these terrible events; but, as Keil stated, "The additions made by the Septuagint (LXX) are nothing but worthless glosses, introduced from subjective conjectures and giving no foundation whatever for altering the Masoretic Text."[27]

As we study the tragic account of these deeds of blood and shame, our newspapers are filled every day with stories of sexual deviations and outrages similar to these in the Bible. "The circumstances vary, but the results are always the same - guilt, shame, hatred and murder."[28]