2 Samuel 20:3

And David came to his house at Jerusalem ,.... His palace there, which was in that part of the city called the fort of Zion, and city of David:

and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house ; when he fled from Jerusalem because of Absalom, 2 Samuel 15:16 ,

and put them in ward ; partly as a punishment for easily yielding to the lust of Absalom, and partly that they might not be seen, which would bring to remembrance his sin:

and fed them ; he did not put them to death, nor put them away, but kept them thus confined, and made a proper provision for them, not suffering them to marry any other, and be maintained by them:

but went not in unto them : into their apartments to lie with them, having been defiled by his son, 2 Samuel 16:22 ,

so they were shut up unto the day of their death ; kept in the ward till they died:

living in widowhood ; neither used by the king as his concubines, as they had been before, nor suffered to many any other; or "in the widowhood of life" F15 אלמנות חיות "in viduitate vitae", Pagninus, Montanus. , which is so expressed, to distinguish it from widowhood made by death; this was such sort of widowhood as obtained while their husband was living; so the Targum,"widows of their husband alive,'

or remaining.