10. David punished his concubines for having been raped by Absalom
Following Absalom’s public rape of his father’s concubines, “in the sight of all Israel” he declared himself king and David’s smaller army fled to beyond the Jordan. Absalom’s delays allowed David to reach safety where he then had the time to adequately prepare his troops for combat before he was attacked by those led by his son. Absalom’s army was caught unprepared and roundly defeated by David’s forces in battle at Ephraim’s Wood, and Absalom was killed in the fighting after his head became caught in the branches of a tree he had attempted to ride beneath. Though David had given explicit orders that his son was not be killed, his general Joab killed him anyway.
David returned in triumph to Jerusalem, with all of the tribes and clans of Israel again proclaiming their allegiance to him. When he returned to his house, having learned of the ten concubines he had left behind having consorted with his dead son, he decided to retain them, but as housekeepers only. David took the women “and put them in ward, and fed them, but went not into them. So they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood”. David replaced them with other concubines, who took their places as his lovers, while those ravaged by Absalom were little more than slaves.
