Misinterpretations often portray David's actions as cold-hearted abandonment or punishment of innocent women for Absalom's sin, ignoring the merciful provision of lifelong care and the legal necessity to treat them as widows under Mosaic law; others view it as mere political expediency to sidestep scandal, overlooking the deeper moral integrity shown; some mistakenly see endorsement of polygamy's normalcy without consequence, missing how it underscores the ongoing fallout from David's earlier familial sins; or apply modern egalitarian standards to ancient customs, judging the confinement as abusive rather than protective seclusion.
II Samuel 20:3
King James Version (1769)
3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood.
This passage reveals David's principled restraint and obedience to God's law after Absalom's rebellion, where he had publicly claimed David's concubines to assert kingship. Returning to Jerusalem, David confines the ten women as lifelong widows, providing for them without resuming intimate relations, thereby honoring the prohibition against a son taking his father's wife and upholding the sanctity of his household despite personal humiliation and loss.