King David

Without his former "golden card" of righteousness, the House of David experiences bad tidings beginning with the rape of David's daughter, Tamar, by her half-brother, Amnon. Tamar comes over to help her brother (Amnon) who pretends to be sick, and when she gets close, he grabs her and molests her. Unlike Shechem, the villain in the book of Genesis (chapter 33:19; 34) who felt a moral obligation to marry Jacob's daughter Diana after he raped her, Amnon despises Tamar even more, which crushes and humiliates her.

Strangely, Tamar's older brother Absalom comforts her and says, “Be quiet now, my sister ... Do not take this thing to heart” (2 Samuel 13:20), but he never speaks to Amnon about the event. Amnon probably believed he had gotten away with the rape of his half-sister because his father David was mad but did nothing about the crime.

Two years later, though, Prince Absalom enacts his vengeance. Convincing Amnon to travel with him, he gets his half-brother drunk and then has his men murder Amnon, a prince, in revenge for raping his sister. He flees to Gershur and stays with his mother, Michal's family there, and returns three years later with another plan to steal David's throne. He even manages to enlist the king's counselor, Ahithophel (the grandfather of Bathsheba), and works the Israelite crowd.

As Absalom's conspiracy and its support grows, David flees from the forces of Absalom, not wanting to kill his son. Eventually, though, David's forces clash with Absalom's forces, and as he flees, “Absalom's hair got caught in the tree” (v. 18:9). Left dangling, Joab slays Absalom and buries his body in a deep pit in the wilderness.

As with the death of King Saul, David is devastated by the news, but somewhat confused as to why Absalom was so treacherous and murderous toward David and his men. Hearing that David is mournful beyond consolation, Joab marches into David's house and shames him for humiliating and alienating his men by his great lament for a wicked son. The book concludes with more descriptions of the incessant warfare David was promised by the Prophet Nathan. However, the final two chapters offer a poetical homage to God and to his men.

The Final Years

David's initial zeal for God and for ethical integrity paved the way for his early fame and fortune, although being a man of warfare and blood (according to the scriptures), God decided that David was not suitable to be the one to build God's temple (that would be placed in the hands of his son, Solomon). Moreover, David's illicit affair and subsequent devious actions (leading to the assassination of Uriah the Hittite and its cover up) complicated the rest of his reign - along with the rape of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, and the attempted coup of Absalom, among other controversies

By the end of David's life, he had lost touch with Israelite society and eventually lost political control of it, as well. This led to an attempted coup by his son, Adonijah (whose mother was Haggith, David's fifth wife), who proclaimed himself to be king with the assistance of General Joab and Abiathar the Priest; however, the majority of Israel's institutional agents did not support Adonijah's claim. The Hebrew scriptures state that the Prophet Nathan went first to Bathsheba to alert her to Adonijah's usurpation of the throne, who then went to her husband, King David, to break the troubling news to him. Eventually, the Prophet Nathan joined the two, and King David officially made Solomon his heir apparent. David said, “Assuredly Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place” (1 Kings 1).

King David died from natural causes around 970 BCE, was buried in Jerusalem, and, as suggested in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, facilitated the establishment of the kingdom of Israel through his piety and lineage. Before his death, David gave his final admonition to his son, Solomon, saying,

Islamic narrations about the story in the Bible are different, but in none of them is there any fornication committed by David (pbuh) and rebuked by God for committing this great sin.

Imam Sadegh (AS) said: "The satisfaction of all people can not be achieved, and their tongues can not be silenced, did not they give this [extremely ugly] ratio to David (AS) that he went after the birds on the roof of his palace , And his eyes fell on Uriah's wife, and his love took hold of her, then he sent her to the battlefield in front of the Ark of the Covenant until he was killed, then he married his wife

This practice continues in Jewish philosophy and mysticism. Suffering, corruption and hardship exist before the Messiah, and he will bring the Jews back to Jerusalem after his appearance, and then establish the rule of Christian justice and mercy, and all nations will be subject to him.