2 Samuel 20:3
Ver. 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, 2Sa 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, 2Sa 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" {o}, 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.
{o} twyx twnmla "in viduitate vitae", Pagninus, Montanus.