2 Samuel 20:12
And Amasa wallowed in blood in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he removed Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still.
The verse belongs to the closing, later history of David's reign, amid its continuing difficulties, troubles, and judgments after the suppression of Absalom's revolt. Its immediate setting is the quarrel between the men of Judah and the men of Israel that gave occasion for the revolt of Sheba son of Bichri, which threatened to prove very serious.
The surrounding history involves the sad consequences of David taking many wives and of sons he could not control, including Absalom's rebellion and death, David's lament and return to Jerusalem, his troubles with Joab, and his numbering of the people. It is a family history marked by ambition, treachery, and violence, growing out of acting against God's laws.
These calamities stand as judgments directly traceable to David's great wickedness in the case of Uriah, completely accomplishing the prophet Nathan's denunciation that the sword should never depart from his house. Though David repented with deep humiliation and left a humble confession, the chastening hand of God was upon him all his life long, illustrating that people suffer the consequences of acting against God's laws and that sin does not pay. The account is told with detailed faithfulness; the sacred writers do not cover up or excuse the transgression but place Nathan's denunciation on record and preserve David's confession for all future time, which stamps the account with inspiration and shows that God does not hide the sins of even the greatest kings.