2 Samuel 14:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deliver him, that we may kill him Put him to death, as the law requires, Numbers 35:18-19. We will destroy the heir also Take away his life, although he be the heir, or the only one remaining of the family. And so they shall quench my coal which is left Deprive me of the little comfort of my life which remains, and ruin the only hope of my family. Shall leave to my husband neither name nor remainder Shall utterly extinguish my husband's memory. The reader will easily observe that there is a great difference between the supposed case of this widow and that of David, however plausible their likeness may appear. For her son, she pretended, was slain in a scuffle with his brother, and his death, therefore, was not a premeditated murder, as was the death of Amnon. It also happened in the field, where there were no witnesses, whether he was killed wilfully: whereas all the king's sons saw Amnon designedly and barbarously murdered. And in the last particular the difference is as great as in either of the others. For David's family was not in danger of being extinguished, if Absalom had been lost also; David having many children, and also many wives by whom he might have more.