Solomon's birth and his half-brothers - Amnon and Absalome

Solomon was the fourth son of King David and his wife Bathsheba. David already had six sons before he began to develop his relationship with Bathsheba and their first intercourse is depicted in the Old Testament in a following way: ‘the thing that David had done displeased the LORD’ (2 Samuel 11:27), because what David committed at the time was an adultery. Thus, the given situation for Solomon to succeed his father’s throne was obviously quite unlikely because he was not the oldest son of David and his mother’s status as David’s wife originally built upon a formidable sin. Nevertheless, it was Solomon who could secure the strongest endorsement for the succession; a promise made by King David himself. Even so, it was not the case where some other half-brothers of him, who were born from David’s earlier marriages, quietly approved the promise their father made behind a closed door.

Apart from the issue of succession, some of David’s sons seem to have been natively vicious, ambitious and disloyal to their father’s authority so that it led them struggle against each other almost inevitably. The series of struggles began ‘when Amnon, David’s oldest son, assaulted his half-sister Tamar, Absalom’s sister (2 Samuel 13-1-22)’ (http://www.keyway.ca/htm2002/absalom.htm). 

Amnon rapes Tamar

At first, Absalom, David’s third son, ‘bided his time, and when the opportunity arose two years later during the sheep shearing time at Baal Hazor, he had his brother Amnon killed (2 Samuel 13:23-29)’ (ibid). This incident was alarming enough for other ones to think ‘that it was the start of a general massacre of competitors to the throne’ (ibid) and made ‘all of the king’s other sons fled for their lives back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 13:29-33)’ (ibid). Meanwhile, ‘Absalom then took refuge with his mother’s father at Geshur, northeast of The Sea of Galilee, where he remained for three years (2 Samuel 13:37-38)’ (ibid).

You can read the full text here: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/succession-from-king-david-to-king-solomon/