Thanks so much for the kind reply, Johan.

For whatever reason I've taken a lot of interest in the life of King David and God's involvement throughout, specifically in terms of what might have been going on behind the scenes in such case.

Even w/ the overwhelmning complexities involved w/ this pre-Christ issue, the secular would not be able to make the argument that God did not fulfill His requirements in Ex 21:12 because the life of David's child was taken from him, this having been his own blood.

In fact, it might provide further evidence that the "Letter of the law" mentality and/or the philosophy of strict, binding legalism was never the intent from the earliest stages.

That's not to endorse any notion of non obedience or to say that God did not follow through on justice in all such cases because the stories of failure in the OT can always be traced back to the individuals having disobeyed God's law, and the punishment always took place, despite the fact in certain cases you would almost be convinced it was the natural course itself that delivered the punishment (The self imposed defeats in the lives of Balaam and King Solomon, etc).

Even if you try to make the argument that there wasn't direct Divine Intervention in the life of Solomon to inflict that punishment, that's precisely what happened in the end-but it was largely self inflicted, the result of having not obeyed the Lord in numerous areas leading up to his downfall.