King David said before the Holy One Blessed be He. King David said before the Holy One Blessed be He: Let my transgression before You (with Bathsheva) not be written after me. The L-rd: Is it not sufficient for you that people not say: "Because he loved him, He forgave him"? An analogy: A man borrowed from the king twenty kor of wheat a year, and people said: Can this man possibly have met such a debt?
It must be that the king forgave him and wrote him a settlement. Once, the king sent (demanding payment), and he did not pay, at which the king entered his house and took his sons and daughters and put them up (for sale) at the auction block — whereupon everyone knew that he had nothing (i.e., that he had not been pardoned.) Here, therefore, all of the punishments that came upon David were publicized and doubled, viz. (II Samuel 12:6) "And he (David) must pay four for the ewe." R. Chananiah says: "arbatayim" — sixteen.