Maybe on the simplest and most transparent level it’s nothing more than a morality tale.  Maybe Matthew alludes so subtly in his Jesus genealogy to the story of David and Bathsheba to remind us that every illicit union is a fatal attraction, quite literally. Maybe nobody dies most of the time, at least not literally, but something always dies. Love dies, trust dies, your self-respect will be gone forever; it is unlikely to experience any resurrection whatso­ever.