No Small Parts - Michal
June 28, 2020 Sunday Evening Study

It is amazing how as I study the people and the events of the Bible, you begin to see themes coming out that you might not have noticed before. One that I have remarked on before is this theme of the the blessed 7th in a genealogical line - both with Enoch and then with Boaz. Another theme seems to be the youngest daughter finding favor over the elder one. The most well-known case of this is Leah and Rachel, yet this occurs again later on during the monarchy in Israel. 

Can anybody in here, without looking it up, tell me who Michal is? This person is a fairly prominent character during a very important time, but I imagine most will not know who she is.

Israel has a king, in spite of the warnings of God through Samuel. We are past the period of the judges, and the new King Saul has already fallen out of favor with God through vanity and disobedience.

1 Samuel 14:49 identifies Saul's elder daughter as Merab and younger daughter as Michal. Michal's story is recorded in the first Book of Samuel, where it is said in 1 Samuel 18:20 and 18:28 that Michal loved David. The narrative does not indicate whether this is reciprocated. After David’s success in battle against the Philistine giant Goliath, Merab was offered to David by Saul and rejected, then was given in marriage to Adriel.

Later, after Merab had married Adriel the Meholathite, Saul invited David to marry Michal. David replied, "I am a poor and lightly esteemed man", meaning that he was unable to provide a bride price. Saul then advised him that no bride price was required except for the foreskins of 100 Philistines. David took part in a further battle, killed 200 Philistines, and brought their foreskins to Saul as a double bride price. So while we do not know if he necessarily reciprocated Michal’s feelings for him, David valued both her and her father enough to not only meet the price, but show his willingness to go above and beyond.

This idea of putting himself in harm's way to marry one, while having already turned down the other, is very similar to the the stories of Leah and Rachel. Jacob subjected himself to years of servitude for the one he wanted, and valued her above all others.

Consider how it must have been for Merab, much like Leah, to be the unwanted sister. It is tragic that we so often gloss over that part of these amazing stories.

The entire reason Saul offers Michal and demands the bride price is that he hopes the Philistines will kill David in the meantime. Saul has begun to greatly fear David and his influence, and when David pays double the bride price, Saul fears him even more. Eventually, Saul moves from trickery to actually trying to kill David outright.

In the biblical narrative, Michal chooses the welfare of David over the wishes of her father. When Saul's messengers search for David in order to kill him, Michal sends them away while pretending she is ill and laid up in bed. She lets David down through a window and hides an idol and goat’s hair in his bed as a ruse. Yet although she risked her life in helping him, after he leaves the court, he makes no attempt to contact her that is recorded in the Bible until much later, after he is established as king.

While David was hiding for his life, Saul gave Michal as a wife to Palti, son of Laish, and David took several other wives, including Abigail, who had herself been previously married to Nabal - the Calebite we discussed several weeks back when discussing Caleb.. Later, when David became king of Judah and Ish-bosheth (Michal's brother, and Saul's son) was king of Israel, David demanded her return to him in return for peace between them. Ish-bosheth complied, despite the public protests of Palti. By stressing that he had paid the requested bride price, David makes a legal argument as a political calculation to reinforce his legitimacy as a member of the royal house. There is definitely a contrast between David's measured negotiations and Palti's public grief - again, making it unclear whether he loved Michal in the same way she loved him.

After Michal was returned to David, she shows up prominently in the narrative one more time - criticising him for dancing in an undignified manner as he brought the Ark of the Covenant to the newly captured Jerusalem in a religious procession.For this she is punished, according to Samuel, with not having children until the day she dies.

This is a pretty tragic character. She is the youngest daughter of a king who is not in God’s favor, in love with a shepherd boy who himself is experiencing a meteoric rise in power and influence, clearly blessed by God. We don’t learn a lot about the person that Michal was, though likely she had until this point lived much in the shadow of her older sister, the eldest being politically favored, if not as much as with sons.

Michal seems very much like a pawn in the games of kings, and is even maneuvered in that way. Yet, we get to see 2 actions which she chooses herself - things that are not done to her or for her.

1st, she chooses between her father and her husband. She holds to the man she loves, and even lies to the most powerful man in the world to spare David’s life. We do not know the consequences she faced for her deception, but given the fear Saul had for David, it was likely severe. It may even be that she was given in marriage to another as a punishment since she loved David.

The other decision is when she has freedom - living in Jerusalem restored as David’s wife. She chooses to criticize him and allows shame into her heart when she sees him praising the Lord in a not-so-kingly manner. The Bible says she despised him in her heart - she chose to withhold herself emotionally from the man she had loved and risked everything for. David claims that she had better get used to it, because he will be more undignified for the cause of the Lord.

We see a story arc of a person who starts out true, and later allows the things of the world to cloud her judgement. There was a time in her life when she would have given anything - even her own life, for the sake of this man David. Yet when faced with the splendor of the king of the soon to be united kingdom in Jerusalem, she worries more about appearance and dignity and less about David’s calling and priorities, afraid of how his actions will reflect on her. And as we know, the kingship passes to Solomon of Bathsheeba rather than to a son born of Michal, his first wife, as would have been custom. In this we see the opposite of the principle of kinsman-redeemer; as her punishment she is stripped of her legacy and family line in favor of another.

Here we have a situation that is debated among scholars, as there is a question of Hebrew context in the writings. Some have argued that it is unclear whether Michal died barren and childless, as stated in 2 Samuel 6:23, or had children, as described in most manuscripts of 2 Samuel 21:8, which mention "the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul." The justification for this textual rendering in many translations is found in the completion of the clause, which states "...whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite." That it was Merab who married Adriel is attested without argument (1 Samuel 18:19); it is extraordinarily difficult to argue that Michal might have borne five sons to her sister's husband. Many argue that the word born actually referred to “being raised up,” indicating that it may be that Michal raised Merab’s children after her death, probably while married to Palti.

Another cause for debate is about the legality of Michal’s married status - These events have raised moral issues within Judaism, especially in the context of the prohibition in Deuteronomy 24:1–4. On the one hand, some argue that it is prohibited to re-establish a marriage with a previous spouse who has subsequently remarried, placing David in direct violation of covenant law. On the other hand, other commentators explain that David had not divorced Michal at this point in time, but rather Saul acted to break their marriage by marrying her off to another without David's consent. On that view, they were not technically divorced as David had not issued a writ of divorcement according to biblical law. This story has been cited in many arguments about divorce within Judaism, and continues to be argued today.

The name Michal in the original Hebrew translates to “sweetness,” though it is unclear if that is meant to mean sweetness of character or of flavor.  Unlike Abigail and Bathsheba, Michal is not described as being beautiful in the Bible, though Rabbinic tradition holds that she was of "entrancing beauty.” The name Michal describes a tragic character in much of Israel’s literary culture, with the most famous poem about the character stating "Like you I am sad, O Michal ... and like you doomed to love a man whom I despise."

Michal’s sin is one that pretty much all are guilty of - the sin of vanity. We are so often more concerned with how we appear to people that we lose sight of the fact that our appearance is supposed to be Christ’s image - not our own. Michal represents a wonderful object lesson for us today on keeping our priorities in order.