Sometimes in a WBS post, I get the story itself done, and afterwords I think, "But what's the learning point- the takeaway?" Thus I did last week with Rebekah, and I'm glad I did, because it set up the comparison/contrast I need to do with Michal.
Michal, for those that don't know, was David's first wife. Thumbnail story, Saul wanted a spy in David's camp; He offered oldest daughter Merab first, but wary David claimed he had no dowry fit for a king's daughter, and turned it down. Educated thus, Saul then offered younger daughter Michal, and set her dowry at 100 Philistine foreskins- and good morning to you, too! With the chance to fulfill a dowry and rid Israel of enemies at the same time, David not only accepted, but doubled the dowry. Here's where the trouble will begin... but first, let's backtrack to the 4 lessons we should take from Rebekah, and how they were ignored in THIS story.
The four lessons:
- God is in control. We see that when Eliezar's prayer was answered almost instantly by Rebekah's trip to the well.
-God runs the timing. Rebekah and Isaac had a 20-year wait for their children- not as long as Abraham and Sarah waited for Isaac, but enough to show God does things in HIS time.
-God does the choosing. Nope, I don't want Esau, I want Jacob.
Mal 1:2 "I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I have loved Jacob
Mal 1:3 but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert."
-Finally, God doesn't make the big show of how he handles repentant people who make mistakes. Thus, we hear no more of Rebekah after she fooled Isaac, just like we never did hear the first conversations between the resurrected Jesus and either Peter or James.
Now, keep these in mind as we roll on.
First, whose plan is it? In the case of Michal, Saul was once again trying to play the part of God;
1Sa 18:20 Now Saul's daughter Michal loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.
1Sa 18:21 Saul thought, "Let me give her to him, that she may be a snare for him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him." Therefore Saul said to David a second time, "You shall now be my son-in-law."
Now let's look at this thing- "Michal loved David". But was it love? She was young at the time, and here's this handsome, mighty war hero. Unlike Rebekah's instant devotion to Isaac, I believe Michal just had a crush on David- and I will try to show why I believe it. As mentioned, her dowry meant battle with the Philistines- and to Saul's consternation, David came through with flying colors. Which meant...
1Sa 18:28 But when Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him,
1Sa 18:29 Saul was even more afraid of David. So Saul was David's enemy continually.
1Sa 18:30 Then the princes of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed.
1Sa 19:10 And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he eluded Saul, so that he struck the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night.
1Sa 19:11 Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, "If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed."
1Sa 19:12 So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped.
God runs the timing. Saul thought he could bring David down, but David was in his prime as a warrior. Now we come to the why of "Michal just had a crush."
1Sa 19:13 Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats' hair at its head and covered it with the clothes.
1Sa 19:14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick."
1Sa 19:15 Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him."
1Sa 19:16 And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats' hair at its head.
1Sa 19:17 Saul said to Michal, "Why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?" And Michal answered Saul, "He said to me, 'Let me go. Why should I kill you?'"
Do you see any mention of Michal JOINING this man she loved? When questioned by Saul, WHOSE skin was her answer meant to save? Her own, and at the expense of this "man she loved." My opinion, and just mine, is that we have here a spoiled little rich girl, who had no intention of following her crush on a dangerous trip outside the pampered walls of the palace. You might ask why David didn't ask her to come along- and maybe he did, who knows? But he's a smart man, he knew what he was getting with Michal, and never gave it a second thought- or so it seemed. Now it's time for the "God does the choosing" part.
1Sa 25:44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.
I think this was equal portions of "Let me tweak David", and "Let me get this child out of my palace with her whining!" Nevertheless, we hear nothing of Michal again for the twenty-odd years Saul tried to kill David. But with Saul dead, the timing kicks in again. The war is over, Saul's son Ishboseth sits the throne in Israel, under the watchful eye of Saul's general Abner. But Abner gets it on with one of Saul's minor wives, Ishboseth calls him out on it, and Abner gets mad and defects to David. However, David has his terms...
2Sa 3:13 And he said, "Good; I will make a covenant with you. But one thing I require of you; that is, you shall not see my face unless you first bring Michal, Saul's daughter, when you come to see my face."
2Sa 3:14 Then David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, saying, "Give me my wife Michal, for whom I paid the bridal price of a hundred foreskins of the Philistines."
So now it is so ordered, and we have a very curious scene unfold...
2Sa 3:15 And Ish-bosheth sent and took her from her husband Paltiel the son of Laish.
2Sa 3:16 But her husband went with her, weeping after her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, "Go, return." And he returned.
First thing of note, is the name change. The legally unrecognized second hubby, once Palti (meaning 'delivered') is now Paltiel ('delivered of God'). The Rabbis have an explanation for this, one I don't quite buy...
According to the Talmud, Palti never consummated his marriage with Michal, but kept a sword between them while in bed to separate them. (This was supposedly because he recognized David as her legal husband- there was no divorce- and he swore that if either of them tried to consummate the illegal marriage, the sword would kill them.) The Talmud explains his weeping as sorrow over the loss of a good deed, and not as weeping for the loss of Michal herself.
I don't quite buy this because, first of all, we have a spoiled palace rat, forced to downgrade; I can't imagine that she could bring herself to find 'true love' and that probably is a better explanation for her lack of children. Second, given the situation, I can't help but imagine she 'wore the pants' in the Palti household- which would explain his wimpish actions of both crying after her, and going back when big, scary Abner barked at him. Third, you don't hear Michal open her mouth to protest- she just packs her stuff (or someone does, I doubt she did) and returns to being the very important wife of a King.
So why the name change? My thought is that God had delivered him, from the evil that would have fallen on him had he consummated the marriage- both from God, and from David who would have surely killed him. Thus, "God does the choosing".
The punishment phase comes when, back ensconced in the palace, Michal watches as David brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem...
2Sa 6:15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
2Sa 6:16 As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.
2Sa 6:17 And they brought in the ark of the LORD and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD...
2Sa 6:20 And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, "How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants' female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"
2Sa 6:21 And David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD--and I will make merry before the LORD.
2Sa 6:22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor."
2Sa 6:23 And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.
So there's the private punishment for Michal's arrogance- she'd grown up not one whit in all these years. But private punishments are for the repentant, and it wasn't going to be so easy for Michal. And perhaps she thought she'd gotten off easy. The next passage we head to has some confusion to its wording in some versions. But the consensus is, older sis Merab died young, and Michal (and Paltiel, I guess) raised her children for her, so in a way, she did have kids. Until...
2Sa 21:1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death."
2Sa 21:2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.
2Sa 21:3 And David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?"
2Sa 21:4 The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." And he said, "What do you say that I shall do for you?"
2Sa 21:5 They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel,
2Sa 21:6 let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD." And the king said, "I will give them."
2Sa 21:8 The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite;
2Sa 21:9 and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.
The problem being that the most correct translations take 21:8 and have Michal in place of Merab, even though we know the father of the boys IS the man Saul married Merab to after David turned her down...
1Sa 18:19 But at the time when Merab, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite for a wife.
Thus, the logical assumption, made in the Jewish Targum, was that Michal had brought up the boys for Merab, and were legally considered her own- and even these would be taken from her. And publicly, because they were allowed to hang long enough that the other mom, Rizpah, had to cover them with cloth to keep the rain and carrion birds off them.
Four rules God installed; one woman followed them, and it was counted to her for righteousness; the other mocked them and found herself mocked. Too bad, Michal didn't have Paul to teach her, as we do...
Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
Another good read
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