04.04.03 Biblical Story of a Value-Adding Wife
How Michal Added to, then Subtracted Value from David’s Life
The bible relates an intriguing story of a woman who initially added value to her husband during the first phase of their marriage, then ‘dropped the ball’ during the second phase. That woman was none other than Michal the younger daughter of King Saul.
The narrative relates how David killed Goliath, a thing which made his popularity grow to the extent that King Saul started feeling threatened and extremely resentful towards the young and increasingly famous warrior. So, as the jealous-driven king sought for a window to eliminate David, he discovered that his daughter Michal loved the young man. That was how Saul schemed to use his daughter as a bait. 1 Samuel 18:20-22 relates how that happened. That scripture reads (ERV): 20People told Saul that his daughter Michal loved David. This made Saul happy. 21He thought, “I will use Michal to trap David. I will let Michal marry David, and then I will let the Philistines kill him.” So Saul said to David a second time, “You can marry my daughter today.” 22Saul commanded his officers to speak to David in private. He told them to say, “Look, the king likes you. His officers like you. You should marry his daughter.”
When Saul learnt that David counted it an honour to be the king’s son-in-law, he (Saul) demanded one hundred foreskins of the Philistines in exchange for Michal, hoping that David would be killed in the process. But much to Saul’s amazement, David brought 200 foreskins, after which Saul gave him Michal as a wife. The king did not stop there but continued to line up David for the battlefield. The more wars that the young warrior fought victoriously, the more Saul wanted him dead. It got to a point where Saul sent assassins to David’s house. Fortunately, someone had tipped Michal about her father’s wicked plan early enough, prompting her to let David down through a window that night. She then shrewdly put a dummy in their bed covering it with beddings and goats’ hair for its head, to hoodwink the assassins that David was lying in the bed sick. They only discovered the hoax after Saul’s instructions to carry David-cum-dummy to the palace so that he (Saul) could finish him off. With David gone, Saul gave Michal as a wife to another man, Palti (1 Samuel 25:44). But years later, David, then King, negotiated her return to his homestead (2 Sam 3:12-16).
However, David and Michal’s love relationship was never the same. In fact some writers suggest that although King David had recovered Michal as his wife, the woman was still in love with Palti. It is therefore not surprising that their marriage seems to have been limping. The bible reports how things went haywire the day Michal criticised David for dancing before the ark as he celebrated its return from the house of Obed-Edom. 2 Samuel 6:16-23 reports the couple’s hot conversation (NKJV): 16Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. 20Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellowsshamelessly uncovers himself!” 21So David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord. 22And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor.” 23Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
That was how Michal ended up dropping the value that David had expected her to add to his life; during the second phase of their marriage.