Bible Women – Michal’s story in brief

What was Michal’s story?

Loving the wrong man

• She grew up as a tribal princess – her father was King Saul, her mother Ahinoam
• She fell passionately in love with David, but there is no mention of him responding
• Saul offered her to David, almost certainly on her prompting. Saul demanded a bride price of one hundred Philistine foreskins – goading David into a dangerous task
• David was already close friends with Michel’s brother Jonathan
• David got the foreskins – how?- and married Michal
• Saul and David quarrelled, and David fled
• Michal took sides with David against her father, and saved David’s life
• David became a fugative on the run, but he did not contact her or send for her
• David took other wives, and Michal realized she had been discarded, not much more than David’s stepping stone to power
• Some time later Michal remarried and had a successful and loving marriage
• Saul was at war with the Philistines; he & his three sons were killed. Michal was now in a precarious position. One of Saul’s sons, her brother Ishbaal, was still alive but he was young and inexperienced. She was without any strong protection
• David took the capital, Hebron, and opposed Saul’s one remaining son Ishbaal
• David demanded that Michal return to him; possession of Saul’s daughter would enhance his claim to the throne
• Michal was reunited with David, by force; her husband was heart-broken to lose her

Reconstruction of the Ark of the Covenant, Tissot The final quarrel between Michal and David was about respect/disrespect in the presence of the Ark

• David murdered Michal’s brother Ishbaal; Michal was virtually a prisoner in David’s harem.
• David established Jerusalem as his capital and moved the Ark to Jerusalem
• David behaved in an unkingly and indecent way in the Ark procession
• Michal reproved him, and they had a blazing quarrel
• Michal continued to live in the harem, but she never had any children

19th century drawing of the women’s quarters (harem) of the Turkish Sultan in Istanbul. A woman could be trapped in the harem for life especially if, like Michal, she was there against her will. King David’s harem would have been much smaller.