by Amy White, M.A. LMHC.
History of the person
Life happens, doesn’t it? Someone once said it’s not the stuff that happens to us, it’s what we do with it that matters. All of us have known people who have lived through circumstances beyond what we believe we could have endured. They not only come out the other side in one piece, but forge ahead to pursue all that God has called them to.
Then there are others who are done in by, in comparison, seemingly minor set-backs. Life events get the best of them and the roots of bitterness and anger sink deep within them. These people willingly sacrifice the blessings God has for them. Why does one person end up in a positive place, while the other yields to such negative emotions? There are many variables, but one key component seems to be the ability to stay focused on God -- His truths, and His plan for our lives. Michal, daughter of King Saul, is a person who lost her focus and paid dearly for it. As we study the life of David, we see Michal starting off in strength, but somewhere along the way, losing her perspective.
Michal’s father, King Saul, had it out for David. The story of Saul’s hatred is a perpetual saga of jealousy, deception, strife and pain. Saul went to great lengths to develop plan after plan to kill David. We step into 1 Samuel 18:17 on one such occasion: “One day, Saul told David, ‘If you'll be brave and fight the Lord’s battles for me, I'll let you marry my oldest daughter Merab.’ But Saul was really thinking, ‘I don't want to kill David myself, so I'll let the Philistines do it for me.’” David agreed to King Saul’s plan, but when the time came for David to marry Merab, Saul gave her to someone else.
Scripture tells us that Saul learned that his daughter, Michal, loved David. Saul decides to give David a second opportunity to be his son-in-law. The price: the death of one hundred Philistines. David kills two hundred, and is given Michal’s hand in marriage. Saul is not being benevolent here. He has not changed his evil posture toward David. He would use his daughter, Michal, in a way no father should. Saul had intended for his daughter to be a snare to his young nemesis.
Saul devises a plan to slay David while he is in his own home. We’re not sure how, but Michal caught wind of Saul’s scheme to kill her husband. Michal spilled the beans and helped David escape through a window and created a dummy in his bed out of a pillow and goat’s hair. She hoped to buy him some time so he could get farther away from her father. When the king’s men came for David, Michal told them he was sick and the soldiers left. King Saul had no concern over the state of David’s health and demanded his son-in-law be brought to him. The empty bed was discovered and Michal’s ruse uncovered.
Not surprisingly, Michal did not find favor in her father’s eyes. She had facilitated the escape of his enemy. Saul confronts his daughter. Here is where Michal loses her footing. When asked why she helped David, Michal lied. She told her father David threatened to kill her if she didn’t help him escape. Michal chose to malign the character of her husband rather than be truthful and trust God with the outcome. What happens next?
David is thrust back into the throes of fleeing from King Saul’s sword. Meanwhile, after her betrayal to her father, King Saul gives Michal to another man, Phalti. Saul is eventually killed, but the battle between the families of Saul and David continued. David gets to a place of leverage, and insists Michal be given back to him. Michal had cost David dearly. He had killed many men to win her hand. She is retrieved from the home of Phalti, who weeps behind her until he is ordered to return to his home.
We then have a glimpse into the person Michal has become. We find her peering out the window watching her husband. David is described as dancing and leaping before Jehovah in thanksgiving for bring the Ark of the Covenant back to the city of David . Michal is described as "despising him in her heart.
Then 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 to-day, who uncovered himself to-day in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!" So 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. And 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 spoke, by them I will be held in honor."
Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. (2 Samuel 6:20-23)
Life Lesson
Michal started off as pawn in her father’s hands, but she would not allow herself to be used by him as a weapon of destruction. Her father, in turn, gave her to another man. We don’t know what all the dynamics were in Michal’s relationships with her father and her husband. We do know that she became an angry, bitter woman. Her mocking posture toward her husband, and the one whom God chose as King of Israel, was also a statement of dishonor to God. Her words would cost her dearly.
Life Question
In spite of all that life brings your way, will you honor God in the midst of it?
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