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zeborah
Michal (1 Samuel 14:49 - 2 Samuel 6:23) is King Saul's younger daughter. She's fallen in love with the rising star David, her father has his own machiavellian reasons to approve the match, and after letting her older sister Merab get away, this time David lets himself be convinced.
But her father's not completely balanced. After their marriage, he sends men to kill her new husband. Michal finds out about this and warns her husband to run for it. She lets him out a window and makes a decoy out of an idol and some goats' hair. When the soldiers arrive, she tells them that he's ill; and when her father sends them a second time, they discover the decoy. Her father's pretty mad at her letting his enemy escape. She implies that she only let David go after he threatened her life, but this does her little good: at some point while David's on the run, her father marries her off to someone else entirely.
David, despite accumulating a good number of other wives in the meantime, doesn't forget about her. When her father's dead and her brother Ish-Bosheth inherits the war against David, David demands her back. (He refers to her as "betrothed" to him, so they probably hadn't had time to consummate the marriage.) Her second husband is pretty cut up about losing his wife in this way: he goes with her, weeping, until he's forced to go back home.
And, though Michal was head over heels for David in her youth, he's not nearly so perfect in her eyes now. I suspect it's something to do with how he's been at war with, and responsible for the deaths of, her father and a couple of her brothers. Becuase when Ish-Bosheth is murdered, making David king over all of Israel, Michal watches his triumphal procession from a window. She sees him "leaping and dancing" and "she despised him in her heart". (This line is so important the Bible mentions it twice.) When he gets home she scolds him for disrobing in front of slave girls like a vulgar commoner. He retorts that he was celebrating before the Lord, and will be as undignified in that cause as he likes.
And then they never have sex again; or at least I'm guessing that's why she never has any children. It may well not have been her decision (David isn't fond of other men stealing his wimminz) but I can't imagine her being terribly cut up about it.
But her father's not completely balanced. After their marriage, he sends men to kill her new husband. Michal finds out about this and warns her husband to run for it. She lets him out a window and makes a decoy out of an idol and some goats' hair. When the soldiers arrive, she tells them that he's ill; and when her father sends them a second time, they discover the decoy. Her father's pretty mad at her letting his enemy escape. She implies that she only let David go after he threatened her life, but this does her little good: at some point while David's on the run, her father marries her off to someone else entirely.
David, despite accumulating a good number of other wives in the meantime, doesn't forget about her. When her father's dead and her brother Ish-Bosheth inherits the war against David, David demands her back. (He refers to her as "betrothed" to him, so they probably hadn't had time to consummate the marriage.) Her second husband is pretty cut up about losing his wife in this way: he goes with her, weeping, until he's forced to go back home.
And, though Michal was head over heels for David in her youth, he's not nearly so perfect in her eyes now. I suspect it's something to do with how he's been at war with, and responsible for the deaths of, her father and a couple of her brothers. Becuase when Ish-Bosheth is murdered, making David king over all of Israel, Michal watches his triumphal procession from a window. She sees him "leaping and dancing" and "she despised him in her heart". (This line is so important the Bible mentions it twice.) When he gets home she scolds him for disrobing in front of slave girls like a vulgar commoner. He retorts that he was celebrating before the Lord, and will be as undignified in that cause as he likes.
And then they never have sex again; or at least I'm guessing that's why she never has any children. It may well not have been her decision (David isn't fond of other men stealing his wimminz) but I can't imagine her being terribly cut up about it.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-08 04:21 pm (UTC)