Was Michal A Victim? Are You?

I’ve always thought Saul’s daughter, who was given to David in marriage, was a victim. Michal, knowing her father wants to kill David, lowers her husband from their bedroom window. She then places a household idol on David’s side of the bed. Her dad’s guards barge in, take her to the king, where she must defend herself before his council.

Michal lies, of course, but the specific words she chose prove she’s NOT a victim.

Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?” Michal told him, “[David] said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’ ” 

1 Samuel 19:17 (emphasis added)

Something’s Just Not Right

While researching my October release, Brave, I read and re-read David and Michal’s story in 1 Samuel 19:11-17. Something just didn’t seem right.

Strange Thing #1

David was a brave guy. Smart. Would he leave his wife if he really thought she was in danger? Not the courageous yet tender-hearted David I imagine in these first years of his running from Saul. Jonathan probably wasn’t there to protect his little sister (since when he and David meet later, Jonathan doesn’t seem to believe that Saul threw his spear at David: 1 Samuel 20). So, David must have worked out some sort of plan with Michal before leaving in which he believed she’d be safe when Saul asked her how David had escaped from their home. Right?

Strange Thing #2

If David said he’d kill her if she didn’t help him, why did she put an idol on his side of the bed? Why try to trick the king’s men if you weren’t trying to help David at all?

The Thing that Makes Her NOT a Victim

When Michal stands before her father and his council and says David threatened to kill her, she has labeled him a traitor. Trying to kill the king or a member of his household was an act of treason and gave Saul the official crime needed to rally Israel’s troops in order to KILL David ben Jesse.

Did Michal Ever Love David?

The Bible tells us Michal “was in love” with David, and I believe God’s Word is 100% Truth–so, yes. She truly loved David–as much as she knew how. Have you ever known someone who is simply too filled with concern for themselves that they find it very tough to know the true meaning of sacrificial love?

I think that was Michal. Here’s why…

She had proven resourceful enough to make sure her father knew of her love for David. Did she have any idea that King Saul’s motivation for granting the marriage was so underhanded (1 Samuel 18:20-27)?

“Now Saul’s daughter Michal was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased. ‘I will give her to him,’ he thought, ‘so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.'”

1 Samuel 18:20–21

What made Saul so certain Michal would be a snare to David? Many soldiers were married. All wives weren’t a snare. But Saul knew his youngest daughter. If the Philistines didn’t get David, Michal would.

What Else Could Michal Have Done?

We’ve often heard that women during Bible times had very few options because men ruled their world. It’s true. But Michal was the king’s daughter and married to the most famous warrior in Israel. Plus, she was shrewd (as we saw from the way she answered her father’s interrogation).

Could Michal have escaped with David?

A princess would likely have slowed David’s escape, and his unknown future would have probably made David insist his wife remained in the comfort and safety of her family’s palace compound in Gibeah. Though we know from 1 Samuel 20 that Jonathan wasn’t there to witness Saul’s spear-throwing attempt on David’s life or help protect his youngest sister, David still probably believed she would be safest in the care of her mother, other brothers, and a married big sister.

Why didn’t Michal even attempt to gain help from other family members? And perhaps she did, but it’s not recorded in Scripture. We must always remember that the Bible doesn’t record every detail of every situation (or we’d need truckloads of books to contain Genesis through Revelation).

Who’s Idea Was the Idol in Bed?

Was it Michal’s idea to put the idol on David’s side of the bed? More importantly, why did she have a life-sized idol in her possession? Maybe that was the snare Saul was hoping for. From what the Bible tells us, we have no indication that David ever worshiped a false god. Every indication is that he remained faithful to Yahweh–and Yahweh only–throughout his lifetime.

So why would he allow his wife to keep an idol in her possession? It was Saul’s palace, after all, and she was Saul’s daughter. Saul visited a witch on the night before he was killed in battle (1 Samuel 28), so why wouldn’t he allow his daughter to have/worship an idol?

Worshiping idols was a stoning offense in Israel (Deuteronomy 17:2-7), so Saul needed a more “serious” charge to levy against his most highly praised warrior–David. Again, Michal’s accusation that David had threatened to kill her was the perfect excuse.

Viable Answer…

Why didn’t Michal simply say, “He escaped somehow while I slept”? Short. Simple. Believable. And with that answer, she wouldn’t have been responsible for the traitor’s target on David’s back.

The Harvest of Michal’s Poor Choices

Given To Paltiel

I must admit, when Saul gave Michal to another man without ceremony or permission, I did feel sorry for her–until I realized what she’d done to David on the night of his escape. When she sided with Saul against David, she made a pact with the devil. The father she thought she could trust showed his true colors when it suited him to betray her.

We also see David’s true colors when Scripture reveals Michal’s new husband at the point when he marries Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel:

“Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five female servants, went with David’s messengers and became his wife. David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both were his wives. But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Paltiel son of Laish, who was from Gallim.” 

1 Samuel 25:42–44 (emphasis added)

Notice the word, “But,” after we’re told David has married Ahinoam and Abigail. I believe the author wants us to know that David married these two women already KNOWING Michal had been given to another man. I think David considered himself divorced from Michal before marrying again. Why marry two wives…that’s revealed inside the pages of Brave!

Taken From Paltiel

When Saul’s general, Abner, decides it’s time to support David and bring all of Israel under his reign, David demands that Abner return his first wife, Michal, to prove Abner’s sincerity. We know this happened within the first two years of David’s Hebron reign because Ish-Bosheth, Saul’s only remaining son, ruled for only two years during the seven years David reigned in Hebron (2 Samuel 2:10). Michal’s brother, Ish-Bosheth, agreed to give his sister back to David, and Abner carried out David’s wish:

“So Ish-Bosheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband Paltiel son of Laish. Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, ‘Go back home!’ So he went back.”

2 Samuel 3:15–16

I feel sorrier for Paltiel than Michal. She shed no tears. Granted, we have no idea what she’s been through after David left Gibeah. No idea how Paltiel treated her or what humiliations she’s endured. What we do know is that she becomes a very bitter woman in David’s household, and God judges her for it–and Yahweh knows every corner of every unrepentant heart.

“As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart…When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, ‘How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!’ David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel’…And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.”

2 Samuel 6:16, 20–21, 23

Victim vs. Consequences

I could be reading Michal’s circumstances all wrong. Perhaps she was a victim of her culture and had no other choice but to throw David to Saul and his proverbial wolves. But God is never unjust. He disciplines out of love–always. He disciplines when there is sin. David knew God’s discipline and never played the victim:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge…Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.”

Psalm 51:1–4, 7–8

David wrote this psalm after the prophet Nathan publicly exposed his adultery with Bathsheba. He slept with her knowing she was married to one of his best warriors. Despicable is a word that defines David in this moment!

But here’s one of the reasons David is my favorite Bible hero: It’s NOT because he was perfect. It’s because every time he messed up, he wrote down for the whole world to see how desperately he sought after God for forgiveness, for a changed heart, and for the restored joy of uninterrupted fellowship with the Creator of All Things.

We will NEVER be a victim as long as we remember who guides our path and who guards our lives. Not every hardship we endure is discipline, but God loves us through every hardship, and Jesus conquered sin and death so we never have to be a prisoner to anything or anyone in this life again.

Today’s Question:

• Are there decisions you’ve made that have consciously or unconsciously made you a victim? Confess that you’ve missed the mark (sinned), that you no longer want to live as a victim, and then pray for Jesus’s constant presence to fill you with His joy and gladness. Start your new life TODAY!