Michal: A 5-Act Story

Context: This is a painting by the French artist Gustave Dore (1832-1883). He painted it in 1865. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Michal_Gustave_Dor%C3%A9.jpg)

1. What do you actually see?

2. What do you think is happening?

​​​​​​​3. What do you wonder?

Michal "on one foot"

Michal was the daughter of King Saul. She was married to David before and while he was the king of Israel.

Prologue

Context: This is from the Biblical First Book of Samuel, after Saul was anointed king by Samuel and he had given the Israelites temporary respite from the Philistines. His son “Ishvi” is also known as “Ish-boshet”.

​​​​​​​Act 1

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of 1st Samuel. To get us up to speed, King Saul angers G-d, so Samuel secretly anoints David to be the next king. Saul has depression, so David is chosen to play music for him to help him. Next, David kills Goliath, and Saul's son Jonathan, the heir to the throne, becomes very attached to David. David becomes Saul's general but the people start praising David more than Saul, so Saul tries to kill David while he's playing music in the throne room. This brings us to our text.

Fun fact: Adriel (David’s brother-in-law) is from the same town in Issachar where the prophet Elisha will be born a few centuries later (1 Kings 19:16).

1. History (and stories) is not inevitable -- people (and authors) make choices. At what points could this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. How might Merav have felt about being promised to David?

3. How might David have felt when his promised wife, for whom he had fulfilled the stipulations, was given to someone else?

4. How might Michal have felt when the man she loved did not end up marrying her sister?

​​​​​​​Act 2

Context: After Act 1, David continues to have success on the battlefield and to become more popular. Saul talks to his son Jonathan and his servants about killing David, but Jonathan warns David. Jonathan convinces his father not to kill David. That brings us up to this text.

Saul lived at Gibeah (I Samuel 15:34), in the Judean hills northwest of modern Jerusalem. Given that David played his lyre at Saul’s court, it makes sense that David and Michal had a home near Saul’s home in Gibeah.

1. At what points could this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. What might Michal have been feeling when she heard that David's life was in danger from her father?

3. How might David have been feeling toward Michal at the end of this Act?

4. How might Saul be feeling about the fact that his daughter thwarted him?

Act 3

Context: After Michal helped David escape her father Saul, David sought refuge with Samuel for a bit. Then Jonathan helped David escape Saul through a secret code, almost getting himself killed in the process. David asked for food from the priests and was given the sacred showbread, there being nothing else around, as well as Goliath's sword. Next he went to the Philistine king of Gath to escape from Saul, but when the royal advisors turned against him David pretended to be insane in order to not seem like a death-deserving threat. The Philistine king expelled him, and David hid in a cave where, over time, 400 men came and joined him (his brothers plus a Robin Hood motley gang). David also got his parents sanctuary with the King of Moab. Someone told Saul that the priests had helped David, and Saul had those priests killed. David saved a town from the Philistines, but escaped when Saul tried to trap him there. The cat-and-mouse game came very close to an end when Saul and his men were on the opposite side of a mountain from David and his men, but then the Philistines attacked and Saul went to deal with them. Once the Philistines were dealt with, Saul tracked David to Ein-Gedi. David managed to creep up behind Saul and cut off a corner of his cloak, and then retreated to a safe distance to point out to Saul that David could have killed Saul but didn't. Saul acknowledged that David was more righteous than he. David next returned some shepherds to a sheep-owner (named Nabal) who chased David away when David asked for food. Nabal's wife Abigail went after David with loads of food and apologized for the way her husband behaved. A bit later, Nabal died and Abigail married David (who had also married someone else). This brings us to this text.

1. How might Michal have been feeling about this?

2. How might Saul have been feeling about this?

3. How might David have been feeling about this?

4. How might Palti have been feeling about this?

Act 4

Context: After Michal was given to Palti as a wife, the deadly hide-and-seek game of Saul and David continued. David found Saul sleeping and took Saul's spear, then returned it later by messenger to show that David could have killed Saul but didn't. David went back to the Philistines, along with his 2 wives (but not Michal) and his 600 men. When the Philistines went to attack the Israelites, the Philistine commanders made David and his men stay back so they wouldn't attack the Philistines. Instead, David and his men rescued their wives and children from an Amalekite attack. When the Philistines killed Saul and Jonathan at Mount Gilboa, David wasn't there. When David heard the news, he mourned for Saul and Jonathan. David was crowned King of Judah while Saul's son Ish-boshet was King of Israel. There was fighting between David's men, led by Joab, and Ish-boshet's men, let by Abner, but then Ish-boshet and Abner quarreled and Abner sought to settle the civil war by crossing over to David's side. This brings us to our text.

Note that based on 2 Samuel 5:4-5, Palti was married at least 7 years to Michal, plus at least a year before that based on 1 Samuel 27:7.

1. At what points in this part of the story could things have turned out differently?

2. How might Michal felt about this situation?

3. How might David have felt about this situation?

4. How might Palti have felt about this situation?

​​​​​​​Act 5

Context: After Michal was returned to David, Ish-boshet was assassinated (not on David's orders) and David became king over both Israel and Judah. David made Jerusalem his capital, and sought to bring the Ark to Jerusalem. When somebody got killed during the transport of the Ark, the Ark was left temporarily at the house of Oved-edom, which brings us to this text.

Note that this incident is also recounted in 1 Chronicles 15:29. This episode in II Samuel makes up the first half of the Haftarah for Parashat Shmini.

1. At what points might this part of the story have turned out differently?

2. Why might Michal have said what she said to David?

3. How might David have felt when Michal rebuked him?

4. Michal might not have had children because the relationship that she had with David was so broken. How might it have been repaired?

Thoughts About Michal's Infertility

Rabbi Harold Kushner

There is a story in the Bible about two people who loved each other very much. Because they loved each other so much, they had the power to hurt each other with a careless word or deed, and one time, when they did, they were too hurt and too proud to say “I’m sorry.” The story is found in the Second Book of Samuel, Chapter 6, Verses 12 to 23, and the last verse in the story is, in my opinion, the saddest verse in the entire Bible.

King Saul and his sons have died in battle against the Philistines. The immensely popular David is chose to be king over both the northern and southern Israelite tribal federations. In an effort to unify the country, David conquers the Jebusite citadel of Jerusalem situated on the border between northern and southern Israel, and he establishes it as his capital. (Washington, D.C.., was chosen as the capital of the United States for similar reasons.)

Then, to make Jerusalem the religious as well as political center of Israel, he arranges to bring the Ark of the Covenant, housing the original tablets of the Ten Commandments, to that city in a festive procession marked by singing, dancing, and celebrating. We read (2 Samuel 6:14), “David danced with all his might before the Lord, while wearing a linen ephod” (a kind of robe). David’s wife Michal, daughter of the former king Saul, was watching the celebration from her window. We are not told why she was not among the celebrants, whether she was uncomfortable in crowds or just felt it beneath her dignity. But when the celebration ended and David came home flushed in triumph, his wife greeted him by saying sarcastically, “Didn’t the king of Israel do himself honor today, exposing himself in the sight of the servant women, the way a worthless person might do?” Why does she say that? Perhaps she feels left out of all the celebrating. Perhaps, remembering her father, she has a different idea of how a king should behave. In effect, she is saying to David, “I didn’t grow up on a sheep farm the way you did. I grew up in a palace, and I know how a king should behave, with a measure of dignity.”

David is deeply wounded by his wife’s words. Not only has she spoiled the greatest day of his life, she has reminded him that he did not become king by the normal process of succession. He became king after the previous king and all his sons were killed in a war that David chose to avoid. Hurt and angry, he responds to Michal, “I wasn’t dancing before servant girls. I was dancing before the Lord.” But because he is hurt and angry, he cannot stop there. Michal has hurt him, and he feels the need to hurt her back. He goes on to say, “I was dancing before the Lord, who rejected your father and your whole family and made me king in their place.” (2 Samuel 6:21; italics mine). And then we read what I think is the saddest verse in the whole Bible: “And Michal the daughter of Saul never had a child to the day she died.” (6:23)

I take that to mean that David and Michal never approached each other intimately as husband and wife after that argument, and I find that so sad. Theirs was one of the great love stories in the Bible. Michal is the only woman in Scripture described as falling in love with a man. Twice she defied her father the king to protect David. David repeatedly risked his life to win her after King Saul set a dowry of one hundred dead Philistines for her hand. But one argument and a stubborn refusal to apologize and say “I’m sorry,” on both of their parts, destroyed all that love. David would spend the rest of his life collecting wives, sometimes other men’s wives, in what I understand to be a quest to recapture what he once had with Michal. She, for her part, would live out her days haunting the corridors of the palace, pitied by all who saw her as the “unwanted wife”. And all it would have taken is for one of them to say, “I’m sorry,” and for the other to accept the apology, to forgive, and to say, “I’m sorry, too.”

From Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life, p. 70-72

MazorNet

Michal

Why did God put the trial of infertility before so many major figures of the Torah? “God desires to hear the prayers of the righteous,” answer the rabbis of the Talmud. While many descriptions of infertility are explained this way, there are some instances where infertility is thought to come as a result of Divine displeasure.

Generations later, there is another allusion to infertility as punishment. Michal, daughter of King Saul, criticized her husband King David for dancing wildly before the Ark of the Lord as it was returned to Jerusalem. “As the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul look out of the window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him for it (2 Samuel 6:16). After rebuking him for acting without regal composure, the verses continue. “And to her dying day, Michal daughter of Saul had no children” (2 Samuel 6:23).

Even those who believe in Divine reward and punishment would not have the audacity to identify a personal shortcoming as God’s reason for causing infertility. “Even if a person would live thousands of years, one could never understand God’s accounting” (Yah Ribbon Olam, a Sabbath song).

Michal’s predicament could better be explained as a result of marital discord than a reproductive problem. Isn’t it logical that David could have ended his sexual relationship with Michal after she chastised him? This is especially since he had several other wives, including the beautiful Bathsheba to occupy his time.

http://www.mazornet.com/infertility/biblical.htm

Note about David's offspring

David had 6 wives and a son with each of them (2 Samuel 3:2-5), and after he conquered Jerusalem he had an unnumbered set of additional wives and concubines, with 11 sons and daughters between them and his original wives (2 Samuel 5:13-16)

Context: This is a video series produced by Bimbam in 2019. It's a cinematic midrash on the text.

Historical Veracity of This Story

From The Bible as History, by Ian Wilson

- Dancing like this was seen as undignified for monarchs at the time (as Michal points out). Inclusion of something denigrating the hero is unlikely unless it’s true.

- In 1986, the Israeli archeologist Avraham Biran found a plaque at Tel Dan which depicts a male in a tunic playing a lute while performing a spirited dance. It was found beneath a Late Bronze Age floor, so it can be dated to around 1300 BCE. Although this is three centuries before David, the costume matches that which has been inferred to be “ancient Israelite”.

- In the Timkat ceremony of Ethiopian Jews at Axum in the Ethiopian highlands, a young man leaps and gyrates to music played on the harp, flute, tambourine, and cymbal, in the midst of a host of people. This is done to honor the Ark of the Covenant.

- At Herculaneum, a Roman fresco was found which depicts a masked priest performing a similar dance for the goddess Isis.

- The motif of women looking out of windows is common in written and artistic depictions of high-born women in Canaan.

A Talmudic Thought About Michal

Michal in Literature

Edghill, India. Queenmaker. 2003

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781466821361/queenmaker

A Relevant Song

"We Can Work It Out"

By: The Beatles (1965)

Try to see it my way
Do I have to keep on talking till I can't go on?
While you see it your way
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone

We can work it out
We can work it out

Think of what you're saying
You can get it wrong and still you think that it's alright
Think of what I'm saying
We can work it out and get it straight, or say goodnight

We can work it out
We can work it out

Life is very short, and there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought that it's a crime
So I will ask you once again

Try to see it my way
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way,
There's a chance that we might fall apart before too long

We can work it out
We can work it out

Life is very short, and there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought that it's a crime
So I will ask you once again

Try to see it my way
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way
There's a chance that we might fall apart before too long

We can work it out
We can work it out

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/wecanworkitout.html

The Story of Michal as Readers Theatre

Prologue

Narrator 1: Saul’s sons were: Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malchishua; and the names of his two daughters were Merav, the older, and Michal, the younger.

Narrator 2: The name of Saul’s wife was Achinoam daughter of Achima’az; and the name of his army commander was Abner son of Saul’s uncle Ner.

Act 1

Scene 1

Saul: David, here is my older daughter, Merav; I will give her to you in marriage; in return, you be my warrior and fight the battles of the LORD.

Saul (thinking): Let not my hand strike him; let the hand of the Philistines strike him.

David: Who am I and what is my life—my father’s family in Israel—that I should become Your Majesty’s son-in-law?

Narrator 1: But at the time that Merav, daughter of Saul, should have been given to David, she was given in marriage to Adriel the Mecholatite.

Scene 2

Narrator 2: Now Michal daughter of Saul had fallen in love with David; and when this was reported to Saul, he was pleased.

Saul (thinking): I will give her to him, and she can serve as a snare for him, so that the Philistines may kill him.

Saul: David, you can become my son-in-law even now through the second one.

Scene 3

Saul: Courtiers, say to David privately, “The king is fond of you and all his courtiers like you. So why not become the king’s son-in-law?”

Narrator 1: The king’s courtiers repeated these words to David.

David: Do you think that becoming the son-in-law of a king is a small matter, when I am but a poor man of no consequence?

Courtiers: Saul, this is what David answered.

Saul: Say this to David: ‘The king desires no other bride-price than the foreskins of a hundred Philistines, as vengeance on the king’s enemies.‘

Narrator 2: Saul intended to bring about David’s death at the hands of the Philistines.

Narrator 1: When Saul’s courtiers told this to David, David was pleased with the idea of becoming the king’s son-in-law. Before the time had expired, David went out with his men and killed two hundred Philistines; David brought their foreskins and they were counted out for the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law. Saul then gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

Narrator 2: When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that Michal daughter of Saul loved him, Saul grew still more afraid of David; and Saul was David’s enemy ever after.

Act 2

Narrator 1: Fighting broke out again. David went out and fought the Philistines. He inflicted a great defeat upon them and they fled before him.

Narrator 2: Then an evil spirit of the LORD came upon Saul while he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing the lyre. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he eluded Saul, so that he drove the spear into the wall. David fled and got away.

Narrator 1: That night Saul sent messengers to David’s home to keep watch on him and to kill him in the morning.

Michal: David, unless you run for your life tonight, you will be killed tomorrow.

Narrator 2: Michal let David down from the window and he escaped and fled. Michal then took the household idol, laid it on the bed, and covered it with a cloth; and at its head she put a net of goat’s hair. Saul sent messengers to seize David.

Michal: He is sick.

Narrator 1: Saul, however, sent back the messengers to see David for themselves.

Saul: Bring him up to me in the bed, that he may be put to death.

Narrator 2: When the messengers came, they found the household idol in the bed, with the net of goat’s hair at its head.

Saul: Michal, why did you play that trick on me and let my enemy get away safely?

Michal: Because he said to me: “Help me get away or I’ll kill you.”

Act 3

Narrator 1: Saul gave his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Layish from Gallim.

Act 4

Scene 1

Abner’s Messengers: David, to whom shall the land belong? Make a pact with me, and I will help you and bring all Israel over to your side.

David: Good; I will make a pact with you. But I make one demand upon you: Do not appear before me unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come before me.

Scene 2

David’s Messengers: Ish-boshet, give me my wife Michal, for whom I paid the bride-price of one hundred Philistine foreskins.

Narrator 2: So Ish-boshet sent and had her taken away from her husband, Paltiel son of Laish. Her husband walked with her as far as Bachurim, weeping as he followed her; then Abner ordered him to turn back, and he went back.

Act 5

Scene 1

Narrator 1: It was reported to King David: “The LORD has blessed Oved-edom’s house and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God.” Thereupon David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Oved-edom to the City of David, amid rejoicing.

Narrator 2: When the bearers of the Ark of the LORD had moved forward six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. David whirled with all his might before the LORD; David was girt with a linen ephod. Thus David and all the House of Israel brought up the Ark of the LORD with shouts and with blasts of the horn.

Narrator 1: As the Ark of the LORD entered the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the LORD; and she despised him for it. They brought in the Ark of the LORD and set it up in its place inside the tent which David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before the LORD.

Narrator 2: When David finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of Hosts. And he distributed among all the people—the entire multitude of Israel, man and woman alike—to each a loaf of bread, a cake made in a pan, and a raisin cake. Then all the people left for their homes.

Scene 2

Narrator 1: David went home to greet his household. And Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet David.

Michal: Didn’t the king of Israel do himself honor today—exposing himself today in the sight of the slavegirls of his subjects, as one of the riffraff might expose himself!

David: It was before the LORD who chose me instead of your father and all his family and appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel! I will dance before the LORD and dishonor myself even more, and be low in my own esteem; but among the slavegirls that you speak of I will be honored.

Narrator 2: So to her dying day Michal daughter of Saul had no children.​​​​​​​