Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MICHAL

(Heb. mîḵal)

A daughter of Saul (1 Sam. 14:49; mother unknown) and wife of David (18:27), Palti/Paltiel (25:44; 2 Sam. 3:15), and, once again, David (1 Sam. 3:14-16). Michal’s name appears in a list of Saul’s offspring with her older sister (Merab) and three older brothers (Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malchishua; 1 Sam. 14:49-51). References to her appear in four accounts: the premarital tests Saul sets for David (1 Sam. 18:17-29); David’s escape from Saul’s court (19:8-17); Ishbosheth’s return of Michal to David (2 Sam. 3:12-16); and Michal’s criticism of David (6:15-23). While many misread “Michal” in 2 Sam. 21:8, this text is better read as a reference to Merab, Michal’s older sister.

Michal’s story is not a happy one. Purchased with a bride-price of 100 Philistine foreskins, she loved David, while David recognized the advantages of being the king’s son-in-law. In aiding David’s escape from Saul, she was separated from David and married to another from whose side she was torn, only to be “given” back to David. After she criticized David’s action concerning the ark’s entrance into Jerusalem, the narrator comments that “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death” (2 Sam. 6:23). If this is historically reliable, it may indicate that from that point on, David and Michal ceased to have marital relations.

Bibliography. A. Berlin, “Characterization in Biblical Narrative: David’s Wives,” JSOT 23 (1982): 69-85; D. J. A. Clines and T. C. Eskenazi, Telling Queen Michal’s Story. JSOTSup 119 (Sheffield, 1991); J. C Exum, “Arrows of the Almighty: Tragic Dimensions of Biblical Narrative” (forthcoming); “Michal: The Whole Story,” in Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narrative (Valley Forge, 1993), 42-60; K. G. Shargent, “Living on the Edge: The Liminality of Daughters in Genesis to 2 Samuel,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, ed. A. Brenner (Sheffield, 1994), 26-42.

Linda S. Schearing

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MICHAL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)