Daughter, sister, wife, pawn, possession. Let’s take a look behind all the labels and find a woman whose story speaks across the centuries as a flinty counterpoint to male power and privilege. I will take a little bit of poetic license in the following, but the details all come from the books of 1 & 2 Samuel. I will also take a little more space than usual to tell the story of a woman who keeps being relegated to the shadows.
Royalty felt strange and novel to the granddaughter of a farmer. It felt strange for everyone in the kingdom because her father was their very first king. Until him, the big decisions had all been made by seers – odd looking men and women who shunned “society” and cared nothing for anyone’s good opinion; people who listened only to the voice of God.
But suddenly her dad was the king – for no reason she could understand, though she had been told the story a hundred times. The great seer, Samuel, met Saul when he had lost his way looking for his father’s donkeys. God told Samuel to make Saul king and it was done. (1 Sam 9-10) No great battle won. No great wisdom demonstrated. No glorious ancestors prefiguring his elevation. He had one thing, though: the crown looked really good on his handsome head!
Her family had no training in royal etiquette. They had to make it up on the job. It was up to them to define what it looked like to be royal; to set the standard for future generations; to somehow command respect from an entire nation, though secretly they were never really sure they deserved respect from anyone.
Her big brother, Jonathan, was the only family member who made it look easy. He was a natural prince. He was beautiful, like their dad, and he had even better battlefield skills. He was smarter and more emotionally regulated than their dad, and could get around Saul’s rash decisions without Saul feeling humiliated. That took superhuman skill since their dad was violently protective of his own dignity.
She was not like Jonathan. She hated the performance of royalty and was far too inclined to call a spade a spade. She did have one thing in common with Jonathan, though. They loved the same young man. But then, that was something they had in common with the entire nation.
David had exploded into public notice when he killed that Philistine giant with a slingshot (1 Sam 17). Then he joined her dad’s army and kept killing more and more Philistines. More than Jonathan. More than their dad. More than anyone. Jonathan didn’t mind the competition. He was besotted. But their dad minded. A lot. There he was, wearing a crown he wasn’t sure he deserved; trying and failing to gain the love of his people, and then this kid comes along, looking more like a true king than he ever could. He did not take that well.
It seems that their dad might not have found out about how Jonathan felt for David. Jonathan was such a politician – good at secrecy. Michal was an open book, though, and her dad discovered that she was in love. That made her vulnerable. That made her useful as a pawn in the paranoid king’s power games.
“David, my boy! How about becoming my son-in-law! Marry Michal! All I ask is that you go out to battle and bring back 100 Philistine foreskins.”
The history books are mercifully short on detail about this adventure. All we know (1 Sam 18:17-30) is that Saul was sure David would be killed in the attempt, but instead David returned with a bag of foreskins to claim his bride.
Could a happy marriage begin with so much violence and menace? Michal was determined that it could – and would. She loved her soldier husband and hushed the voices saying that her value had been measured in foreskins.
So, she was covenanted to David in marriage. But her brother was ahead of her, even in this. Before her marriage, Jonathan had sworn a solemn and lifelong covenant with David. That first covenant would be held as sacred and binding throughout David’s life, while it was clear that to him Michal was property he had purchased with a bag of foreskins.
After the wedding, Saul became violently enraged against David again. Jonathan interceded and there is a brief reprieve (1 Sam 19:1-9). Afterwards (always afterwards) Michal protected her husband, lied to her father for him, and enabled him to escape (1 Sam 19:11-17). As she let David out through their window, did she know he would not come back for her? Did she know that her brief honeymoon was over; that she would not see David again for years? Did she know that he would apparently not give her another thought until her father and brother were dead and he was set to be king. (2 Sam 3) Did she imagine that when he did come back to Jerusalem, he would demand his first wife back with words of ownership, not affection? “Give me Michal who I purchased with 100 Philistine foreskins.”
While David had been off building his power base and marrying other women (1 Sam 25:2-42), Michal’s father gave her to another man in marriage. There is no indication of how she felt about this transaction, or about whether there was any affection in this new relationship. Once again, Michal had been used as a pawn in her father’s power games against David. Giving her to another man was not about providing for Michal; it was about humiliating David.
The only glimpse we have into this second marriage is in 2 Sam 3:16. When Abner returned Michal to David her second husband, Paltiel, walked behind her weeping. Abner ordered him to go home, and he left them and went home alone. We are not told whether Michal was also weeping. This sad scene prefigures another chapter (2 Sam 11-12) where David will callously take a second married woman. Then he will also murder her husband. With Michal and Paltiel, though, there is no Prophet Nathan to reprimand David, and consequently there is no sign of repentance.
Michal’s final scene in Scripture (2 Sam 6:16-23) is one for which she has been harshly criticised for millennia. Let’s think about it from her perspective. Her life with David had taken her from adoring naivety to life-hardened cynicism. He bought her with a bag of foreskins, abandoned her to save himself, and then demanded her back as his right by purchase, though she had another husband. She was no longer deceived by this violent man’s performative spirituality. She knew how much David loved attention and how skilled he was at playing to a crowd.
Michal looked out the window and saw David dancing suggestively as he brought the Ark of the Covenant – the physical representation of God’s power and presence – into his city to be kept under his control, and to increase his power. This was a moment of enormous spiritual and historical significance, and her husband appeared to be making himself, rather than God, the centre of attention. As she winced at David’s apparent performative narcissism, she “despised him in her heart” (2 Sam 6:16).
I am never going to say hatred is a good thing, but I am going to ask how else we might expect her to feel about this man? Should we expect her to fawn over him like the adoring masses who have not seen who he really is? Should we expect her to maintain her adolescent crush, though she is now a lifetime sadder and multiple traumas wiser.
When a woman’s eyes are opened to her husband’s abusive treatment of her and other women - his neglect and abandonment, his philandering, his valuation of her as his property – how should she respond to him? You may say she should leave but for Michal there was no possibility of a safe, legal separation or divorce. David owned her; and he was the king.
Every time you feel the words “Why doesn’t she leave?” on your lips, think of Michal and remember that thousands – millions – of women throughout the world are, like Michal, trapped in impossible situations where there is no way out.
Michal had no children (1 Sam 6:23). This reminds us of Sarah. Both these women were married to men who were destined to father important families. Both suffered from infertility. In Sarah’s case, God made it clear, again and again, that Abraham must not take shortcuts around his wife’s infertility. Sarah, and Sarah alone, would be the mother of the promised child (Genesis 18:5-15).
Where was God when Michal needed someone to defend her right to mother the Davidic dynasty? Where was anyone? Can you feel her utter isolation, while David added more and more wives and concubines to his harem, until succession inevitably became a bloody battle among his sons. In the second half of her life, Michal’s childlessness may well have been caused more by David’s indignant neglect of her than by infertility.
While David was out winning battles and being adored, the only way for Michal to gain status would have been by giving birth to male children. The need to produce heirs was shared by husband and wife, but David could have sex with as many women as he lusted after, giving himself unlimited opportunities to father the next king - and giving him freedom to humiliate Michal by refusing to come to her bed.
Where was God when Michal needed to be seen, defended and provided for? What good to Michal was the God of Sarah? As you reflect on those hard questions, I encourage you to turn them around. If we believe we are the body of Christ, then we need to be prepared to be the answer to the question, “Where is God?”
Instead of “Where was God?” ask “Where was I?”. Where was I when seven women per month were murdered by current or ex partners in Australia this year? Where was I when many, many more women had their autonomy taken away by coercive controlling partners?
Michal locks eyes with us across the millennia and challenges our judgement on women in impossible situations who are forced to harden their hearts so they can maintain some sense of personhood under the crushing exercise of male power.
Such women deserve our respect. And women in impossible situations today deserve to be heard and seen. Women in Afghanistan and Iran, and in abusive homes across the world, deserve to be seen and heard. In Michal’s name, how are we working to give back honour to women who have been shamed, marginalised and mislabelled? How are we working to remove barriers to the full expression of autonomy of all women today?
Let’s think, let’s talk, and let’s pray:
God of truth and justice, Make us deaf to labels that malign your daughters, As instead we name them “Sister”, “Beloved” and “Teacher”. Wherever male violence shames, imprisons and limits, Raise us up to bring honour and liberty And to lay down paths of possibility and hope. Where naivety is crushed and tender hearts are bought and sold, Cause our hearts to overflow, As yours does, With the sense of infinite value In every girl child, Every adult woman, And every female elder With whom you give us the honour Of sharing this beautiful world Whose fruition and liberty Are tied to theirs. Amen.
You can read more about King David and his impact on women in these posts:
Rizpah: Grief and Non-Violent Protest
With Love from Rev Margaret
Thanks, Margaret, for this insightful and challenging article which touches hearts and shines a light on many women’s daily lives today.
Thank you Margaret. Great story and much needed perspective for facing 2024! So glad we met on Friday night.