"Saul sent men to David's house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, warned him, 'If you don't run for your life tonight, tomorrow you'll be killed.' So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped. Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats' hair at the head." (1 Samuel 19:11-13) Michal is an insider to palace gossip. She probably has a source in her father's household who comes to warn her or who warns the servants of her own household who, in turn, tell her that mercenaries are waiting to kill David at first light. Some scholars suggest she wasn't warned by anyone but that she knew her father's wicked character so well that she anticipated her father sending "hit men" to kill her husband. Whether she knew for a fact that a plot was afoot or whether she assumed it based on Saul's vengeful personality, she does the right thing: she takes David's side against her father. She does this because she loves David, according to 1 Samuel 18:20 and 1 Samuel 18:28. Most marriages of that time were arranged marriages, and in a way the marriage between David and Michal was too, but she had fallen in love with him long before the marriage took place and she is still in love with him in Chapter 19. She will not still be in love with him the next time she sees him a number of years later.
Why won't she still love him? Time and distance will have separated them for many years and during those years her father will unlawfully give her in marriage to another man and David will marry a second wife during the years he lives in exile. Whether or not Michal feels any affection toward her second husband and is resentful of being taken back by David in the second book of Samuel, she will feel a great deal of scorn for David's zeal for the Lord. His joy in the Lord will be what she finds most annoying about him. This indicates she does not have her own relationship with the Lord and we are given a clue as to why this is in our passage today: she has a household idol. I doubt David was aware of the presence of this idol; he despises idolatry so much that in Psalm 16 he will say that he refuses to even say the name of a false god out loud. I cannot imagine David allowing an idol in the house but I don't have any problem imagining Saul allowing idols in his home. I think Michal was already in possession of the idol while she still lived in her father's house and I think she transported it to her new home with David. It meant enough to her to take it with her. That is not a good sign. She is not on the same page, spiritually speaking, as her husband. Even if they had not ended up living apart from each other for many years due to Saul having a death warrant out for David, I don't think the marriage would have been a happy one. From a spiritual perspective they are too far apart.
When Saul's men raid David's house at dawn, Michal prevents them from entering the home. She claims David is in bed sick. She's trying to stall them as long as she can so they won't realize he has escaped and so he will have time to put more distance between himself and his pursuers. "When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said, 'He is ill.'" (1 Samuel 19:14) The men, reluctant to drag a man from his sickbed, report this news to Saul. He has no qualms about putting a sick man to death. "Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, 'Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.' But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats' hair." (1 Samuel 19:15-16)
Saul feels betrayed by his daughter. He thinks she should have taken his side. In his mind David wants to usurp the throne, even if that means killing Saul, and Saul feels this should make all his family regard David as public enemy number one. "Saul said to Michal, 'Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?'" (1 Samuel 19:17a) Michal doesn't do as her brother Jonathan did; she doesn't point out to Saul that David is not his enemy. She doesn't try to reason him out of his paranoid delusions. Instead she tells a lie to deflect Saul's anger away from herself. She tells a lie that does nothing but bolster Saul's false belief that David is a wicked man. "Michal told him, 'He said to me, 'Let me get away. Why should I kill you?'" (1 Samuel 19:17b) She says, "Dad, you have to understand that I was under great duress when I let David get away from you! It was a life or death situation. He threatened to kill me if I didn't help him. You can bet that if I hadn't let him go, by the time your men barged in and arrested him I would have been dead. He'd have cut my throat for not taking his side against you. Is that what you want? Would you rather have David in custody right now even if it meant your baby girl lost her life? Surely you'd rather have me safe and sound than to have David's head on a platter! Surely you love me so much that you'd do anything to protect me, even if that means your mortal enemy is on the run."
Saul believes his daughter's lie. He can't blame her for doing whatever was necessary to save her life. He's glad she's safe and sound even if that means David is on the loose. He scolds his daughter no more and instead heads out in pursuit of her husband. David has fled to the home of Saul's former friend, the prophet Samuel, as we will see as we continue Chapter 19 tomorrow.
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