Abner was so outraged and insulted by the accusation of treason that he abandoned his cousin the king and went over to David's side, leading many mainstream Bible scholars to conclude that he was innocent of Ish-Bosheth's charges. When he pledged his allegiance to David, David was pleased to have him on his side, knowing that Abner is a well-respected army general and a well-known adviser to the king, making him a man with a great deal of influence in Israel. After David and Abner agreed to let bygones be bygones and to work together for the good of the nation, Abner prepared to speak with the elders of Israel and with the men of his tribe of Benjamin to rally them all behind David. In today's text David places a condition upon his alliance with Abner. This condition will prove Abner's loyalty to him and it will strengthen David's claim to the throne.
"'I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come to see me.' Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, 'Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins.'" (2 Samuel 3:13-14) Saul promised to make David his son-in-law if David would bring back the proof that he killed one hundred Philistines. David met this price and doubled it; he brought back proof that he killed two hundred Philistines. Saul secretly hoped David would lose his life fighting the Philistines because he was already beginning to harbor unfounded suspicions that David was plotting against him. It wasn't long after David and Michal were married that Saul gave in to his obsessions about David, causing David to have to live on the run for an unspecified number of years. You'll recall that David fled Saul's hometown of Gibeah when Saul sent his troops to David's and Michal's house to arrest David so Saul could put him to death. Michal helped him escape over the wall and stalled the troops by claiming he was sick in bed so he would have a head start on his pursuers. But while David lived in exile, Saul unlawfully gave Michal to another man in marriage, probably out of spite toward David but perhaps also to punish Michal for taking David's side against her father. She was in love with David when they first married and was willing to defy her father due to this love.
But she isn't in love with him now. (We'll see later that she actually despises him.) She may have felt abandoned by him when he fled Gibeah without her. It's understandable that at first she would have been a hindrance to his escape and to his ability to successfully hide out in the wilderness. David was used to traveling miles at a time over rough ground and camping out with the army whereas she was a princess who was used to being waited on by servants. But she probably thought a brave and brilliant man like David would orchestrate a plan in which to extract her from her father's city so she could be reunited with him. She may have daydreamed about such a thing for a long time until she realized he wasn't coming back for her. I'm not sure there's any way he could have entered Saul's fortified city to retrieve her without losing his life in the process but that doesn't mean she didn't cling to the romantic notion that he would do it somehow. In time her father married her to another man who, fortunately for her, loves her as we'll see momentarily. We can't be sure whether David ever loved her, for the Scriptures only inform us that she loved him. When her brother Ish-Bosheth receives David's stern message regarding the return of his wife, Ish-Bosheth does what David wants. "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!' So he went back." (2 Samuel 3:15-16)
This is a sad scene. We can't know whether Michal loved her second husband but it seems clear that he loved her. Women in those days had very little control over who their marriage partners would be and not all of them ended up with husbands who loved and respected them and treated them well. Michal has been fortunate in that respect. Paltiel cares deeply for her. We know practically nothing about him but Saul would not have given his daughter to a man who didn't have wealth and an impressive pedigree, but many a man with wealth and an impressive pedigree has treated his wife horribly. But Michal has been well loved and well provided for during the years she has been Paltiel's wife. She won't lack for anything materially as the wife of the man who will soon be king of all Israel but her emotional needs will not be met by the man who already has six other wives and who will take more wives besides. The only thing she'll be gaining by becoming David's wife again is that, as the woman who was his first wife, she will be considered his chief wife and queen. But she'll be losing the companionship and affection of Paltiel who has given her his heart in a way that David never has and never will.
When Abner orders Paltiel to go home, I can't help picturing him putting his hand on his sword as he does so. I think he says, "Go home!" in a harsh and threatening manner, leading Paltiel to believe he will lose his life if he doesn't stop following his beloved mate. We are not told how Michal reacted to being torn from the arms of a good husband, but even though she is the daughter of a king, she lived in an era when speaking out against her circumstances would have done her no good. Weeping would have done her no good. She is at the mercy of powerful men who are using her as a pawn in a political game. It's doubtful David wants her back because he loves her, though he has no plans to treat her poorly. After all, he owes her his life for helping him escape from Gibeah many years earlier. But he wants her back because their "divorce" was unlawfully orchestrated by Saul and she is still his legal wife according to the laws of Israel. He wants her back because being married to the daughter of Israel's first king reminds everyone in the nation that David is a member of the royal family. It wasn't uncommon in ancient times for a son-in-law of a king to reign in his stead if the king had no male heirs or if his male heirs were incompetent to serve as king. Being married to Michal gives legitimacy to David's claim to the throne. Also David wants her back because not taking her back makes him look bad. If he can't get his woman back from the kingdom of a man as weak as Ish-Bosheth, can he successfully defend Israel from her enemies?
Speaking of the weakness of Ish-Bosheth, it is never more evident than when he acquiesces to David's demand to return Michal to him. If Abner had still been standing with him, I believe he might have opposed David in this matter. But Ish-Bosheth, because he was beginning to feel jealous and paranoid over Abner's popularity with the house of Saul and with the people of the tribe of Benjamin, attempted to accuse him of a treasonous act, offending him deeply. I think Ish-Bosheth agrees to David's demand because he is afraid of him and because he hopes to smooth things over with Abner who is making the request on David's behalf. He may even be hoping for some sort of truce between Israel and Judah since his troops lost the first battle against David's men in spite of having Abner's shrewd military strategy working on the side of Israel.
Soon it will be immaterial whose side Abner is on because Joab, David's oldest nephew and commander of his army, will learn about the alliance between Abner and David. He will be outraged but he will use this opportunity to avenge his youngest brother Asahel's death. Not long after that, some of Ish-Bosheth's own men will assassinate him, at which point all the tribes of Israel come together and at last---fifteen to twenty years or more after being anointed king by the prophet Samuel---David becomes king over the entire nation just as the Lord promised.
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