Michal

Overview

Michal, Saul's younger daughter, loved David and was given to him in marriage after he met Saul's demanded bride price of a hundred Philistine foreskins, a task Saul had hoped would get David killed. When Saul later sent men to kill David in his own house, Michal helped him escape through a window and placed an idol in the bed to deceive the assassins, risking her father's wrath to save her husband. During David's years as a fugitive, Saul gave Michal to another man, Phaltiel, but David later reclaimed her as part of his negotiations to become king over all Israel, tearing her from a weeping Phaltiel. Years afterward, when David danced before the ark of the covenant with unrestrained joy as it entered Jerusalem, Michal watched from a window and despised him in her heart, later confronting him with contempt for his lack of royal dignity; David rebuked her sharply, and she remained childless for the rest of her life.