When Saul later sends men to David's house with orders to kill him, Michal, putting an idol with goat's hair in the bed as a decoy, lets David down through a window to escape. With David in hiding, Saul gives Michal to a fellow named Palti. David meanwhile takes two more wives, Abigail and Ahinoam (both of whom he must then rescue from Amalekite marauders).
Anointed king of Judah in Hebron upon Saul's death, David asks the new king of Israel, Saul's son Ishbosheth, to send Michal back to him. Ishbosheth returns her to David--with poor Palti following after her weeping, till he is ordered to turn around and go home.
David in Hebron begets six children by four more wives. (On his firstborn, see AMNON AND TAMAR.) On becoming king of Israel in Jerusalem, David takes even more wives and concubines.(See ABSALOM AND THE TEN CONCUBINES and BATHSHEBA: "I AM WITH CHILD.") In all David has twenty children by his wives and an untold number by the concubines. Yet Michal all the while remains childless.
Michal becomes disgusted when she looks out a window and sees David showing himself--"leaping and dancing" ecstatically, wearing only an ephod (a priestly apron)--in front of the ark of God. (The Chronicler adds a robe to David's attire.) "How glorious," Michal tells David, that the king of Israel "uncovered himself today" before handmaids in public. David replies that he can be even "more vile" than that in dancing before the Lord. Michal, we are then told, has no children "to the day of her death." (1 Sam. 18:20-27; 25:44; 2 Sam. 3:14-16; 6:12-23; 1 Chr. 3:1-9; 15:27-29) (On to BATHSHEBA)
King David Dancing Before the Ark (Breviary of Martin of Aragon) / Bibliotheque Nationale de France
Gustave Doré
Michal Helps David Escape
