Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 8 · January 8
Michal at the Window
“And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.”
Michal stands at a window, looking down at a street full of people who are not in the room with her.
Michal had been David's wife. Then she was taken from him and given to another man. Later she was taken back as part of a political deal, and no one is recorded asking her. The husband she was taken from followed her down the road weeping, until Abner told him to go home. Now the ark of God is coming into Jerusalem, and "David danced before the LORD with all his might," wearing "a linen ephod." That was a priest's garment, worn by a king, in the street. Michal watches from the window, and the story says "she despised him in her heart." When he comes home, she meets him and says it: "How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants." At this point the story calls her "the daughter of Saul," and not David's wife.
David's answer is today's verse, and one word in it has changed its meaning since 1611. "Vile" now means wicked, but the Hebrew word is about weight: being made light, held cheap, counted as little. David explains it himself in the next words: "and will be base in mine own sight." He is promising to humble himself even more, and to look even less impressive in front of the very servant girls she mentioned. He has already told her why: "It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father."
The same scene still happens today. Somebody becomes openly glad about God, and somebody else in the house has a speech ready for when the door shuts. Be careful with the comparison, though. Michal's words come out of her father Saul's idea of how a king should look, and out of a painful history of her own. The history behind the person at your window will not be the same as hers, so do not assume you know it.
Then the chapter stops: "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death." The King James opens that line with "Therefore," but the Hebrew simply says "and." The text gives no reason, and we must not invent one. David is right about the dancing, and the story never takes Michal's side. Still, the chapter closes on a house. Years before, Michal had let David down through a window to save his life, and after this day she never speaks again in the story. Being right at the door is one thing; living together in the house afterward is another, and Scripture shows what the second can cost. So be glad before the Lord the way David was, and be gentle with the person at the window, because the God who chose David sees them both.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 8 is What Manner (1 John 3:1).