Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Samuel 6:16
And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
16. leaping and dancing ] Two peculiar words, the first found here only, the second only here and in 2Sa 6:14, are used to denote the special modes of dancing anciently employed in religious solemnities. In 1Ch 15:29 two verbs in ordinary use have been substituted, shewing that these distinctive terms had become obsolete.
she despised him ] The proud daughter of the house of Saul was incapable of appreciating the honour of humility.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
She despised him in her heart – In the days of Saul the ark had been neglected 1Ch 13:3, and Saul had in everything shown himself to be an irreligious king. Michal seems to have been of a like spirit.
The whole section, 2Sa. 6:16-36, should be compared with 1Ch 15:29; 1Ch 16:43.
The peace offerings were with a special view to feasting the people. (Compare 1Ki 8:63-66.)
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Sa 6:16
Michal, Sauls daughter, looked through a window.
The believer and the scoffer contrasted
I. The temper and conduct of a scoffer at religion. Michal scorned David in her heart, because, being a king, she thought it unbecoming his dignity, and derogatory to his high place in Israel, that he should welcome the ark of God with leaping and dancing. And so it is, at this day, in many of the higher walks of life. The service of God is left, as an employment too servile for those who are among the mighty of the land, and fitted only for the poor, the illiterate, and the mean of the earth; as if the service of Him before whom archangels bow with adoring reverence, even the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, were beneath the notice of those who must perish for ever, if He look not upon them in love, and wash them not from their sins in that blood, which they are now trampling under foot in high disdain. It added deeply to Davids trial that among all the multitudes of Israel none was found to despise him save Michal, his wife. There was much and cutting unkindness in the manner of Michals reproach; and it is one of the frightful features of our lost and fallen nature that the severity and keenness of opposition for the truths sake, which the servants of Christ experience from the enemies of Christ, is in proportion to the nearness of relationship or connexion between the parties; just as the civil wars of our own land, and of every land, have invariably been more sanguinary in their battles, more unsparing in their confiscations, and more cruel in their executions, than those which were waged with foreign states. Michal did not content herself with despising David in her heart, and yet showing him outward respect; but when he returned from glorifying God and blessing the people to bless his own household, she met him at his entrance, and with a deep, ,bitter sarcasm and irony exclaimed to him, How glorious was the King of Israel to-day! Her duty as a wife, her duty as a subject, were both forgotten, and she dishonoured her husband and her sovereign before his people and his family. How awful is the enmity of a sinners heart against God in Christ! How fearfully doth it break through all barriers that oppose its indulgence, and bow continually do we see it sweeping away, not only all the charities but all the decencies of-domestic life! And yet we speak of the dignity of human nature! May God help us, and correct our delusions on this cardinal point of His own truth and Scripture!
II. The mind and spirit of a true believer. In a broad and palpable contrast did the character of David stand to that of Michal; and as the one exhibited the tone and temper of a scoffer at religion, the other will exemplify the mind and spirit of a true believer in the Lord Jesus. He gloried in the service which was thus visited with reproach, and counted to him for shame. David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me a ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel; therefore will I play before the Lord. And here is the solid scriptural ground of a believers joy, and glory, and gratitude to God. Who made him to differ? Nothing so fully crucifies self as a view of distinguishing love in the covenant of grace, writing our names in the book of life, sealing the record upon our hearts, and bidding us rest in the blessed persuasion that we have obtained mercy, and shall be one with Christ for ever. If called to serve Jehovah, to confess Him openly, and to own Him even among unbelievers, in His own house, he will not shrink, but take up the cross of this holy singularity, and bear it gladly after Jesus. Are you counted vile and mean, because you prefer the service of Him who bought you with His blood, to the infidelity of a world that lieth in the wicked one? Be yet more base, yet more vile, if any glory may thereby accrue to Him. (R. P. Buddicom.)
Respect for a husband a duty
There is something very remarkable about this Michal; she conceived a passionate love for David, when but a youth he stood before her flushed with the success over the lion and the bear, and holding in his hand the head of the slaughtered Philistine. But time passed on, and David fetched the ark from the house of Obed-edom, and he danced before it with all his might, and Michal, Sauls daughter, saw him, and despised him in her heart; and, more than that, she went out to meet him and insulted him. Now here we have a perfectly consistent character–a woman who by her natural disposition loved what was heroic, manly, and generous; but, the moment real religious principles were introduced, admiration was changed into contempt. She could only look on one side of the character, the natural one; the supernatural she could not appreciate. She reads many lessons to all members of the human race, and especially to women. In the general form of her character she was, as a woman, what Saul was as a man–able to appreciate the natural virtues of a man, and retaining the profession of religion as but the covering to a deep chasm of scepticism and infidelity.
1. The first striking feature of her character is the admiration of the heroic for its own sake, the undue estimation of the man in his vigour sad success, and the tendency to worship at that shrine.
2. But Michal was as narrow and confined on other occasions as she had been bold and noble in these. David danced before the ark, and she despised him. If we seek the cause of this inconsistency it will appear to consist in a kind of selfishness. She despised him! Woman is essentially jealous, she is created so, and she should be so, it is her province. She is created to receive an amount of attention and devotion, the best preservation of which lies in her jealousy of it. But jealousy may assume too much the air of selfishness. It may become selfish, narrow, and narrowing:
3. But again, Michal could not appreciate especially the religious act, while she could that of the mere world-hero. She was like her father. It belonged to her relationship, to her parent, not to her capacity as a female. Herein She was unlike her brother Jonathan, who did fully appreciate and value the religious element in Davids character. Women often apply the same standard which has been given them at birth by which to judge of the ordinary occurrences which fall within the usual scope of their duties to those which fail without them, and accordingly by false judgment despise what they cannot understand. So prudence is allowed to extinguish the light of more luminous virtues, and the arrangements of a household to derange those of the Church. The faults of violent temper, disrespect to a husband or a parent, irritability to children, injustice to servants, are counted as of small importance so as they are exercised to save a shilling; whereas the truth will be that the precaution far transcends in moral infirmity the fault which it is intended to check.
4. But again, Michal despised David in her heart, and followed up her inward contempt with words of insult and reproach. This seems to infer not only a contempt for David, but a cherished one, a contempt long unexpressed, and because hidden the more dangerous and melancholy. She did not try to check it, she allowed the feeling to heave and work within her until it broke out into the expressions of the text. There is a duty in respecting a husband. Independently of arranging his household, tending his hours of care, of sickness or weariness, quite apart from the desire to defend him from reproach, and to ward oft the imputation of blame. There is a duty in the deep, inward, cherished feeling of respect. The office of the husband is as much to be respected as that of the parent, or the civil ruler. The woman must see that she reverence her husband.
5. Michal despised peculiarly the act of David, his dancing before the ark, she said he was like the vain fellows; she cast opprobrious language on the man who with many infirmities was the man after Gods own heart. Sad is it when any one looks out to discover his brothers failing; sadder still when that brother is one on whom God has set the seal of His approval; saddest of all, when a child looks out to expose the parent, or a wife the husband. But Michals punishment was significant. She was childless, and that because she despised David. It mattered not what amount of truth there was in her charge. It mattered not how others supported her. It mattered not how much she found abettors in her circle of society or friends, she was not the person to censure her husband. She was not the instrument of his reproof. If there was anyone who should be, it was not Michal. She at least was to blame: She fell under Gods malediction, quite irrespectively of the truth or justice of her charge. (E. Monro.)
Husbands claim upon a wifes reverence
The wife see that she reverence her husband, says the apostle. Yes; but even Paul himself would have allowed that it was impossible for Michal to reverence David all at once that day. Paul would have needed to have got Michals ear early that morning when she tarried at home in the palace. Nay, he would have needed to have got her heart while she was yet Sauls daughter in Sauls palace. It is to tell a waterfall to flow uphill to tell Michal at this time to reverence David. Reverence does not come even at a Divine command. Reverence does not spring up in a day. Reverence is the result of long teaching and long training. Reverence has its roots in the heart and in the character; and the heart and the character only come and bring forth reverence as life goes on. That may be all true, but the apostle does not say that. He does not say that any of the wives to whom he wrote were too late now to reverence their husbands. He speaks it to all wives, and he expects that all wives who hear it shall lay it to heart, and shall do it. And yet their husbands, their very best husbands, are in so many things so difficult, so impossible, to reverence. They fall so short of their young wifes dreams and visions. They are so full of faults, and follies, and tempers and habits to which no wife can possibly be blind. Most husbands are at so little trouble, after they have been for some time husbands, to make it easy, or, indeed, possible, for their wives to continue to love, and respect, and reverence them. All our wives have dreary, lonely, sorely-disappointed days at home–partly our fault and partly theirs, but mostly ours–that we know nothing about. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
Michals lack of sympathy with David
It was the greatest day of Davids life. And, sad to say, it was the very greatness of the day to David that made it such a day of death to Michal, Sauls daughter. Michal, Sauls daughter, died that, day of a strange disease–a deep distaste at the things that were her husbands greatest delight. A deep distaste that had grown to be a deep dislike at David, till that deep distaste and dislike burst out that day into downright hatred and deliberate insult. You must understand all that the ark of God was to David, and the home-bringing of the ark, before you can fully understand the whole catastrophe of that day. You would need to be a kind of David yourself before you would look with right reverence and love at David that day. For David was beside himself that day. David never did anything by halves, and least of all his worship of God. It was like that day long afterwards in that same city when we read that His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. With all his might, then–and you know something of what all Davids might in such matters was–with all his might David leaped and danced before the Lord till Michal despised him in her heart. Those who are deaf always despise those who dance. The deaf do not hear the music. And, on the other hand, those who do hear the music, they cannot understand those who sit still. David could not understand how Michal could sit still that day. But Michals ear had never been opened to the music of the ark. She had not been brought up to it, and it was not her custom to go up to the house of the Lord and sing and play like David. Had Michal been married in the Lord: had Michal reverenced her husband; had she eared to please her husband; had she played on the psaltery and harp, if only for his sake–what a happy wife Michal would have been, and David what a happy husband! Had David not been so unequally yoked, Michal would have put on Davids shoulder that day an ephod that she had worked for that day with her own hands; and as she nut it on him she would have sung and said, I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. And then all that day in Jerusalem it would have been as it was at the Red Sea when Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances. But it was not so to be. For Michal sat at home that great day in Israel, and forsook her own mercy. Michal was not in the spirit of that day. And thus it was that she despised David in her heart when the very gates of brass and iron were lifting up their heads at, Davids psalm to let the King of Glory come in. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. She despised him in her heart.] She did not blame him outwardly; she thought he had disgraced himself, but she kept her mind to herself.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As one of a base and mean spirit, that knew not how to carry himself with that majesty which became his place, but behaved himself like one of the fools or vain persons in Israel.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David,…. Being brought thither on the shoulders of the Levites:
Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window; in the king’s palace, to see the procession, which was very grand, and in great pomp, attended by a vast number of people, and with music of all sorts. She is said to be Saul’s daughter, though David’s wife, as having a good deal of her father’s haughty temper and disposition, as appears by what follows:
and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; the ark of the Lord, by these outward gestures expressing the inward joy of his heart on this occasion;
and she despised him in her heart; as acting a mean part, quite beneath himself, and unbecoming his royal dignity.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When the ark came (i.e., was carried) into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and there she saw king David leaping and dancing before Jehovah, and despised him in her heart. , “and it came to pass,” for , because there is no progress made, but only another element introduced. is a perfect: “the ark had come, … and Michal looked through the window, … there she saw,” etc. Michal is intentionally designated the daughter of Saul here, instead of the wife of David, because on this occasion she manifested her father’s disposition rather than her husband’s. In Saul’s time people did not trouble themselves about the ark of the covenant (1Ch 13:3); public worship was neglected, and the soul for vital religion had died out in the family of the king. Michal possessed teraphim, and in David she only loved the brave hero and exalted king: she therefore took offence at the humility with which the king, in his pious enthusiasm, placed himself on an equality with all the rest of the nation before the Lord.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(16) She despised him.The contrast is here strongly brought out between the spirit of Sauls house in which Michal had been brought up, and that of David. In Sauls time the ark had been neglected, and true religion was uncared for. Michal, therefore, who had fallen in love with David as a brave hero, could not understand the religious enthusiasm which led him to rank himself among the common people before the Lord.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. She despised him in her heart She was the daughter of a king, and held artificial notions of royalty; and she thought he dishonoured his royal dignity by mingling in the dance. See note on 2Sa 6:20.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And it was so, as the ark of YHWH came into the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before YHWH, and she despised him in her heart.’
But amidst all the rejoicing there was one dissentient heart, the heart of Saul’s daughter, Michal. She had been brought up as the daughter of a king who laid great stress on his royal status, and when she saw her husband David, to whom she may well have felt somewhat bitter because he had taken her away from Paltiel, leaping and dancing like any common Canaanite worshipper before the Ark of YHWH she despised him in her heart. This was not what she was used to, nor how she saw kingship. In her eyes kings kept themselves aloof, and certainly did not participate in Canaanite dances.
Note the emphasis on ‘as the Ark of YHWH came into the city of David’. For David this was the climax of all that he had done related to Jerusalem. It was the moment when YHWH was entering it and taking possession. We can almost hear the cries, ‘Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory will come in’ (Psa 24:7). And it was at such a moment that Michal could think of nothing else than David’s dancing. It is a deliberate anticlimax.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
(16) And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. (17) And they brought in the ark of the LORD, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it: and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. (18) And as soon as David had made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts. (19) And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to everyone a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. So all the people departed everyone to his house.
It should seem that the Ark of the Lord at this time had no fixed spot for its abode. Moses had, in his days, prepared a tabernacle at Gibeon for it. But so many years had passed since that period, and moreover, the Ark was so long in Kirjath-jearim, that as the Ark itself seems to have been overlooked (except, no doubt, by the faithful few) it is not to be wondered at the place was lost. David therefore pitched upon a spot for it, and no doubt hallowed it; for those burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings, imply as much, as well as thanksgiving. And some have thought that it was at this time David composed that beautiful Psa 132 . Though others ascribe it to Solomon, who is said to have written it at the dedication of the Temple, because he closes his prayer on that occasion with some of the words of this Psalm. Compare 2Ch 6:41-42 with Psa 132:8-10 . But this is no certain conclusion. For this might be accounted for by supposing that the son quoted the words of his father. Be this however as it may, the Psalm itself is so precious, and contains in it so much in allusion to the Lord Jesus Christ, which the Ark typified, that I beg to refer the Reader to a diligent review of it upon the present occasion. The feasting with, and the presents David made to the people upon this service, serve to show us what ground there is for holy joy in all our religious ordinances. Paul beautifully observes, upon this subject, the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of grace in this life, leading to the kingdom of glory in another, is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom 14:17 . And Reader! if it was so in the days of David in their holy solemnities and sacrifices, which at the best were but a shadow of good things to come; with what holy joy ought believers in Christ, who is the whole sum and substance of all the offerings under the law, to rejoice before God; and especially, in the celebration of the supper, that glorious soul-reviving, soul-strengthening, soul-comforting feast, which is a feast upon the sacrifice the Son of God once offered, and by which he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Heb 10:14 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Sa 6:16 And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
Ver. 16. Michal Saul’s daughter.] Being too much her father’s daughter, and still , as the Greeks said of Helena after the destruction of Troy.
Looked through a window.
And she despised him in her heart.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
leaping and dancing. See note on 2Sa 6:14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
And as: 1Ch 15:29
Michal: 2Sa 3:14
despised: 1Ch 15:29, Psa 69:7, Isa 53:3, Act 2:13, 1Co 2:14
Reciprocal: Gen 6:16 – window Gen 16:4 – her mistress Exo 15:20 – all the 2Sa 6:20 – Michal 2Sa 6:21 – before Est 1:17 – despise Psa 149:3 – in the dance Pro 7:6 – at the Ecc 3:4 – to dance Son 2:8 – leaping Luk 6:23 – leap
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Sa 6:16. She despised him in her heart Imagining that he debased himself by stripping himself of the ornaments of majesty, and dancing among the common people. She had no knowledge nor conception, it appears, of those emotions of divine love which David felt, and which he declared to her afterward.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:16 And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she {h} despised him in her heart.
(h) The worldlings are not able to comprehend the emotions that move the children of God to praise God in all kinds of ways.