His wife Michal – her own father gave her away to another man. It’s David who she loves, David’s her hero, David she dreams about, and her father gives her to some other man. So she has to marry someone, live with someone. But her heart is not for him. So both David and Michal were badly treated by the same person. When someone treats you badly, you can either operate in a Godly way and take God’s way of dealing with it – to bring grace into it, to release forgiveness, and to remain in a place of freedom in your heart. Or you can become angry and bitter – despise and dishonour.
Michal – Saul’s daughter – despised her father and as we’ll see, she also despised her husband. David in contrast, was a man who loved God. So he forgave Saul – he never raised his hand against him, he always sought to honour him. Now the day which should’ve been the greatest day in their life – they’ve come together, and now the arc of the covenant is coming in, David is experiencing God, his wife is looking in. “Oh, who are you? What are you doing this? You make a fool of yourself.” So she despised him in her heart.
Then when David came home, verse 20 – He returns to bless his household. So he’s full of joy and love, comes home to his wife, wants to bless his household. This is what she said: “Oh, how glorious is the king of Israel today. You uncover yourself like one of the servants, as one of the base fellas shamelessly uncovers herself.”
In other words, she gave him a real scolding. “How come you carry on like that? Why do you do that? You’re a king. Why do you dance like that? Geh geh geh.” Some of you know that? Yeah, we all know that one. This is what David said: “I did this to the Lord. I’ll do even more.” He refused to be intimidated by her bitterness and dishonour. He refused to let someone put him down. He refused to let someone take away his freedom.
Now look at what happens now. It says in verse 23 – Therefore, because of this, Michal the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death. Now you notice what’s happened here. David chose the path of honour – he honoured God, he honoured Saul, he valued people. Saul did not deserve to be honoured, but David gave him the gift of honour in respect. Michal became bitter, despised her father, despised her husband, and these are the consequences.
1.) She was unable to experience what God was doing. Unable to enter into God’s blessing because of what was in her heart.
2.) Her marriage became barren. There was no joy, no love, no life in that marriage. All the love she had was overcome by the bitterness and judging and dishonour.
3.) She had no children. Notice for a person, or a Hebrew person, that was a huge reproach. It was like she failed in her identity as a woman. Later on in the Bible, in scenes where she picked up and adopted the children of someone else, that those children were put to death.
Notice the consequences. One was a man of honour, one was a woman who dishonoured. Let me just read you a couple of scriptures in Deuteronomy 27:16 – “Cursed is the person who treats his father and mother with contempt.” Here’s another one: Proverbs 30:17 – “The eye that mocks his father and despises to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out.”
So notice what it’s saying: that when there’s dishonour to our parents, demonic spirits are empowered to trouble and strip our lives. Now just in that second verse, when it says the “ravens of the valley” – that means demonic spirits. It says they pick out your eyes. That’s what they used to do to people who had fallen and failed and were defeated in a battle of life. So what he’s saying here is, when there’s dishonour in our heart to our parents, we will lose our capacity to see because demonic spirits will cloud us with blindness. These are quite horrendous scriptures aren’t they?