We will never know what her first glimpse of him was, but she must have been dazzled. Into Saul's court comes the handsome young musician, the boy with the ability to soothe Saul's fits of melancholy. David strides in on the waves of popular adulation. He has just slain Goliath!

Saul's daughter, Michal, sees him and wants him. Her father seemingly acquiesces by promising David that he can have this younger daughter in marriage if he brings a gruesome dowry. David has no money, but Saul doesn't want any. He wants the foreskins of 100 Philistines. Saul secretly hopes that in some
battle one of these warriors will dispose of this too popular youth. Undaunted, David sets about his task.

In due course, he returns with the unusual wedding present and Michal is his. What a complex household results. Michal loves her hero husband. Jonathan, Saul's son, has become David's closest friend. The head of the house, Saul, has decided that his son-in-law must die.

As David plays his lyre one evening, Saul attempts to pin him to the wall with his spear, but he misses. Next, he has the house surrounded where David and Michal live. She knows what's up, so she lets David down from a window with a rope and arranges a stray household idol in his bed, carefully putting goat's hair on its head.

When Saul's soldiers arrive to see David, Michal first says he is sick. When they persist, she admits them to the bedroom. It must have been quite a scene as they tiptoe into the "sickroom", draw their swords and then catch a better glimpsse
of what is in the bed. Saul is furious, Michal shrugs and offers a timid excuse, and David is forced into a new life as a fugitive.

Saul retaliates by annulling the marriage and giving Michal to a new husband, Palti. A decade will pass before Saul's death and David's assumption of the throne. To legitimize the process, he demands to have his wife back, but the old infatuation for her is gone. Michal's contempt is solidified when David has the Ark
of the Covenant brought into Jerusalem and he dances down the road before it.

She looks from her window and feels nothing but scorn for one who could so demean himself. He should have been wearing royal robes, not dancing in the streets.

What an unhappy ending to all that youthful ardor and romance and ingenuity. It gives one pause for thought.

Bible references. 1 Sam. 18: 17ff.
                                     19: 9-18
                         2 Sam. 6: 1 6-23