{"id":59964,"date":"2019-07-23T11:21:14","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T08:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=59964"},"modified":"2023-02-14T15:31:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T13:31:28","slug":"one-woke-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/one-woke-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"One Woke Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[834,483,894],"acf":{"old_id":"59964","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":59587,"related_cahpter":"269","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Why Michal denied David an heir","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The showdown between this royal couple has elements of a soap opera. As the only woman in the Hebrew Bible who is said to love a man (1 Sam. 18.20), Michal has by now seen through David\u2019s press smile. She peers down from her window at his acrobatic reveries over the arrival of the ark in Jerusalem, and her love has turned to disdain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David makes offerings and passes out celebratory cakes to his fans before returning home to bless his household. Michal has witnessed the womenfolk apparently admiring more than his piety and has had enough: \u201cHow the king of Israel glorified himself today, exposing himself before the slave girls of his servants, disrobing like some vulgar dancer\u201d (v. 20, translation my own). David is indignant and scores of interpreters have written her off as an ice queen who was too bitter to swoon from the majesty, but I\u2019m with her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His reply validates precisely the arrogance Michal is calling him out for: it was before the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LORD<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> he was dancing, the same LORD \u201cwho chose me above thy father, and above all his house, to appoint me prince over the people\u201d (v. 21). He lords his election over her in an effort to put her in her place and eradicate the memory and authority of his predecessor. He will be as \u201cvile\u201d and as \u201cbase\u201d as he wants and achieve honor from the handmaids she dared to mention. The chapter then closes with a thunk: \u201cAnd Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death\u201d (v. 22).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David\u2019s supporters\u2014his southern base and those who followed throughout history\u2014would have no reason to doubt that the obstruction of motherhood was a sentence against Michal. Even feminist scholars who describe this scene as her suicide proliferate commentary that confines, erases, and murders her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is barrenness ever equated with punishment. And nowhere in this chapter (or in the one that follows in which God puts a damper on David\u2019s ambitions to build him a house) does it say God closed her womb or that David denied Michal children by refusing to have sex with her. On the contrary. It seems more likely that Michal closed the door on David so that he could not have an heir her father\u2019s northern tribes would recognize.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Samuel and Kings tell the story of the people\u2019s mistake to put power in human hands when they should have worshiped God alone\u2014a mistake that ends in the Exile. Michal\u2019s attack on David\u2019s hubris is theologically shrewd. Her denial of an heir disrupts his political hegemony. Michal wasn\u2019t an ice queen; she was a prophet.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":59977,"id":59977,"title":"2sam6-David-dancing window","filename":"2sam6-David-dancing-window.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam6-David-dancing-window.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/one-woke-queen\/2sam6-david-dancing-window\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam6-david-dancing-window","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":59964,"date":"2019-07-23 08:41:32","modified":"2021-11-23 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