Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Samuel · About this commentary
Dancing Before Yahweh
2 Samuel 6:12-23
12 King David was told, “Yahweh has blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that belongs to him, because of God’s ark.” So David went and brought up God’s ark from the house of Obed-Edom into David’s city with joy. · WEB
The ark comes up the right way this time, with a king dancing in a priest's apron — and a window from which his wife watches and despises him.
When those who bore Yahweh's ark had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf 2 Samuel 6:13.
The second attempt corrects the first in the first sentence: those who bore — carried, not carted — and a sacrifice after six steps, before anything can go wrong. Fear taught David to consult the instructions. Reverence that has been shocked into obedience is still reverence.
David danced before Yahweh with all his might; and David was clothed in a linen ephod 2 Samuel 6:14.
The king strips to a linen ephod — a priest's garment, not a royal one — and dances the ark into his city at the head of the shouting. Two things are happening. He is worshiping without reserve, and he is deliberately not being a king for the length of the procession: no crown, no chariot, no dignity held back. Israel's monarch enters his capital dressed as a servant of the God who is the actual sovereign.
Michal the daughter of Saul looked out through the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh; and she despised him in her heart 2 Samuel 6:16.
The narrator names her twice as the daughter of Saul, not as David's wife, and the phrase carries the whole argument. She watches from indoors, above the crowd, and what she sees is a king embarrassing the office. Her father had been the kind of king who lost a kingdom guarding his dignity before the people 1 Samuel 15:30; she has inherited the standard.
"How glorious the king of Israel was today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of his servants' maids" 2 Samuel 6:20.
The sarcasm is aimed at the linen ephod and the servant girls, and it is not baseless — a king's dignity was a public asset. But her history should be held beside her contempt: given to David, taken by her father, given to another man, taken back by treaty while her husband walked behind her weeping 2 Samuel 3:16. Whatever love once moved her 1 Samuel 18:20 has been used up by men arranging her life, and the woman at the window has reasons the scene does not print.
"It was before Yahweh, who chose me above your father, and above all his house... I will be yet more undignified than this" 2 Samuel 6:21–22.
David's answer is unanswerable and unkind. It is true — the dance was for God, and the choosing did pass from her father's house to his — and he says it to a woman who lost everything in that transfer. Both are exposed by the exchange, and the book leaves them there.
Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death 2 Samuel 6:23.
The last line is stated without a cause assigned. Read as bare fact it closes the house of Saul: no child of Michal will ever hold the throne, and the two dynasties never merge. It is the end of a story that began with a woman lowering her husband out of a window to save his life 1 Samuel 19:12, and the book grants her the sad courtesy of not explaining her.
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