Michal and Jonathan in 1 Samuel

          Michal and Jonathan serve useful tools in understanding marriage and relationships in 1 Samuel by allowing us to compare how they interact with David individually. Jonathan, the son of Saul, appears first in the story, proving himself especially devoted to David. We are told that "the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Sam 18:1 NRSV). In the following chapter, we learn that because of his love for David, Jonathan warns David of his father's attempt to kill him and then speaks well of David to Saul, easing Saul's wrath against David and thus, perhaps, saving David's life (1 Sam 19:1-7 NRSV). The relationship between the two is not, however, one-sided. In chapter 20, David desperately seeks Jonathan's help in evading Saul's continued attempts to murder him, and we are told that, after David escapes yet again from Saul with Jonathan's assistance, "David…prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He bowed three times, and they kissed each other, and wept with each other; David wept the more" (1 Sam 20:41 NRSV).

            Some of the elements of Michal's relationship with David are mirrored in his relationship with Jonathan, but certainly not all, for it becomes clear that the husband-and-wife relationship here does not reach the depth that we find in David's relationship with Jonathan. Michal finds herself married to David after she is offered by Saul as an alternative to Saul's elder daughter Merab. She does, according to the text, love David, though we are not told of David's feelings for her, other than that he has killed a hundred Philistines in order to marry her. David's feat, however, seems to have been done not out of love for Michal, but to gain favor in the king's house. He "was well pleased to be the king's son-in-law," not to be wedded to someone he loved (1 Sam 18:26 NRSV). After her marriage, Michal, like Jonathan, saves David's life by cleverly organizing an elaborate plan that deceives her father Saul and allows David to escape. We are not told that David expresses his gratitude to his wife for the noble deed as he did with Jonathan, only that he has "fled and escaped" (1 Sam 19:18 NRSV). In the end, it seems as though Michal's love for David is not reciprocated. According to Hackett in her commentary of Michal's story, Michal was later offered in marriage to a different man (p. 157).

            Although Michal as an actor in the story is clearly developed, her relationship with David, compared to his relationship with Jonathan, is not. This can perhaps be attributed to the fact that the text attempts to depict the two men's relationship as David's replacement of Jonathan as the heir to the throne of Israel. Hackett notes, "…the narrator's focus is the statement that Jonathan thought of David as though they were somehow the same. This equivalence is continued in verse 4, when Jonathan gives over to David his royal robe, armor, and weapons, metaphorically 'anointing' David the true royal successor" (p. 156). With this as a basis, I feel that David's relationship with Jonathan would be, at least in terms of the text, inevitably deeper than his relationship with his wife, though it is interesting, as previously noted, that in spite of Michal's similar acts to save David, she does not find the same favor that Jonathan does in the eyes of David. 

Works Cited:

Hackett, Jo Ann. "1 and 2 Samuel." The Women’s Bible Commentary. Eds. Carol A Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2012. 150-163.