Michal & Bathsheba: Sister-wives of the Chosen King.
Another day of rest is upon us, and if you’re anything like me then all you want to do after church is eat and be lazy, ignoring the fact that tomorrow is Monday and life is seriously doing the most right now. But if you’re in Nigeria, you can’t even ignore anything because the heat and naira crisis won’t let you be happy. But we continue to confess abundance. After all, let the poor say I am rich, amen??
This season, the theme of loss seems to be recurring throughout the whole world. From the advent of technological advancement that has cost more people their jobs, to the rise in inflation and the subsequent economic crisis in some parts of the world, particularly in Nigeria, let’s just admit it; things are rough for a lot of us right now. The simple bare necessities of life aren’t simple anymore, and singing Hakuna matata doesn’t make you feel any better about it. Poverty is at an all time high, and people are losing a lot of things, from actual funds, to businesses and even family members, because they can’t afford to feed themselves or pay for their sick to be treated. It’s a lot, and if there ever was a time to know Jehovah as Jireh, it definitely is now.
Speaking about people that have experienced loss, the stories of Bathsheba and Michal have always struck me as being particularly interesting. Most of us know Bathsheba as the beautiful babe that was bathing on the rooftop of her house, for some very odd reason, and managed to capture King David’s attention from his own roof, in the middle of his joblessness (2 Samuel 11:2). His army was out fighting a serious battle, but His Royal Highness was taking a stroll on his roof in the cool breeze of the evening. But that’s a story for another day. Back to this fine girl named Bathsheba. So, she was bathing, and the King saw her, and he squinted and looked hard enough to tell that this babe was fine, like next-level America’s Next Top Model fine. Do you know how I know? Because the beauty he saw made my guy, a whole King of Israel and Judah with full anointing oil on his head, turn into a detective.
“So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
(II Samuel 11:3 NKJV)
He sent people to find out who she was. That’s how fire this babe was. Mind you, King David wasn’t single o. He already had wives. In fact, he had several. One in particular was Michal, the daughter of Saul that had been given to him when Saul’s brain hadn’t started touching too much (1 Samuel 18:20-27), before he even became King and apparently she had loved him (vs 20). Then again, who wouldn’t? The King was a very fine man, and as a true warrior, I’m sure he was fit and agile. So he had a number of wives and children when he spotted Bathsheba.
Now, finding out that Bathsheba was married, and that her husband was even a soldier in his army, should have halted his investigation completely, right? So you would think. After all, he was the King, and as an anointed man of God, he could have had any other woman. But David didn’t let such little things like marriage and vows come between him and his heart’s desire. No, he was a determined man, and he wanted Bathsheba. He had her too, when his messengers brought her to him. He wanted it, he got it. That was supposed to be that. Except, it wasn’t. Why? Because Bathsheba became pregnant. What were they supposed to do now? Obviously, when her husband returned to find a pregnant wife, he would do the maths, and 2 + 2 would definitely not equal 4. So whatever they were going to do, it would have to be done fast, to prevent embarrassment to the King, and possible death to Bathsheba. Because although the law stated that both the man and the woman engaged in adultery should die (Lev. 20:10), the system of patriarchy practiced this time would not deliver this punishment equally to men and women. So the King might be embarrassed, but he would not be punished, but she definitely would. Sound familiar?
Either way, King David had no plans to let things get that far, so he handled the situation. He made the problem disappear. How? By killing Bathsheba’s husband. And no, he didn’t hide in a dark alley to stab him or anything like that, but there was blood on his hands as if he did. King David set this soldier up so neatly that his death was inevitable (2 Samuel 11:6-17). So yes, he killed him. Problem being solved, he moved his babe into the palace after a while and all the lose ends were tied up neatly. That’s the way the story reads. Except that, most of the time, we forget about how Bathsheba must have felt. She was living her life on her own, and all of a sudden, the king turned her life upside down. She found herself pregnant, and she lost her husband. Although the Bible says nothing about the relationship between the both of them, it makes it clear that she mourned this loss. As easy as it was for King David to set things up and get what he wanted, she was the one who ended up losing a husband. And afterwards, she lost the child born from the pregnancy that had upended everything in the first place (2 Samuel 12:18). So here she was, married to a King she probably didn’t really know, without the husband she had had, the child she had lost him for, and the life she had been living in peace. That level of loss is enough to break many people, and even cause them to become bitter and vindictive towards who they perceive to be the cause of their pain, in Bathsheba’s case, King David. But surprisingly, she wasn’t bitter about it and she apparently didn’t harbor any ill will towards her new husband, because she let him comfort her, leading to the birth of the son who was to become the wisest King, the child Jedidiah, or as we all know him, Solomon.
Now, some might ask, how was it so easy for King David to take another man’s wife? Did he not feel a certain type of way about it? Well, he apparently didn’t. At least, not until God sent Nathan the prophet to lambast him and reset his head, and he repented of his sin (2 Samuel 12:1-15). But why was it so easy for him? Because he had done it before.
Remember Michal? Yeah, so we didn’t finish her own story. I skipped a bit. After she was married to David, her father King Saul, started misbehaving seriously as a result of his mental and spiritual issues (2 Samuel 19:1, 20:31, 24:1). He became obsessed with the idea of killing David, to the point where Michal even had to help him escape from their house in the middle of the night (2 Samuel 19:11-17). After what Saul saw as her betrayal, she was given to someone else to be married (1 Samuel 25:44). When Saul and his sons were killed in battle, David demanded that Michal be returned to him, to be his wife again, and so she was taken from her husband and given back to David. The 21st century woman in me is bristling, but another day, another time. Anyways, It was so bad that her husband followed her, weeping on the road, as his wife was taken away from him at the whim of his fellow man (2 Samuel 3:14-16).
Now, don’t get me wrong, Michal had been married to David first, and King Saul was wrong to have given her in marriage to someone else, but David was in hiding from Saul for years, and he had left her behind when he ran for his life. And the fact that the man that she had been married to walked on the road weeping, following after her and the soldiers that had been sent to take her, that just screams that some sort of marital bliss had happened between the both of them in the time they had lived together. And remember, she had lost her father and brothers in battle, and now she was being uprooted from her life, and handed over to someone she had not seen or been with in years, like a sack of corn. Handed over to the same person that was sitting on the throne her father and brothers had died to protect. I cannot even begin to imagine what that must have felt like. To see him again, to watch as he was crowned king over what she must have seen as her father’s kingdom, to live everyday as the daughter of the mad king, the one who had tried to kill her husband. Visualizing this reality is enough to give anyone a headache, so just imagine living in it.
Both these women suffered severe losses to be with King David, to be sister-wives to God’s chosen King. But where one chose to receive comfort, and went on to be the mother of the King, the other chose bitterness and it soured her relationship with her husband, and cost her the future. Bathsheba mourned her husband, and her child, but she received comfort from her husband, and found such favor in his sight that even though her child was not the firstborn son, King David swore an oath to her that he would become king after his death (1 Kings 1:17). She served her husband, and then served her son when it was his turn. She was respected by her son so much that, even after he became king, he bowed down to his mother, and seated her on his right (1 Kings 2:19). But Michal…
Michal chose a different path. Her feelings were made abundantly clear when she saw her husband dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart (2 Samuel 6:16). Everyone in Israel was rejoicing, celebrating the journey of Ark of God into the City of David, and David was celebrating the most. Dancing at the very front, girded in a linen ephod, and sacrificing expensive animals every 6 paces. And instead of this babe to join in the celebration, or at the very least, celebrate the eye candy that was on display in front of her eyes, she was filled with contempt because she thought it was undignified of him. Emotions like despising and being contemptuous of someone do not just come out of nowhere. And mind you, to wear an ephod, King David must have been clad in linen breeches, to cover him in the presence of the Lord. So he wasn’t naked, she was just bitter. She mocked him afterwards, and David was painfully honest in his response. And it cost her, that bitterness, it cost her a lot. She may not have even been aware, but that moment where she allowed her feelings and actions to come before the joy of the Lord, was responsible for her barrenness up until the day she died.
Many times things happen, life happens, and we suffer heavy losses. It could be the loss of an opportunity that could have changed your life, or the loss of your business, or your car or house or even a loved one. Grief and pain are difficult emotions to handle, and as human as we are, often times we mismanage our hurt. We don’t know how to handle them, how to cope, so sometimes we lash out, like Michal. Other times we bury them so deep inside us that they begin to sour our insides in physical ways, and this leads to sickness. Some other times, we hold on to the burdens of pain and grief, and they beat us down so hard that we can’t even raise our heads to feel the sun, or smell the roses. And it’s okay, because we’re human. But as Believers, as Children of God (John 1:12), as those who have been given the right to be heirs of God’s kingdom, we do not need to suffer alone, bending over and broken down by the weight of our own pain.
Christ says to “cast our burdens on Him, because He cares for us” (1 Peter 5:7). I sit here, marveling at the sheer relief that this single verse offers, and it’s amazing that it’s followed by His own offer of comfort to us. He tells us to “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Rest. God offers us rest in Him. Rest from the struggles of grief. Rest from the burden of pain. Rest from cracking your head to figure out how you’re going to feed yourself today. Rest from the high blood pressure Nigeria and her president are trying to give you every single day. Rest. It’s such a simple, yet powerful promise. Going to work everyday and counting down the hours until you can go back home and just rest. And God offers us this, forever and always. To just exist in a place and space where you’re not in charge, you’re not in control, and you don’t have to solve every problem and cure every ailment because He’s on your side. He’s in control. Matthew 6:25 tells us to be anxious for nothing. Absolutely nothing. Bitterness over the past sours the present and obscures the future. There’s no way you can trust God for your tomorrow if you cannot see Him in today and be thankful for His goodness yesterday.
Resting and trusting in God saves us from the poison of bitterness. And yes, it is a poison that spreads throughout your mind and body and clouds your thoughts and judgement. But if you would seek God in those moments of confusion, at those times when everything seems to be crashing all around you, in your discomfort and tears and embarrassment, if we would only seek God then, we would understand the inspiration behind songs like What A Friend We have in Jesus. We would stop singing words with our mouths, and start offering our souls with our hearts.
And I know, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes all we want to do is curl up into a ball and disappear, or lock ourselves away from the world forever. But guess who’s always going to be with you in a locked room when no one else can get in? God is. And He’s so in tune with us, so ready and prepared to handle everything we could possibly ever be going through, that He has given us His Spirit to be our Comforter. Our personal therapist, snuggle blanket and comfort everything all in one. He’ll be there to talk when you can, and He’ll listen to your heart when you can’t. Hold you when you cry, and hold you up when you can’t hold yourself anymore. The gift of salvation gave us a package deal, one that not many people actually make use of. We not only are children of God and heirs of the Kingdom and all of that. But we also carry God within us, in the person of the Holy Spirit. We have access to the Holy Spirit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No leave, no transfer. He’s there to talk at 2am in the morning when you’re having bad ideas, and 2pm in the afternoon when you’re ready to bite anyone who comes too close.
God is here, with us, in us. He never leaves.
I know we all feel the burden of heaviness sometimes, and some of us might be feeling it now, but I’m here to tell you it won’t last forever. Why? Simply because it can’t. We say this so often that we might not even hear the words anymore, but in the presence of God there is fullness of joy. The Holy Ghost is God, and for the simple fact that He lives in you, you cannot drown. You cannot go under. So pick up your phone, listen to God, let Him uplift your soul, talk to your Heavenly Father and just trust, because it’s about to be a wonderful week ahead. God is doing a new thing, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19)
Greetings from the foot of the Cross,
Gabrielle…
