God’s Word for You

1 Chronicles 15:29 David danced

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, January 10, 2024

29 As the ark of the covenant of the LORD was coming into the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul was looking down from a window. And when she saw King David dancing and laughing for joy, she despised him in her heart.

Our English idiom “to look down” is not necessarily behind the word here for Michal’s action, even if we think it fits perfectly with her attitude. It’s really just telling us that she was looking down from above, just as we have in other passages like Psalm 102:19, “The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high,” and “The king of the Philistines looked down from a window” (Genesis 26:8).

Michal, we recall, was the younger daughter of Saul. She fell in love with David, and Saul gave her to David for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins (which David doubled, 1 Samuel 18:20-28). She saved David from one of her father’s attacks by putting an idol and some goat’s hair in her bed (1 Samuel 19:11-17). Saul took her back and gave her to another man, but David reclaimed her as his wife when he became king.

The author of Samuel gives a fuller account of this incident, focusing on the conversation David had with his wife later on, which led to her being barren to the day of her death (2 Samuel 6:20-23). But from this verse in Chronicles we are reminded of several things. A wiser person might think of more, but I thought of these:

1, David was dancing. Dancing was sometimes a part of worship in the Old Testament. Miriam danced with the women after they crossed the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20). The girls danced at the annual festivals of the Lord near the tabernacle (Judges 21:19-21). There is worshipful dancing in the Psalms: 30:11; 149:3; 150:4. Dancing was also a part of ordinary life. Jephthah’s daughter danced when her father came home from a battle (Judges 11:34), and the women danced when King Saul came home from the wars (1 Samuel 18:6). Jesus mentions dancing in the celebration for the return of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:25), which is to be compared with the celebration that takes place in heaven when a sinner repents. The prohibitions against dancing that entered the Christian church was usually a pietistic attempt to control or dampen people’s lives of sanctification, imposing rules where the Bible has no such rules.

2, David was “celebrating,” or as I have translated it, “laughing for joy.” Celebration and laughter are not sinful of themselves. Of course, anything a human being can do, can be done in a sinful way. But that doesn’t mean that the act itself is sinful. This is as true for celebration and laughter as it is for walking and talking. The translation “laughing for joy” hopefully reflects the root word sachaq “laugh” which is the basis for the name Isaac “laughter.”

3, Michal was upset about David’s clothing. The Bible does not insist upon finery, but often describes fine clothes and jewelry as possessions of royalty or the very rich (Luke 7:25) and the first things that get stolen (Ezekiel 16:39). John the baptist’s clothes were not expensive or luxurious (Matthew 11:8). People are described as entering into worship both in fine clothes and in shabby clothes (James 2:2-3), but all are welcome. In fact, one of the reasons our pastors usually wear robes to lead worship is to conceal the clothing they wear (whether rich or poor) underneath. “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment and fine clothes, but from your inner self” (1 Peter 3:3,4).

4, Michael may have been jealous of the slave girls seeing David in some stage of undress. In this matter David’s wife may have been concerned about the girls themselves and their temptation to lust for the king, since the Bible describes David as “ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features” (1 Samuel 16:12). She did not want any woman coveting her husband. And the Tenth Commandment “is addressed not to those whom the world considers wicked rogues, but precisely to the most upright—to people who wish to be commended as honest and virtuous because they have not offended against the rest of the commandments.” The base sinner must be warned with the Sixth Commandment, but every single sinner also needs the Tenth so that we remember that God is as much concerned with our thoughts and words as he is with our actions. But again, there is the ancient warning: “Jealousy has estranged wives from their husbands and nullified the word of our father Adam: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’ Jealousy and strife have overthrown great cities and uprooted great nations.”

5, Michal did not support David, her husband. The wife should support her man in the things he does. If they are godly, she should do everything she can to support him, encourage him, and help him. If he sets out to do something ungodly, or if he does something for an ungodly reason, then she is there to quietly correct him and remind him of his error. But what David was doing was not ungodly, but one of the great undertakings of his reign and life. But did she clap along with the girls and dance with her husband? No, she stayed behind in the palace and condescended to look out the window. Luther writes: “God gives the husband the grace to have patience and to take the weakness of his wife in good part, and that she, in turn, may be able to adjust herself to her husband’s ways…, but where fear of God and prayer are not added, irritations very easily occur” (Commenting on Genesis 24:1-4). “Children and the building of a city establish a man’s name, but a blameless wife is accounted better than both.”

6, Michal did not support David, her king. Even if Michal the wife was not pleased with the way David her husband accomplished this task, Michal the Israelite woman should have been proud that her resourceful king did what her own father could not do, and never gave a thought to doing. “We must first of all teach ourselves to walk in the commandments of the Lord,” said the ancient minister Polycarp, “and then teach our wives to walk in the faith, love, and purity that was given to them, cherishing their own husbands in complete faithfulness, loving all men equally in complete self-control, and to instruct their young in the fear of the Lord” (Polycarp 4:1-2).

7, Wives should strive to help their husbands make their marriage a union to glorify God, and to make their home a miniature church within the church. The priest or minister of this church is the head of the household, and they should remember to worship within the home in addition to worshiping at the family’s church where they attend public services. This kind of home worship is somewhat different from what we’re used to as we face the pulpit and the altar, but the Scriptures describe it. “Impress (these commands) on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). And again: “He will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” (Genesis 18:19). And again: “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge” (Proverbs 14:26).

If you are married, may God bless your marriage. Pray for this yourself often, and with your spouse, for this is God’s will. If you are widowed, not married, or a child who is not yet married, pray that the Lord would grant you a believing and godly spouse if it is his will. And whatever your circumstance, pray earnestly and feverishly that God would guide you toward keeping the Sixth Commandment by upholding the holy institution of marriage at all times, and that he will never permit you to become, through some moment of sinful weakness, an obstacle or wedge in anyone else’s marriage, for that would be a terrible sin and would bring upon you unbearable guilt. May God use us all to uphold and support marriages everywhere. Bless us, heavenly Father! Bless us, Lord Jesus! Bless us, Holy Spirit!

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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