Throughout our study, we have often found women placed in a very compromised position. Sarah was cast into the king’s harem as Abraham’s sister in order to save Abraham’s life. Rachel and her sister Leah played off of each other’s fertility in a battle for Jacob’s affection and inheritance. Tamar sought a husband so that she could fulfill God’s covenant.

As the young nation Israel begins to settle down in Canaan, women once again play a prominent role with its movement from a nomadic tribe to a landed monarchy. In Chapter 6 of Women in the Old Testament, we find women struggling to love and be loved.

The most tragic for me is the story of Michal. Daughter of Saul, Michal apparently is the only Old Testament woman whose love for her husband is explicitly expressed in the bible. She loves him enough that when her father plots David’s death, she helps David escape and then produces a decoy (ironically with a foreign idol) to give David a little more time. But her love is apparently never returned by David.

While Michal doesn’t get a lot of play in biblical circles, certainly not as much as say Sarah or Jacob’s wives, her character is extremely well developed. We experience a lifetime’s worth of marital emotions in her, from her initial love for David, to eventually her despising him for the way she was treated (I don’t think she was angry at him just for dancing half naked in the streets).

Bathsheba is treated shabbily too by David. Imagine a woman worried about her husband in battle being espied by the most powerful person in her country. When she is called by his servants, she goes with them and before she knows it, David is pushing himself on her.

Artemisia Gentileschi, David and Bathsheba, ca. 1640, Gentileschi, one of the few women artists known from her time, portrays Bathsheba in a much more honorable light than the bible. Bathsheba is undressed but she covers herself both from our sight and David’s (on the balcony in the distance).

The echoes of Ruth, Delilah and others rebound in our memories as yet another pawn is played in a man’s world. Jewish rabbis have portrayed a whole different story in midrash, one where David and Bathsheba’s marriage was pre-destined at the time of the world’s creation, and therefore both were forgiven for their infidelity.

Regardless, Bathsheba becomes another crucial player in God’s unfolding plan for Israel as a nation. She is the mother of the wise king, Solomon, and will do everything within her power to ensure her son follows David. Despite whatever we may think of David and Bathsheba’s conduct, God has HIS plan and will not be thwarted.

Sr. Nowell wraps up our look at women betwixt and between with another tragic figure, a second Tamar. She is caught up in a battle between the step brothers Absalom and Amnon, and treated with indifference by her stepfather David, versus his concern for public image and kingly succession.

What must Tamar have felt like, her body being treated as a throwaway object, her emotions trampled upon by her own family? Is this why the bible authors present her story to us? Is Tamar meant to be a cautionary tale of lust and greed? As in the case of Bathsheba, are we meant to judge women and apply some kind of responsibility to Tamar for stepping into her situation?

I am not sure what the ultimate meaning of the author was for these passages. Again, we are faced with the painful consequences of indifference and cruelty. While Tamar’s presence helps lead to a decision of succession for David, are we to believe that a rape is God’s plan for the greater good? That is not the God I believe in, so I don’t subscribe to that view. More importantly, what’s your view?

1. Read through the stories of Michal again and focus on her emotions. What do you think of Michal’s journey? Is it believable? Do you have any judgment about how she acts? Why do you think the author of these stories portrayed      Michal so fully and what does her emotional journey tell you about our emotions and God’s likely reaction to them?
2. What do you think of Bathsheba? Would you want her as a spouse? A mother? A friend? Why or why not?
3. Why do you think the sad story of Tamar’s rape is included in the bible? What purpose does it serve?
4. If David is considered the greatest king of Israel (interestingly, Chronicles leaves out the seduction of Bathsheba), why did he treat two wives and a daughter (Tamar) so poorly? Didn’t the Jewish people feel any anger at a man who could be so cruel? What do you think of David now versus prior to reading these stories? If you weren’t aware of Michal and Bathsheba, what has changed about your opinion of David?