MICHAIAH (rov*orrzT; Sept. MIxalas, Mixato ; Alex. Mixa/a, Maa'xcl), the same name as Micaiah and as Micah or Micha. Of the six persons called Michaiah in the A. V., two are elsewhere called Micah—viz., the father of Achbor (2 Kings xxii. 12 ; comp. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 2o) and the son of Zaccur (Neh. xii. 35 ; comp. t Chron. ix. 15 ; Neh. xi. 17). In 2 Chron. xiii. 2, Michaiah appears as the name of a female, the same who is elsewhere called Maacah (i Kings xv. 2 ; 2 Chron. xi. 20) ; and so the LXX. and the Syr. read it here. The other Michaiahs are t. One of the princes whom Jehoshaphat sent to teach the law in the cities of Judah (2 Chron. xvii. 7) • 2. One of the priests who blew the trum pets at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah (Neh. xii. 41) ; 3. The son of Gamariah and grandson of Shaphan the scribe, who after having heard Baruch read in his father's house the predictions of Jeremiah announcing calamity upon the nation, went, apparently with good intentions, and reported what he had heard to the king's officers (Jer. xxxvi. -13).—W. L. A.
youngest daughter of King Saul (z Sam. xiv. 49). She became attached to David, and made no secret of her love ; so that Saul, after he had disappointed David of the elder daughter [MERAB], deemed it prudent to bestow Michal in marriage upon him (t Sam. xviii. 20-28). Saul had hoped to make her the instrument of his designs against David, but was foiled in his attempt through the devoted attachment of the wife to her husband. Of this a most memorable instance is given in I Sam. xix. 11-17. When David escaped the javelin of Saul he retired to his own house, upon which the king set a guard over-night, with the intention to slay him in the morning. This being discovered by Michal, she assisted him to make his escape by a window, and afterwards amused the intended assas sins under various pretences, in order to retard the pursuit. She took an image (temp/4, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goat's hair for a bolster, and covered it with a cloth.' This she pretended was David, sick in bed ; and it was not until Saul had commanded him to he brought forth, even in that state, that the deception was discovered. Michal then pretended to her father that David had threatened her with death if she did not assist his escape. Saul probably did not believe this ;
but he took advantage of it by cancelling the mar riage, and bestowing her upon a person named Phalti (I Sam. xxv. 44). David, however, as the divorce had been without his consent, felt that the law (Deut. xxiv. 4) against a husband taking back a divorced wife could not apply in this case : he therefore formally reclaimed her of Ish-bosheth, who employed no less a personage than Abner to take her from Phalti, and conduct her with all honour to David. It was under cover of this mission that Abner sounded the elders of Israel respecting their acceptance of David for king, and conferred with David himself on the same subject at Hebron (2 Sam. iii. 12-21). As this demand was not made by David until Abner had contrived to intimate his design, it has been supposed by some that it was contrived between them solely to afford Abner an ostensible errand in going to Hebron ; but it is more pleasant to suppose that, although the matter happened to he so timed as to give a colour to this suspicion, the demand really arose from David's revived affection for his first wife and earliest love.
The re-union was less happy than might have been hoped. On that great day when the ark was brought to Jerusalem, Michal viewed the procession from a window, and the royal notions she had im bibed were so shocked at the sight of the king not only taking part in, but leading, the holy transports of his people, that she met him on his return home with a keen sarcasm on his undignified and un kingly behaviour. This ill-timed sneer, and the unsympathising state of feeling which it manifested, drew from David a severe but not unmerited re tort ; and the Great King, in whose honour David incurred this contumely, seems to have punished the wrong done to him, for we are told that 'there fare Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death' (2 Sam. vi. 16-23). It was thus, perhaps, as Abarbanel remarks, ordered by providence that the race of Saul and David should not be mixed, and that no one deriving any apparent right from Saul should succeed to the tlirone.—J K.