2 Samuel 6:16 And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window… The wife see that she reverence her husband, says the apostle. Yes; but even Paul himself would have allowed that it was impossible for Michal to reverence David all at once that day. Paul would have needed to have got Michal's ear early that morning when she tarried at home in the palace. Nay, he would have needed to have got her heart while she was yet Saul's daughter in Saul's palace. It is to tell a waterfall to flow uphill to tell Michal at this time to reverence David. Reverence does not come even at a Divine command. Reverence does not spring up in a day. Reverence is the result of long teaching and long training. Reverence has its roots in the heart and in the character; and the heart and the character only come and bring forth reverence as life goes on. That may be all true, but the apostle does not say that. He does not say that any of the wives to whom he wrote were too late now to reverence their husbands. He speaks it to all wives, and he expects that all wives who hear it shall lay it to heart, and shall do it. And yet their husbands, their very best husbands, are in so many things so difficult, so impossible, to reverence. They fall so short of their young wife's dreams and visions. They are so full of faults, and follies, and tempers and habits to which no wife can possibly be blind. Most husbands are at so little trouble, after they have been for some time husbands, to make it easy, or, indeed, possible, for their wives to continue to love, and respect, and reverence them. All our wives have dreary, lonely, sorely-disappointed days at home — partly our fault and partly theirs, but mostly ours — that we know nothing about. (Alex. Whyte, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. |
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