We must think of Michal what she was to David in her youth, and what she might have been had she not been given to another, perhaps against her own will. Thus David lost her womanly affection, which he so much needed, and Michal lost his brave, heroic but devout spirit, which would greatly have helped her to a correct knowledge of God, for, from the fact that she had a teraphim in her house, would indicate she was not wholly free from idolatry, and this doubtless accounts for her lack of sympathy with David in his religious nature, for his devotions to God were unquestioned. Her surroundings from childhood were bad every way, and her want of religious sympathy was not so much the want of faith as the lack of opportunity to know God. We give her a place here for what she was in her youth, in saving the life of David, and what she would have been could she have grown up under the religious influences of David. Upon the death of Saul, the first king in Israel, Rizpah, a secondary wife, and mother of his two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, appears on the stage of action. After Saul was defeated and met with death on Mount Gilboa and the Philistines occupied the country west of the Jordan, the seat of government was transferred from Gibeah to Mahanaim for greater protection, and Rizpah accompanied the inmates of the royal household to their new residence. Ishbosheth, the youngest of Saul’s four legitimate sons, and his rightful heir to the throne, had been proclaimed king in place of his father. Abner, Saul’s uncle, however, had command of the army, and had much to do in administering the affairs of the kingdom; and, because of this relation, and for reasons not stated, he seemed to have had frequent consultations with Rizpah, and this excited Ishbosheth’s jealousy. Among those primitive people, to take the widow of a deceased king was to aspire to the throne. Ishbosheth accused Abner of that ambitious design, and the captain, in his resentment, replied, “Am I a dog’s head, which against Judah do shew kindness this day unto the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hands of David, that thou chargest me to-day with a fault concerning this woman?” Abner was so wroth that he left Ishbosheth and went over to David--a piece of spite which led first to Abner’s death through Joab’s treachery, and ultimately to the murder of Ishbosheth himself. We hear nothing more of Rizpah till the three years’ famine made it necessary to settle an old score against the house of Saul for that king’s wicked dealings with the Gibeonites. According to the crude, rough justice of the times, they demanded the death of seven of Saul’s descendants. The two sons of Rizpah and five of Saul’s grandsons were handed over to them for crucifixion.