1 Samuel 19:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Michal took an image In the Hebrew it is teraphim; which teraphim, as Dr. Dodd observes, it plainly appears from hence, must have been figures of the human form; for the design of Michal was manifestly to deceive the messengers of Saul, by showing them something in a bed so far resembling a man as to make them believe it was David himself asleep. Her intention was to procure David the longer time for escaping. And to render it still more like him, she covered the back part of the head of the image, which appeared in sight, with goats' hair of the same colour as David's was, so that any one might take it, at a slight view, especially in a sick man's room, where only a glimmering light is wont to be kept, for the back part of David's head. This is plainly the meaning of the next clause, not very properly interpreted in our translation, but which in the Vulgate is rendered, et pellem pilosam caprarum possuit ad caput ejus; and she put the hairy skin of goats to, or upon, his head. And covered it with a cloth Upon pretence of his being sick, and needing some such covering. If we may believe Abarbinel and Abendana, “women in those times were accustomed to have figures made in the likeness of their husbands, that when they were absent from them they might have their image to look upon.” If this really be a fact, it is probable that Michal's image was one of this kind; or it was merely a statue for ornament. For we cannot suppose that any images, whether called teraphim or by any other name, were kept for the purposes of idolatry in David's family.