Ish-bosheth sent and took her from Phaltiel This was an honourable action of Ish-bosheth to restore David his lawful wife. Her husband went with her along weeping “Mr. Bayle,” says Delaney, “considers it as great cruelty in David to ravish her from a husband who loved her so well; that is, he thinks it a great cruelty to disturb Phaltiel in an adultery that was agreeable to him, and to redeem Michal from one, in all appearance, detestable to her, to restore her to her only husband, the husband of her affection and her choice, for whom she had so much tenderness as to save his life at the hazard of her own. Phaltiel was in distress, but it was such a distress as they all endure who are grieved to restore what they have no right to possess; and Mr. Bayle, from the same principles upon which he quarrels with David on this head, is obliged to be highly offended with every honest man who desires to have those goods restored to him of which he once was robbed, under all the circumstances of cruelty and iniquity. And therefore, in truth, Phaltiel is no proper object of pity; and yet his distress upon this occasion is one of the finest pictures of silent grief that any history hath left us. Conscious he had no right to complain, or molest Michal with his lamentations, he follows her at a distance, with a distress silent and self-confined: going (saith the text) and weeping behind her However such fine paintings of nature pass unregarded in the sacred writings, I am satisfied that in Homer we should survey this with delight.” Abarbinel, and the Jewish rabbis in general, are of opinion that Phaltiel was a strictly religious man, and had had no nuptial commerce with Michal.
Related Commentaries of 2 Samuel 3:15
2 Samuel 3:15-16
15 And Ishbosheth sent, and took her from her husband, even from Phaltielc the son of Laish.
16 And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then said Abner unto him, Go, return. And he returned.