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.
Michal ... saw king David leaping and dancing ... and she despised him in her heart. The pride of her aristocratic rank was grievously offended by her husband's public exhibition of himself in a character so undignified, and resembling, as she thought, rather the conduct of mountebank or buffoon than the sovereign of Israel. But Michal's thought was different from the ludicrous ideas which our imaginations are apt to associate with a man of grave character and dignified rank indulging in wild gestures and grotesque attitudes. The dance consisted in serious and solemn measures, and was associated in the minds of Eastern people with sentiments of religious worship. But Michal, who had no proper sense of religion, considered that David was exalting the priesthood above the throne, or, in other words, giving undue honour-an excess of eclat-to the officials of the sanctuary.