she missed the moment of her visitation

The wording in the end of this devotional is something I've come across before and wondered how many others have thought on this. The author mentions David's wife remaining childless and how she missed the moment of her visitation. I read this to mean that since she turned from David's bed, that she missed the appointed time to conceive. It makes me wonder ....

Any discussion or thoughts?

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There are moments in the movement of God’s Spirit that the Bible refers to as the “fullness of time.” Jesus wept over the city Jerusalem lamenting prophetically to her in Luke 19:44 that invaders would come and, “Level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

Recognizing the moment when God is moving is critical. In Matthew 16:3, Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of his day by saying, “Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.”


King David was moving the Ark of the Covenant to its resting place in Jerusalem. He was filled with joy and stripped down to his tighty-whities, his linen ephod – sort of the long johns of that era – and he led the processional with the women as the danced and celebrated through the streets. 2 Samuel 6:14-15, “Then David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet.”

In that culture, the women were supposed to be the ones who led the worship processionals. David wife, as Queen of Israel, should have been leading the throng of worshipers, like Merriam did after the parting of Red Sea. But where was she as this novel event occurred? Verse 19, “Now 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 whirling before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.” Isn’t it ironic that God had to raise up a man to do a woman’s job!

Queen Michal was safe in her home being a critical spectator. She was watching through a lattice window despising her husband for his celebration of the moving of God through the streets. It was so, you know, undignified.

When David returned home, his wife rebuked him for his unconventional public worship. I have the suspicion that she was used to seeing David hop about their bedroom in unrestricted adoration and worship, dressed or undressed, but in public? And he had broken social taboos and danced with women – in his underwear! In their culture, women and men did not dance together. The scandal of it all!

The moving of the Ark represented the move of God foreshadowing the great heart cry of our Beloved in Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.’”

Michal refused to join the parade, preferring to keep her dignity intact by standing aloof, “looking through a window.” And the result? Verse 23, “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.” Though she remained the Bride of the King, she lost intimacy with the King and, as a result of the loss of that intimacy, she remained barren and unfruitful all her days. She missed the hour of her visitation.


Bryan Hupperts © 2003
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