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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 19:13 - 19:13
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Michal then took the teraphim, - i.e., in all probability an image of the household gods of the size of life, and, judging from what follows, in human form, - laid it in the bed, and put a piece of woven goats' hair at his head, i.e., either round or over the head of the image, and covered it with the garment (beged, the upper garment, which was generally only a square piece of cloth for wrapping round), and told the messengers whom Saul had sent to fetch him that he was ill. Michal probably kept teraphim in secret, like Rachel, because of her barrenness (see at Gen 31:19). The meaning of הָעִזִּים כְּבִיר is doubtful. The earlier translators took it to mean goat-skin, with the exception of the Seventy, who confounded כְּבִיר with כָּבֵד, liver, upon which Josephus founds his account of Michal having placed a still moving goat's liver in the bed, to make the messengers believe that there was a breathing invalid beneath. כְּבִיר, from כָּבַר, signifies something woven, and עִזִּים goats' hair, as in Exo 25:4. But it is impossible to decide with certainty what purpose the cloth of goats' hair was to serve; whether it was merely to cover the head of the teraphim with hair, and so make it like a human head, or to cover the head and face as if of a person sleeping. The definite article not only before תְּרָפִים and בֶּגֶד, but also with הָעִזִּים כְּבִיר, suggests the idea that all these things belonged to Michal's house furniture, and that עִזִּים כְּבִיר was probably a counterpane made of goats' hair, with which persons in the East are in the habit of covering the head and face when sleeping.