Two Windows on Worship: The Dancer and the Despiser Text: 2 Samuel 6:16
Introduction: Worship Wars, Ancient and Modern
We live in an age where the central business of the church, which is the public worship of the Triune God, has been thoroughly domesticated, feminized, and therapeuticized. We have traded the robust, full-throated psalms of warrior kings for sentimental ditties that sound like Jesus is our boyfriend. We have exchanged the glad tumult of a people celebrating the victory of their God for the carefully managed mood lighting of a concert. We have, in short, become far more concerned with what the neighbors might think than with what God requires. We want a respectable faith, a faith that keeps its voice down. We want a faith that knows how to behave itself in the front parlor.
But the worship of the living God is not a tame thing. It is not respectable. It is glorious, and it is frequently messy. It is the kind of thing that makes the self-important and the spiritually sterile very uncomfortable. And this is nothing new. The battle over true worship is not a recent skirmish; it is an ancient war. And in our text today, we find one of the clearest delineations in all of Scripture between two opposing approaches to God. It is the clash between heaven-born zeal and earth-bound cynicism. It is the collision of two worldviews, represented by a dancing king and a despising queen. In this one verse, we are shown two windows. Through one, we see the heart of true, masculine, God-centered worship. Through the other, we see the barren heart of prideful, man-centered religion.
This is not just a historical anecdote about a marital spat. This is a diagnostic text for the church in every age. Are you in the street with David, celebrating the presence of God with everything you have? Or are you in the window with Michal, looking down on such uninhibited joy with a heart full of contempt? Your answer to that question reveals more than just your liturgical preference; it reveals your spiritual zip code.
The Text
Then it happened as the ark of Yahweh came into the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh; and she despised him in her heart.
(2 Samuel 6:16 LSB)
The Ark, the City, and the King (clause 1)
The scene is set with the arrival of the Ark.
"Then it happened as the ark of Yahweh came into the city of David..."
We must not read this as though it were merely the moving of a sacred piece of furniture. The coming of the Ark of Yahweh into Jerusalem, the newly conquered "city of David," was a profound political and theological statement. The Ark was the footstool of God's throne; its presence represented the personal, covenantal presence of Yahweh Himself. For decades, since it was captured by the Philistines and then ignominiously returned, the Ark had been in exile, stored away in a private house. Saul, the previous king, had shown no interest in it. He ran his kingdom on his own terms, with his own charisma, and according to his own anxieties. Saul's kingdom was man-centered from top to bottom.
David's first great act as king over a united Israel is to bring the manifest presence of God into the nation's capital. This is a public declaration that Yahweh, not David, is the true king of Israel. David is merely the vice-regent. This act is the formal, national enthronement of God in the center of Israel's public life. It is a postmillennial act. It is an act of dominion. David is saying, "This city, this nation, this throne, belongs to Yahweh." All our politics, all our culture, all our life must be ordered around His presence and His law. This is not a private devotion; it is a world-ordering, political claim. And it is this very public, God-centered reality that provides the context for the two reactions that follow.
The View from Above (clause 2)
Next, we are introduced to the observer.
"...that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window..."
The details here are pregnant with meaning. Who is she? "Michal the daughter of Saul." Her identity is tied to the rejected dynasty. She is the last remnant of a house that God had set aside for its rebellion and pride. She carries the spirit of her father: a concern for royal dignity, for human honor, for what people think. Saul was the king who worried about his approval ratings before the people (1 Sam. 15:30). Michal has inherited this spiritual DNA.
And where is she? She "looked out of the window." She is not a participant; she is a spectator. She is detached, separated, and elevated. She is looking down on the proceedings. This is the posture of the critic, the cynic, the one who is not invested. Worship is not something you can critique from a distance. You cannot review a feast by pressing your nose against the glass of the banquet hall window. You must come in and eat. Michal remains aloof. She is in the palace, the seat of human power, looking down on the messy, exuberant worship happening in the street below. This is the very picture of sterile, dead religion. It maintains its dignity by refusing to get its hands dirty.
Undignified Worship (clause 3)
And what does she see from her window?
"...and saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh..."
She saw the king, her husband, acting in a most un-kingly way. David, girded in a simple linen ephod, the garment of a priest, not a king, was "leaping and dancing before Yahweh." This was not a carefully choreographed, respectable shuffle. This was an explosion of joyous, masculine energy. It was loud, it was sweaty, it was undignified. And it was glorious.
David was not performing for the crowd. The text is precise: he was dancing "before Yahweh." His audience was God. His worship was entirely God-directed. He was overwhelmed with gratitude and joy that the presence of God was finally coming to its rightful place. This was the celebration of a great victory. He was not concerned with his royal decorum. He was a man, a warrior, and a king, and he was pouring out all his strength in grateful praise to his God. This is the heart of true worship. It is a whole-souled, whole-bodied response to the manifest glory and goodness of God. It is not self-conscious. David later says he is willing to be even more vile, more contemptible than this (2 Sam. 6:22). Why? Because true worship humbles the worshiper and exalts God. The man who is truly worshiping has forgotten himself.
The Barren Heart (clause 4)
Finally, we are given the verdict of the observer's heart.
"...and she despised him in her heart."
The Hebrew word for "despised" is potent. It means to hold in contempt, to scorn, to think of as worthless. This was not a mild disagreement over style. This was a deep, visceral revulsion. Why? Because David's worship was a direct rebuke to her entire worldview. Her worldview, inherited from Saul, was that religion is a tool to maintain human dignity and order. For David, God is the center, and human dignity is found in prostrating oneself, or in this case, wildly celebrating, before Him.
Michal's contempt was the fruit of a proud and spiritually barren heart. She could not hear the music, and so the dancer seemed a fool. She was spiritually deaf. Her heart was cold, and so David's fire seemed like madness. And the text later tells us the result of this spiritual condition: "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death" (2 Sam. 6:23). This was not simply an unfortunate biological reality. It was a divine judgment that fit the crime. Her heart was barren of praise, and so her womb remained barren of life. Contempt for true worship is a sterile and fruitless thing. It produces nothing. It is a spiritual dead end.
Conclusion: Get Out of the Window
The church today is filled with far too many of Michal's daughters and sons. They are the cool, detached observers, sitting in the back pew, or more likely at home, looking out the window of their cynicism at the messy business of heartfelt worship. They are the ones who are more concerned with being respectable than with being righteous. They are the ones who cringe at loud amens, at raised hands, at uninhibited singing. They despise it in their hearts because it reveals their own spiritual emptiness.
But God is not looking for spectators. He is not looking for critics. He is looking for worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. He is looking for Davids, men and women who are so captivated by the glory of their King that they will pour themselves out for Him, unashamed and undignified. He is bringing His presence, the true Ark, Jesus Christ, into the center of our lives, our homes, our cities. And the only proper response is to get out of the window, get down into the street, and join the dance.
The choice is before us. We can have the barren dignity of Michal, or the fruitful foolishness of David. We can have the contempt of the proud, which leads to death, or the celebration of the humble, which is the very stuff of life. May God give us the grace to throw off our grave clothes of respectability and put on the linen ephod of praise, and to dance before Him with all our might.