CONTEMPT – The Relationship Killer

CONTEMPT – The Relationship Killer

As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart (2 Shmuel/2 Samuel 6:16)

Many years ago, a good friend mentioned that when contempt invades a marriage, the marriage is doomed (for a brief, professional take on the matter, see The Gottman Institute’s article on this subject). It is a frightening thought that such an invasion is possible. I don’t know why my friend brought it up that day. I don’t think we were discussing our marriages at the time, and, for the record, we are both still married. In fact, my wife and I will be celebrating forty-five years in a few weeks!

Modern psychologists are not the first to notice the devastating effects of contempt on relationships. This week’s Haftarah (special reading from the Hebrew Prophets) vividly illustrates the point.

The version I read says that David’s wife Michal “despised” him in her heart. The Hebrew word for despised here is bazah. Other translations use contempt, disgust, and hatred. It was how Esau considered his birthright in Bereshit/Genesis chapter twenty-five, when he came home exhausted and traded his birthright to his younger twin brother, Jacob, for a single bowl of stew. In other words, he couldn’t care less about his birthright.

This is the kind of disdain that Michal felt towards David, having seen him unabashedly celebrate  along with the servant girls as he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. For the record, there is no indication that David was dancing naked, as some believe. Instead, it appears that he was dressed in a most simple manner, like a commoner, not in royal garb. This seriously irked his wife. His childlike exuberance, his mixing with the common people, and his simple appearance diminished him in her eyes. She may have been embarrassed as she herself felt diminished by his child-like humility.

Whatever the reason, her husband became very small in her eyes. She no longer saw him for the man he was. Not only did she disregard his God-given position as King of Israel and a man after God’s own heart, but she could no longer grasp his innate value as a fellow human being equally made in God’s image. Instead, she looked wn on him and greeted him with insults.

The result, according to the passage, was that she never bore children. Note that while it doesn’t say that God punished her for her attitude, this may be implied. Don’t get me wrong. Infertility isn’t necessarily a punishment from God. But in this case, Michal’s disdain for her husband damaged their relationship. Her not having children may not have been due to divine intervention, but perhaps due to their not having sexual relations again.

Obviously, there are details about David and Michal’s relationship that we don’t know. And that’s part of the brilliance of biblical storytelling. The lack of detail allows their story to resonate with our own. It should be clear that contempt is a relationship killer, be it contempt for a spouse, a parent, a child, an employer or employee, a customer, or a political or religious leader, and so on. This is in no way to say we should ignore differences and problems. Far from it! Contempt signifies an unwillingness to address them.

We might be afraid to call others to account. Or we don’t want to acknowledge that there might be aspects of our own lives that need attention. Whatever it is, it’s much easier to look down on others and criticize than to work through our issues. Is that really what we want?