THEOSISTheodoret of Cyrus
The law prohibited a woman who had left her husband to return to him after marrying someone else (Deuteronomy 24:4). This raises the question of how David was able to reclaim Michal after she had been wed to another man (2 Samuel 3:13-14). The law clearly stipulated that a wife who had been divorced should not return to her former spouse. God affirmed this through the prophet Jeremiah, declaring: “If a husband lets his wife go away, and she goes away and becomes another man's, will she return to him again? Will that wife be blameless and undefiled? Yet you have played the harlot with many lovers; and have returned to me, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 3:1).
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Nevertheless, King David refused to abandon Michal, and due to her father’s wrongful action in taking her away, her subsequent union with another was deemed an act of violence rather than a legitimate marriage. The apostle Paul expounded on this by stating: “For this is how an adulteress lives with her husband, if she be married to another” (Romans 7:3). Michal’s connection to the other man was not by her own choosing. Therefore, it was not David who violated the law, but rather the one who had wrongfully joined Michal to another. An unlawful union does not qualify as marriage; thus, David, having overlooked the actions taken under his father’s authority, took his wife back.