Lives of Scripture

Palti son of Laish, of Gallim, also called Paltiel, enters Scripture only because of what was done to him. While David was a fugitive from Saul, Saul gave Michal -- David's wife, whom David had married after paying a bride-price of a hundred Philistine foreskins -- to Palti instead (1 Samuel 25:44), almost certainly to sever any dynastic claim David held through her. Years later, after Saul's death, David was consolidating his claim to the throne and demanded Michal back from Ish-bosheth as a condition of Abner's defection, asserting his prior right to her (2 Samuel 3:13-14). Ish-bosheth had her taken from Paltiel. Scripture records one detail about him with unusual tenderness: "her husband went with her, weeping as he went, and followed her to Bahurim" (3:16). Only when Abner ordered him, "Go, return," did Paltiel turn back. Nothing else is said of him -- no words of his own are recorded, only his grief. He is a minor casualty of the political maneuvering between Saul's collapsing house and David's rising one, a reminder that the human cost of royal power struggles often falls on people Scripture otherwise never mentions.