וְשָׁא֗וּל נָתַ֛ן אֶת־מִיכַ֥ל בִּתּ֖וֹ אֵ֣שֶׁת דָּוִ֑ד לְפַלְטִ֥י בֶן־לַ֖יִשׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר מִגַּלִּֽים׃
Porque Saúl había dado su hija Michâl mujer de David, á Palti hijo de Lais, que era de Gallim.
Rabbeinu Bahya
The words ולא שמע אליה לשכב אצלה, להיות עמה, which appear repetitive, are viewed by the Midrash as referring to life in the present world, and as a result of committing the former sin, life in the hereafter, i.e. in Gehinom, (hell).
We are told in that same Midrash that there are three categories of people who may be trusted implicitly: 1) A private householder who sets aside his tithes conscientiously. Such a person is not suspected of shortchanging the Priest by withholding his Terumah (a form of tithe given to the Priests). There is no greater demonstration of a person’s trustworthiness than that we believe him in other matters based on his observing commandments whose performance cannot be checked. Such people enjoy the greatest trust by their peers. 2) Next lower on the rungs of the ladder of trustworthiness is a bachelor who resides in a quarter inhabited by harlots and does not succumb to the temptation which surrounds him. 3) A poor man who has been entrusted with the safekeeping of valuables for others and has demonstrated that he has kept faith with those who gave him the objects to be kept for them.
Joseph excelled them all while he was in Egypt, a country of which the prophet (Ezekiel 23,20) writes that “the flesh of the people there could be compared to the flesh of donkeys.” Seeing that Joseph was seventeen years old at the time he was sold to Egypt, and was subjected daily to sexual temptation by his master’s wife without yielding to such alluring prospects, this meant that henceforth he could never be suspected of any sexual misdemeanour.
We are told in Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer chapter 39 that there were three prominent people who demonstrated control over their sexual urges when faced with temptation which was hard to resist. They are Joseph, Boaz, and Palti ben Layish. Our sages in Sanhedrin 19 contrast the active libido of Joseph, a teenager, with the relatively dormant one of Boaz, an aged man. They say that whereas Joseph’s feat was indeed major, by comparison to Boaz’s constraint, it was still only a modest accomplishment. Whereas the temptation Joseph faced was by day, the temptation Boaz faced when Ruth came to him in the barn was at night. Joseph might have been afraid of being observed, a possible consideration enabling him to withstand the urgings of Mrs. Potiphar. Similarly what was considered an act of great restraint by Boaz paled into insignificance when compared to the restraint Palti ben Layish imposed upon himself. He had been given Michal (David’s wife) as a legal wife (Samuel I 25,44) by King Saul, and could have claimed her, but did not ever touch her or even share the same house with her. Palti had been aware that a marriage ceremony is invalid when the woman in question is still the wife of another man, David, who had not divorced Michal. King Saul had forced his daughter into marrying Palti. Seeing Palti was afraid of King Saul, he pretended to accept Michal as his wife although he had no intention of sleeping with her. In fact, after Saul’s death (Samuel II 3,14) David sent word to Ish Boshet, Saul’s son, demanding that his wife Michal be restored to him. Ish Boshet agreed, and a weeping Palti accompanied her up to a place called Bachurim. He wept because he was afraid David would not believe that he had not touched Michal. [At any rate, the thrust of the story in the Talmud is that every feat of sexual restraint must be evaluated on its own. There are features in each of these stories which made the deed especially great; on the other hand each of these situations also contained features which helped the person subject to the temptation to successfully resist it. Ed]
We are told in that same Midrash that there are three categories of people who may be trusted implicitly: 1) A private householder who sets aside his tithes conscientiously. Such a person is not suspected of shortchanging the Priest by withholding his Terumah (a form of tithe given to the Priests). There is no greater demonstration of a person’s trustworthiness than that we believe him in other matters based on his observing commandments whose performance cannot be checked. Such people enjoy the greatest trust by their peers. 2) Next lower on the rungs of the ladder of trustworthiness is a bachelor who resides in a quarter inhabited by harlots and does not succumb to the temptation which surrounds him. 3) A poor man who has been entrusted with the safekeeping of valuables for others and has demonstrated that he has kept faith with those who gave him the objects to be kept for them.
Joseph excelled them all while he was in Egypt, a country of which the prophet (Ezekiel 23,20) writes that “the flesh of the people there could be compared to the flesh of donkeys.” Seeing that Joseph was seventeen years old at the time he was sold to Egypt, and was subjected daily to sexual temptation by his master’s wife without yielding to such alluring prospects, this meant that henceforth he could never be suspected of any sexual misdemeanour.
We are told in Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer chapter 39 that there were three prominent people who demonstrated control over their sexual urges when faced with temptation which was hard to resist. They are Joseph, Boaz, and Palti ben Layish. Our sages in Sanhedrin 19 contrast the active libido of Joseph, a teenager, with the relatively dormant one of Boaz, an aged man. They say that whereas Joseph’s feat was indeed major, by comparison to Boaz’s constraint, it was still only a modest accomplishment. Whereas the temptation Joseph faced was by day, the temptation Boaz faced when Ruth came to him in the barn was at night. Joseph might have been afraid of being observed, a possible consideration enabling him to withstand the urgings of Mrs. Potiphar. Similarly what was considered an act of great restraint by Boaz paled into insignificance when compared to the restraint Palti ben Layish imposed upon himself. He had been given Michal (David’s wife) as a legal wife (Samuel I 25,44) by King Saul, and could have claimed her, but did not ever touch her or even share the same house with her. Palti had been aware that a marriage ceremony is invalid when the woman in question is still the wife of another man, David, who had not divorced Michal. King Saul had forced his daughter into marrying Palti. Seeing Palti was afraid of King Saul, he pretended to accept Michal as his wife although he had no intention of sleeping with her. In fact, after Saul’s death (Samuel II 3,14) David sent word to Ish Boshet, Saul’s son, demanding that his wife Michal be restored to him. Ish Boshet agreed, and a weeping Palti accompanied her up to a place called Bachurim. He wept because he was afraid David would not believe that he had not touched Michal. [At any rate, the thrust of the story in the Talmud is that every feat of sexual restraint must be evaluated on its own. There are features in each of these stories which made the deed especially great; on the other hand each of these situations also contained features which helped the person subject to the temptation to successfully resist it. Ed]