name was Obededom, who was by his family a Levite, and deposited
the ark with him; and it remained there three entire months. This
augmented the house of Obededom, and conferred many blessings upon it.
And when the king heard what had befallen Obededom, how he was become,
of a poor man in a low estate, exceeding happy, and the object of envy
to all those that saw or inquired after his house, he took courage, and,
hoping that he should meet with no misfortune thereby, he transferred
the ark to his own house; the priests carrying it, while seven companies
of singers, who were set in that order by the king, went before it,
and while he himself played upon the harp, and joined in the music,
insomuch, that when his wife Michel, the daughter of Saul, who was our
first king, saw him so doing, she laughed at him. But when they had
brought in the ark, they placed it under the tabernacle which David had
pitched for it, and he offered costly sacrifices and peace-offerings,
and treated the whole multitude, and dealt both to the women, and the
men, and the infants a loaf of bread and a cake, and another cake baked
in a pan, with the portion of the sacrifice. So when he had thus feasted
the people, he sent them away, and he himself returned to his own house.

3. But when Michal his wife, the daughter of Saul, came and stood by
him, she wished him all other happiness, and entreated that whatsoever
he should further desire, to the utmost possibility, might be given him
by God, and that he might be favorable to him; yet did she blame him,
that so great a king as he was should dance after an unseemly manner,
and in his dancing, uncover himself among the servants and the
handmaidens. But he replied, that he was not ashamed to do what was
acceptable to God, who had preferred him before her father, and before
all others; that he would play frequently, and dance, without any regard
to what the handmaidens and she herself thought of it. So this Michal,
who was David's wife, had no children; however, when she was afterward
married to him to whom Saul her father had given her, [for at this time
David had taken her away from him, and had her himself,] she bare five
children. But concerning those matters I shall discourse in a proper
place.

4. Now when the king saw that his affairs grew better almost every
day, by the will of God, he thought he should offend him, if, while
he himself continued in houses made of cedar, such as were of a great
h