Saul sent messengers to David's house, to watch him, and to kill him in the morning: and Michal, David's wife, told him, saying, If you don't save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be slain.
A great many opinions have been expressed regarding that "image" which Michal put in David's bed; but when all of the "guesses" have been investigated, we still cannot tell exactly what it resembled.  The mention of "teraphim" suggests that the image might have been that of some household god, such as Rachel had stolen from her father Laban.  The big point was that it was sufficiently deceptive to allow David a little more time to make good his escape.  Josephus relates that, "Michal placed a still moving goat's liver in the bed to make the messengers believe that there was a breathing invalid beneath."[13]