Did Michal have no child, or five sons?

The five sons belonged to Michal’s sister Merab, and the name ‘Michal’ in 2 Samuel 21:8 is best taken as an early copyist’s slip. The verse itself points to Merab: the boys’ father is Adriel the Meholathite, and 1 Samuel 18:19 says that it was Merab, Saul’s elder daughter, who “was given unto Adriel the Meholathite to wife”. Michal was married to David, then to Phalti the son of Laish, then to David again (1 Samuel 25:44; 2 Samuel 3:14–15), never to Adriel. Two Hebrew manuscripts collated by Kennicott read ‘Merab’ here, and the Aramaic Targum makes Merab the mother; most modern translations, such as the ESV, NIV, NASB and BSB, print Merab. So 2 Samuel 6:23 stands as written: Michal bore no child to the day of her death.

Brought up by Michal

The KJV’s ‘whom she brought up’ follows the Targum and an old Jewish tradition, cited by Gill from the Talmud: Merab bore the boys and, after her death, Michal raised them, so they were called hers. The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary takes this view. Its weakness is that the Hebrew verb, yaldah, normally means ‘she bore’, though a child could be spoken of loosely as born to the one who raised it, as in “There is a son born to Naomi” (Ruth 4:17).