Genesis 28:9 names her as a sister of Nevayot (נביות), the daughter of Yishma-El whom Esav married. What is odd is that both names are feminine plurals, which suggests that they were not names at all, but a group of women. Machalat in the singular would read Machalah (מחלה).
2 Chronicles 11:18 names her as the wife of Rechav-Am (רְחַבְעָם - Rehoboam); she was the daughter of Yerimot (ירימות), a son of David - though Yerimot is itself an odd name for a boy, because it too is in the feminine plural; he is also - see the link to his name - associated with the Temple choir and orchestra, on which subject more in a moment. Her mother, Yerimot's wife, was named Avi-Chayil (אֲבִיחָ֑יִל), which is usually understood to mean "my father is might", from the root Chayal - I shall return to that too in a moment.
Nevayot (נביות) and Yerimot (ירימות) both mean "high places", which is to say hill-shrines; thus the Machalot (מחלות) as their sister or daughter identifies them clearly as a school of priestesses.
Machalat (מחלה) comes from the root Chalah (חלה) = "to sing", and was also used, like Kinnor (כינור), for a harp or other stringed instrument (cf Psalm 53:1 and 88:1 which both specify the use of the instrument), presumably because the one accompanied the other. This takes us into that other Davidic realm, of the Beney Korach and Beney Kehat: the Temple choir and orchestra.
The name Machalat should not be confused with Makhelot (מַקְהֵלוֹת), which appears, inter alia, in Psalm 68:27, and refers to the "congregation" participating in the prayer service, not the choir or orchestra performing in it. I mention this only because Makhelot is often written phonetically as Machalot, even by the most knowledgeable scholars (here for example).
It should also not be confused with MACHALOT = "illnesses", which is spelled identically; the difference lies in the Vav-Tav ending (מחלות), which shows that it is a feminine plural, and its singular Machalah (מחלה).
2 Samuel 21 recounts that there was a three-year famine in the time of King David, which the oracles said was a result of Sha'ul's slaughter of the Givonim (גִּבְעֹנִים - Gibeonites); to remove it the Givonim demanded the deaths of seven of Sha'ul's sons. "But the king took the two sons of Ritspah (רִצְפָּה) the daughter of Ayah (אַיָּה) - Armoni (אַרְמֹנִי) and Mephi-Voshet (מְפִבֹשֶׁת) - and the five sons of Michal (מִיכַל) whom she brought up for Adri-El (עַדְרִיאֵל) the son of Bar-Zilai (בַּרְזִלַּי) the Mecholati (מְּחֹלָתִי - Mecholathite)...and they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of the barley harvest" (vv 8/9).
The first clue then; the Machalot, or possibly now the Mecholati, were priestesses who had some role in the annual autumn sacrifices connected to the fertility goddess. But what role? The answer lies in the place where the ritual was carried out, Avel Mecholah (אבל מחולה) – "the meadow of dancing". Every autumn at harvest-time a village "fête" was organised at which, the corn having been harvested, the stubble was ritually burned - ritually because, while the stubble needed to be burned to ensure a new crop the following year, the corn was a god, and burning a god was only acceptable if appropriate funerary rites accompanied it, begging his forgiveneness for the unholy cremation. The singing and dancing that formed a central part of the festival was a primary duty of the priestesses. The burning of the chamets at Passover in the spring retains this tradition to the present-day, as does the burning of the Guy Faux, the "guy fawkes" or "wicker man" at the autumn harvest.
But what of the names of the seven sons and their respective mothers? And note that it was seven, the sacred number: one sacrifice for each day of the week, and as harvest festivals were normally 7-day festivals, one for each day of the festival.
Givonim (גבענים) simply means "the dwellers on the high places" - in other words the Nevayot and Yerimot - which is a euphemism by the Redactor for the Yisra-Eli equivalent of the Olympian Gods; they could hardly name them, since they were now replaced by the One-God YHVH. Sha'ul's slaughter "of" them should read as Sha'ul's slaughter of seven sacrificial victims "for" them – i.e. Sha'ul carried out the same fertility rite in his day.
A Ritspah (רצפה) is a stone floor, specifically one on which meat and bread were roasted or baked, a latterday barbecue, set up in the "meadow of dancing" for the harvest feast.
Ayah (איה) is particularly interesting, for she is mentioned in Genesis 36:24 as the sister of that Anah (ענה) who found the asses of Tsivon (צבעון) in the wilderness. Sha'ul as She'ol, the Lord of the Underworld, is closely associated with the ass-god Set. Ayah also means a "kite" or "vulture", which bird is identified as a symbol of the sun-god, and the corn-harvest is a sun-festival in that the ripe corn too is a symbol of the sun-god and it is his death - the end of summer - that is being commemorated.
Armon (ארמון) means "a fortress" or "palace", and specifically the women's quarters where the royal wives (each one a priestess) was housed: the modern word "harem" comes from the same root as Armon; Armoni (ארמוני) thus means an inhabitant of the women's quarters and is not a name of one of Sha'ul's sons at all.
Mephi-Voshet (מפיבשת) indicates "the destruction of an idol". We can presume that Mephi-Boshet was himself the effigy of the corn-god; the Guy Faux who is still burned in England to this day, mispronounced and fake-historicised though he be, originally on All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) before the reforms of the calendar, which moved it to the present date of November 5th (and of course All Hallow's Eve was not originally All Hallows Eve, but its opposite, all "evil spirits eve", the ridding of the gnats and midges and rats and badgers that had inhabited the corn-fields until they were stubbled, but which now, being homeless, needed eradication).
Michal was Sha'ul's daughter, whom David married. She also happened to be the high priestess of Chevron, which David made his religious and political centre for the customary seven years before he acquired the kingship of Yeru-Shala'im. Her bringing up of sons "on behalf of Adri-El" simply reflects her High Priestess duty of nurturing the sacred children born as a result of the orgiastic spring festivals, and dedicated to the Temple as Nazirites in order to serve as priests or sacrificial victims later on; the prophet Shemu-El (Samuel), who anointed both Sha'ul and David, was himself such a child. Adri-El (עדריאל) means "flock of god", the god in question being El the sun-god, the term again euphemistic: the group of to-be-sacrificed children nurtured in the Temple.
Barzilai (ברזלי) appears to come from the root Barzel (ברזל) = "iron", though the Talmud has Barzilah (ברזלא) with an Aleph (א) for "herdsman", and Barzilin (ברזלין) for "princes". Is this perhaps a misreading for Bar Zalal (בר זלל)? The festival in question is of course what we think of today as Sukot, and at Sukot the fourfold thrysus (lulav) is shaken as a central part of the ceremony. Zalal means "to shake". Bar Zilai was a Beney Gil'ad upon whose hospitality David depended greatly in his exile.
By coincidence, Avel Mecholah (cf Judges 7:22; 1 Kings 4:12) was also the name of the village, in the tribe of Yisaschar, where Elisha (אֱלִישָׁ֤ע) the Prophet was born (and 1 Kings 19:16); which tells us a great deal about who and what Elisha really was. The Meholathites are specifically identified with that village.
A final reading then: the Machalot or Mechalot were originally priestesses of the autumn-harvest. Other references indicate a god or goddess specifically connected to them, and presumably to Elisha the Prophet and the town in Yisaschar as well. Given that the dead corn-god will spend the next four months in the Underworld, before his mother comes in pursuit of him to restore his body and renew his life, it seems reasonable to presume that Machol or Machal is a name for Sh'eol or Hades, and that Machalah came to mean "disease" for that reason.
Machol (מחול) appears as a name in 1 Kings 5:11 (1 Kings 4:31 in some Christian translations), where Shelomoh (Solomon) is said to be wiser than all the wise men of the land, four of whom are named, and all "sons of Machol". Wise men means Oracular Prophets. "Sons of Machol" in the text reads like a parenthesis, and may indeed be a addition by the Redactor intended to demonise the "pagan" prophets. Or it may be a male version of the Mechalot.
Macholah as "dancing" is found in Exodus 15:20, where the prophetess Mir-Yam (Miriam) and her women take musical instruments and dance and sing a triumphant song for the Reed Sea slaughter of the Egyptians; also in Exodus 32:19, where the women are dancing around the Golden Calf; Judges 11:34, where Yiphtach's daughter comes out to meet him at Mitspeh, she and all her women dancing and making music; Judges 21:21, where the daughters of Shiloh dance at the annual festival at Beit-El) et al - every one of them a group of women, accompanying themselves on harp and timbrel, dancing for a festival. As suggested above, the link to the royal choir, for music was always accompanied by, or an accompaniment to, dancing at the festivals.
Machol (מחול) appears as a name in 1 Kings 5:11 (1 Kings 4:31 in some Christian translations), where Shelomoh (Solomon) is said to be wiser than all the wise men of the land, four of whom are named, and all "sons of Machol". Wise men means Oracular Prophets. "Sons of Machol" in the text reads like a parenthesis, and may indeed be a addition by the Redactor intended to demonise the "pagan" prophets. Or it may be a male version of the Mechalot.
Macholah as "dancing" is found in Exodus 15:20, where the prophetess Mir-Yam (Miriam) and her women take musical instruments and dance and sing a triumphant song for the Reed Sea slaughter of the Egyptians; also in Exodus 32:19, where the women are dancing around the Golden Calf; Judges 11:34, where Yiphtach's daughter comes out to meet him at Mitspeh, she and all her women dancing and making music; Judges 21:21, where the daughters of Shiloh dance at the annual festival at Beit-El) et al - every one of them a group of women, accompanying themselves on harp and timbrel, dancing for a festival. As suggested above, the link to the royal choir, for music was always accompanied by, or an accompaniment to, dancing at the festivals.
Numbers 26:33 and 27:1, as well as Joshua 17:3, have Machlah (מחלה) as a woman's name - one of the daughters of Tselaphchad (צְלָפְחָד) - though the Numbers 26:33 reference in particular seems to be a list of instructions for choreographing a dance thinly disguised as a family tree; and another reference in 1 Chronicles 7:18 could be male or female, though we can deduce from the above that it must have been female.
Machlon (מחלון) was a son of Rut (Ruth); the story of Rut both belongs to the summer harvest-festival of Shavu'ot and is itself a tale of the corn-god and his mother - so can we assume that the same priestesses would have danced at this festival as well? Self-evidently.
Machli (מחלי) appears in Exodus 6:19 and in Numbers 3:20 as a son of Merari (מְרָרִ֛י) and brother of Mushi (מוּשִׁ֑י); the tribe of Machli is referred to in 1 Chronicles 23:23 and 24:30, Numbers 3:33 and 26:58, interestingly as a brother tribe of Eder (עדר) and Yeremot (ירמות), both familiar to us already from the above. This time though Machli is the son not the brother of Mushi (מושי), a name whose meaning is "to yield". They are nonetheless Beney Levi, and listed here with precisely those groups who provided the male parts of the choir and orchestra, adding still further weight to the evidence that the Machalah was a small stringed-instrument, light enough to, carry while dancing, so probably some kind of ancient equivalent of the ukulele; while the Machalot were so-named because they carried and played the Machalah while dancing.
Machli (מחלי) appears in Exodus 6:19 and in Numbers 3:20 as a son of Merari (מְרָרִ֛י) and brother of Mushi (מוּשִׁ֑י); the tribe of Machli is referred to in 1 Chronicles 23:23 and 24:30, Numbers 3:33 and 26:58, interestingly as a brother tribe of Eder (עדר) and Yeremot (ירמות), both familiar to us already from the above. This time though Machli is the son not the brother of Mushi (מושי), a name whose meaning is "to yield". They are nonetheless Beney Levi, and listed here with precisely those groups who provided the male parts of the choir and orchestra, adding still further weight to the evidence that the Machalah was a small stringed-instrument, light enough to, carry while dancing, so probably some kind of ancient equivalent of the ukulele; while the Machalot were so-named because they carried and played the Machalah while dancing.
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