Philistine Foreskins - 1st Samuel 18:22-30

This whole time the marriage that Saul is trying to arrange for David to marry one of his two daughters, everyone else can look at it from the outside and think that Saul is just fulfilling the obligation to David that was promised when he defeated Goliath but the reality is that Saul is hoping to set David up to be killed because Saul is threatened by his success and popularity. Saul sends his servants to David with a very specific script, he wants David to think that he’s very pleased with him and all the people love him and that David will marry Saul’s daughter soon. I don’t know if David has caught on to Saul’s alternative plan here, but it seems like it, possibly because Saul tried to kill him by throwing spears at his twice, maybe that was the giveaway that this might be a precarious situation for him. Saul’s servants come around saying what Saul told them to and David responds, “Seemth it to you a light thing to be a king’s son in law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed?” We know what both of these things aren’t true, David’s father Jesse was of the ruling class in Judah so he had money, and definitely would have made a way for a dowry to be paid in order to marry into the king’s family if it had come down to that. We also know that David wasn’t “lightly esteemed” because all the people were singing his praises which is what was causing all these problems in the first place.

If none of these excuses are true, then why does David respond with them? One reason might have been to feign humility which TB points out numerous times is a hallmark of ancient middle eastern culture. Another reason might be because he knows that Saul is trying to kill him and wants to get out of marrying into his family. If he says that he can’t afford a dowry, then maybe he thinks that Saul will let the matter go, but he doesn’t, he doubles down saying that it’s ok that he can’t afford a dowry, “but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies.” This is where Saul has laid his trap, he thinks that David will be forced to get kill 100 Philistines to take their foreskins and that David will be killed on that mission and it will solve all his problems. This goes back to the whole concept that I don’t understand of seeing someone that has interacted with the great power of God and wanting to kill it. Like when the Pharisees wanted to kill Lazurus because Jesus raised him from the dead, like how can you look at that situation and not be terrified to anger that same God that raises people from the dead? Of the man born blind that was healed and the Jewish leadership wanted to kill that man too, like how wicked does someone need to be to look at a miracle from God and think that they have more power to take that life? It’s crazy.

It seems like David is not that put off marrying into the king’s family because when he heard that all Saul wanted from him was 100 Philistine foreskins, he hurried out, with his men, “and slew of the Philistines two hundred men,” and gave 200 instead of 100 foreskins to Saul. I can’t imagine how disgusting that trip back was, a bag full of foreskins, gross. Saul must have been very surprised to see David walking back in with the foreskins instead of dead, and so he gave his daughter Michal to David as a wife, but “Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal Saul’s daughter loved him.” That must have been a bitter pill to swallow, and he didn’t take it well because he became even more hostile towards David. It’s interesting that Saul disregarded God’s will and law this whole time for probably a lot of reasons, but now that he obviously doesn’t have it anymore, he’s very scared of that power working against him when he didn’t care before when it wasn’t as obvious.