Since he had been unsuccessful in murdering David himself, Saul also tried to get other people to kill him (cf. 2 Sam. 11:15). Saul had promised his daughter in marriage to Goliath's victor (17:25). Nevertheless now Saul added the condition that David also had to fight more battles for his king. David, on the other hand, did not aspire to marry the king's daughter even though such a marriage would have advanced his career greatly (v. 18; cf. 16:18). He evidently dismissed this possibility since he could not afford the dowry (bridal price, v. 23). Saul went back on his promise to give David his older daughter, Merab, anyway (v. 19).
Michal, like her brother Jonathan, had come to love David (v. 20). Evidently Saul meant that Michal would become a snare to David (v. 21) because as the son-in-law of the king David would have been in line for the throne. This would have made David an even more important target for the Philistines in battle. This time Saul tried to break down David's humble resistance to becoming his son-in-law by sending servants (courtiers, leading men of the kingdom) to persuade him. They assured David that his lack of wealth would not be a problem. Normally grooms paid their prospective fathers-in-law a price to compensate for the loss of their daughter.210However, Saul was willing to take 100 uncircumcised Philistine foreskins instead. He probably thought that David would respond to the challenge and perhaps die in the encounter with the Philistines. Saul used Michal as the bait to lure David into what he though would be a fatal encounter with the Philistines.
God protected David, however, and he was able to provide the king with twice as many foreskins as Saul had specified (v. 27).211This time Saul gave him his daughter.212Saul saw in these events evidence that Yahweh's blessing was with David (v. 28), and this made him even more fearful of him (v. 29). Ironically Saul from then on became David's enemy continually (v. 29) even though David had become his son-in-law as well as his faithful commander-in-chief and his effective field general. By setting himself against David, Saul was setting himself against God since David was the Lord's anointed (cf. Gen. 12:3).
"Saul's playing the part of a latter-day Laban (cf. Gn. 29:15-30) has rebounded upon himself, for now a second member of his own family has made her special contribution to the theme all Israel and Judah loved David' (v. 16)."213
David's behavior and wisdom in battle, guided and provided by God's Spirit, caused him to become increasingly effective and appreciated in Israel (v. 30). David had regarded himself as lightly esteemed (v. 23), but God made him highly esteemed (v. 30; cf. 9:2).
Throughout this chapter the writer balanced statements that credit God for David's successes (vv. 12, 14, 28) with others that credit David for them (vv. 5, 14, 15, 30). Both reasons were true. God's choice of David and David's choice of God worked together to make him successful. The opposite was also true of Saul. The Lord had forsaken Saul, but Saul had also forsaken the Lord, and the result was tragedy.
This chapter illustrates the fact that the godly often suffer through no fault of their own. It shows too that God causes even the worst intentions of the ungodly to elevate the godly (cf. Ps. 7:12-16; Rom. 8:28). We see here that the selfishness of the ungodly can produce irrational behavior (e.g., paranoia, v. 12, and schizophrenia, vv. 11, 17) and leads to their ruin. If we allow jealousy to take root in our hearts, it will devour us like a cancer. We should desire God's glory, as Jonathan did, rather than our own glory, as Saul did.
