1 Samuel 18:17-30
David Marries Michal
17 Then Saul said to David, “Here is my older daughter Merab; I will give her to you as a wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight the LORD’s battles.” For Saul thought, “Let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.”
18 So David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my life or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” 19 But it happened at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, that she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.
20 Now Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. 21 So Saul said, “I will give her to him, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” Therefore Saul said to David a second time, “You shall be my son-in-law today.”
22 And Saul commanded his servants, “Communicate with David secretly, and say, ‘Look, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you. Now therefore, become the king’s son-in-law.’”
23 So Saul’s servants spoke those words in the hearing of David. And David said, “Does it seem to you a light thing to be a king’s son-in-law, seeing I am a poor and lightly esteemed man?” 24 And the servants of Saul told him, saying, “In this manner David spoke.”
25 Then Saul said, “Thus you shall say to David: ‘The king does not desire any dowry but one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to take vengeance on the king’s enemies.’” But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. 26 So when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to become the king’s son-in-law. Now the days had not expired; 27 therefore David arose and went, he and his men, and killed two hundred men of the Philistines. And David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full count to the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him Michal his daughter as a wife.
28 Thus Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved him; 29 and Saul was still more afraid of David. So Saul became David’s enemy continually. 30 Then the princes of the Philistines went out to war. And so it was, whenever they went out, that David behaved more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name became highly esteemed.
Saul’s couched concession in giving David his daughter as a wife was to use him to fight the enemy for him, likely to see them take him out of the way so he could remain the king. David’s godly courage met that ill-willed offer with action that trusted God’s calling and fighting the battles for him and Israel. Saul saw this and withdrew the offer at the last second as he gave the daughter Merab to another man. When the other daughter of the king, Michal, fell for him, Saul sought another opportunity to bring David down by offering her as wife to ensnare him with emotional distraction so the enemy might prevail against him in the fray. Since David was both humble and poor, he questioned why he should be made a son-in-law of the king. Saul used this offer as a couched concession as well to lure David into killing one hundred Philistines and circumcise them, bringing back their foreskins as proof and as a dowry of a different value. David did not fall in fighting them, but brought twice the dowry and got the wife offered him in deceit. This frustrated Saul and fear of the LORD in His hand of protection and grace on David faced him as he also feared the servant of the LORD, David, whom he also called his enemy now in a battle for keeping the throne already given away by God to David. David,on his part, continued to act wisely in circumspect fighting for the people of God and won their hearts long lost by Saul. This teaches us not to fight against, fear, or devise couched plots of rewarding those God has called and uses in a vain to attempt to trap them in order to gain their gifts and callings for oneself. Such couched concessions that attempt to trip up God’s servants will face godly courage in them and serious consequences for ourselves. Fair play and honoring those the Lord uses over us in serving God is required with respect and obedience as unto to the Lord (Hebrews 13:7, 17, 24, Acts 20:28, 1 Corinthians 16:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13) and therefore to those He uses in their callings as our elders and teachers looking out for our souls as faithful shepherds. We are not to become like the king Saul who was rejected for rejecting God’s will, but to be a man after God’s own heart like the chosen king David as we embrace those He puts over us for our good and fight the good fight of the gospel with godly courage.
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