Price for a Wife

[1 Sam. 18:1] And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
Though bound to this already (17:25), he had found it convenient to forget his former promise. He now holds it out as a new offer, which would tempt David to give additional proofs of his valor. But the fickle and disloyal monarch broke his pledge at the time when the marriage was on the eve of being celebrated, and bestowed Merab on another man an indignity as well as a wrong, which was calculated deeply to wound the feelings and provoke the resentment of David.
Perhaps it was intended to do so, that advantage might be taken of his indiscretion. But David was preserved from this snare.
The account of David’s marriage with Saul’s daughter marks an important stage in the accession narrative. To become the son-in-law of the king was a great thing, for it is stressed repeatedly. Such a marriage implied a claim to the succession to Saul’s throne.
It was when Michal fell in love with David that David claimed Michal, not as a reward but at the price of a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. Saul’s demand for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines reveals a double purpose.
1. First he wants to ensure that David does not kill anyone from among the Israelites but from their enemies, the Philistines. Because the Philistines were uncircumcised, the production of their foreskins would be evidence that David had killed only Philistines.
2. Second the danger involved in killing all those Philistines was great.
In Eastern countries the husband purchases his wife either by gifts or services. As neither David nor his family were in circumstances to give a suitable dowry for a princess, the king intimated that he would be graciously pleased to accept some gallant deed in the public service.
A hundred foreskins of the Philistines, such mutilations on the bodies of their slain enemies were commonly practiced in ancient war, and the number told indicated the glory of the victory.
Saul's willingness to accept a public service had an air of liberality, while his choice of so difficult and hazardous a service seemed only putting a proper value on gaining the hand of a king's daughter. But he covered unprincipled malice against David under this proposal, which exhibited a zeal for G-d and the covenant of circumcision.
Michal, whom Saul intended to become a snare to David, turned out to be a strong supporter of David. G-d overrules human plans. He appropriates even the evil intentions of mankind for the fulfillment of his ultimate plan of salvation.