First Love

Reflections on 1 Sam. 18:17-30

Love and marriage, love and marriage,
Go together like horse and carriage.
This I tell ya, brother,
You can’t have one without the other.

Frank Sinatra’s song suggests that love is the most important factor in marriage, but is it? What about money? Social status? Intrigue? David’s first marriage may have included them all.

BROKEN PROMISE. Saul had made a promise to give his daughter in marriage to the man who would kill Goliath. This, of course, offered common soldiers the chance to move up in social status by marrying into the royal family. And with that new status also came an exemption from taxes (1 Sam. 17:25). Saul, however, did not immediately keep his promise because he was controlled by jealousy and malice. Wishing to destroy David, he required that David fight more battles against the Philistines. Because of his inferior social position, David accepted the additional requirement without complaining (1 Sam. 18:18 ESV): “Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father’s clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” Saul, fully expecting David to be killed, promised his daughter Merab to another man. When the time for the wedding arrived and David had not been killed as he expected, Saul saw giving Merab to the man from Meholah in the prosperous Jordan Valley as a way to humiliate a poor soldier whose popularity made him jealous.

BRUTAL BRIDE PRICE. But humiliating David did not satisfy Saul. He wanted to destroy him, so he was pleased to hear that his daughter Michal loved David. A second opportunity for David to marry a daughter of Saul was also a second opportunity to have David killed by the Philistines. Saul sent a private offer to make David his son-in-law. When David responded to Saul, he had to be careful. He could not reject the offer without insulting the king, and he could not accept the offer eagerly without appearing presumptuous. Accordingly, he replied (v. 23), “Does it seem to you a little thing to become the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man and have no reputation?” David did what was socially appropriate – he recognized the social distance between himself and the king and left the initiative with the socially superior king (compare with Alter, 1981, p. 119). Saul did take the initiative and named the bride price as a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. (Saul’s use of this barbaric practice showed how much he had become a king like the kings of other nations.) But just as Saul failed twice to pin David to the wall with his javelin, so he failed a second time to kill David by the hands of the Philistines. Furthermore, David paid double the bride price, and became the king’s son-in-law.

TRUE LOVE. After the marriage, Saul found it disturbing that his daughter, Michal, loved David. Surprisingly, this is the only time (outside the Song of Solomon) a Bible writer records that a woman loved a man (Alter, 1981, p. 118). Undoubtedly, Michal had heard reports of David’s bravery, overheard him singing to her father, and caught glimpses of his handsome features when in her father’s court. She loved David with the idealistic first love of youth. The writer also tells us that David was pleased to become the king’s son-in-law, but he does not tell us whether David loved Michal. According to the customs of the day, David probably had had few opportunities to be with Michal though he may have seen her on occasion when in attendance to her father.

David’s marriage to Michal was the first of three marriages (to Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba) which are reported in some detail. This first marriage stands in contrast to the way David obtained Bathsheba. In order to marry the first time, David was sent into battle to be killed, but survived and won a bride who loved him. In order to marry the last time, David sent another into battle to be killed and then took that man’s wife for himself. In this way, the writer shows both the greatness of David, and the greatness of the sin into which he fell.