Saul evidently had never heard that a man’s word is his bond. He thought words were to bend.
Here was the offer Saul had made to anyone willing to take on the giant challenge in the Valley of Elah: “The man who kills him the king will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter, and give his father’s house exemption from taxes in Israel” (1 Sam 17:25). David, by the power of God, had done so. Now it was time for Saul to do what he had promised. But even in this he couldn’t be trusted. You can hardly expect a man who flaunts God’s word to keep his own! “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’” (18:17). That sounds good. But we have the advantage of knowing what Saul was actually thinking: “For Saul thought, ‘Let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.’” No use wasting my time chasing David; let the enemy kill him. But when the time came for the marriage— oops! “Merab…was given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife” (v 19). Not to worry; Saul’s younger daughter, Michal, “loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him” (v 20). Why? He thought she would “be a snare to him” (v 21). When bitterness is nurtured in the heart, everything is poisoned in the life. When David said he was unable to pay a dowry for a princess, Saul set the price—forcibly circumcise one hundred uncircumcised Philistines! Of course, it could only be managed by dispatching them first. David, with his men, doubled the number and made the gruesome delivery. Unwittingly, in spite of his worst efforts, Saul was building the case against himself and for David. “Thus Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David” (v 28). People who fight against the Lord end up defeating themselves.