Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
In like manner God exercised, advanced and perfected Jacob by Esau, Moses by Pharao, Isaias by Manasses, the Machabees by Antiochus, St. Athanasius by Constantius, St. Chrysostom by Eudoxia, St. Ambrose by the Empress Justina.
18. AND DAVID SAID: WHO AM I, OR WHAT IS MY LIFE (what have I done notable in life) etc., THAT I SHOULD BE SON IN LAW TO THE KING?—A wonderful humility of David shines out here, as one who, Saul being now rejected, was anointed king, had laid low Goliath, and was leader of battles, continually triumphing over the Philistines, and yet esteems himself unworthy of marriage with Saul’s daughter, to become his son in law. Doubtless he strives by his humility with the pride and envy of Saul, to break and overcome it, and especially to beat out of him that sting of the people acclaiming: “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” as if to say to Saul: My lord the king, there is no reason for this voice of the imprudent crowd to move thee, for it so little moves or exalts me, that I esteem myself the least of thy servants, and unworthy to become thy son in law. Hear St. Chrysostom, in the homily on these words of David: Who am I? “Who am I, my lord, that I have found such grace before thy face? For I was the least in my tribe, and thou hast chosen me out of the sheep, and taken me. See how he joined innocence to humility, that being a man he said: thou hast chosen me out of the sheep. He showed that this kind of cattle is innocent: for he signified that Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep; that Lamb of God who was to come to take away the sin of the world. Chosen from the sheep, then, to show the shepherd, and not to deny innocence, he says: For I was the least in my tribe. How sweet, how pleasant in the hearing of true confession, that he said he was the least in his tribe; he was not ashamed of what he was, that he might be what he was not. His confession brought him not sin but glory and mercy.” He then adds that David here bore the type of Christ: “That he said: I was the least in my tribe, signified the perfect humility of the Lord coming into the world, who willed to take the form not of a freeman but of a servant. What is humbler than a servant? Yet the Lord deigned to be this, to make free men out of servants, that His servitude might give us freedom. This signified what he said: I was the least in my tribe. Come now, lift up your minds, chosen race, and be not slothful, nor proud.”
21. AND SAUL SAID TO DAVID: IN TWO THINGS THOU SHALT BE MY SON IN LAW TO DAY,—the Hebrew and Septuagint have, in two; whence the Hebrews supply, wives, as if to say: I have promised two of my daughters to thee, and so by a double title thou shalt be my son in law. For Merob my elder daughter I betrothed to thee (even though by an occurring chance she was afterwards given to another), and Michol the younger I now betroth and give to thee. But Pagninus explains thus, in two, that is, in one of the two, namely in Michol thou shalt be my son in law. So also Hugh, Dionysius, Vatablus and others.
But our version more aptly interprets “in two” as things; for the Hebrews use the feminine gender for the neuter, which they lack. In two, that is in two things, namely in two points, or in two conditions and things. These two things are: the first, the slaying of Goliath; for to him who killed him Saul had promised his daughter, chap. 17, verse 25; the second, a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, which Saul now demanded, as is plain from verse 25. So Angelomus, Sanchez and others. So the Psalmist says: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.” One, that is one thing.
Otherwise the Author of the Questions in St. Jerome, Rupert, Hugh, the Gloss, Abulensis, Dionysius and others: “The two things,” he says, “are two hundred foreskins of the Philistines;” for these David numbered out to Saul, verse 27. Wherefore, since Saul for Michol demanded only a hundred foreskins, he seems likewise to have demanded a hundred for Merob the former, as if Saul said: Thou hast furnished me, O David, a hundred foreskins for Merob; furnish me another hundred, and I will give thee Michol; as Laban, substituting Lia for the seven years of Jacob’s service, wished him to serve him other seven years for Rachel, Genesis chap. 29, 20 and 27.
Moreover of old husbands bought their wives, by giving for them a price or dowry or wedding gifts, as I showed on Exodus chap. 22, 16. So Saul here says to David: There is no reason for thee to be anxious about the dowry and price, with which thou mayest buy Michol as wife; for she, being the king’s daughter, would have to be valued at a great price. But I, being a wealthy king, require no price from thee a poor man.
25. THE KING HATH NO NEED OF ANY DOWRY.—He calls the dowry, or the price of the bride just mentioned, “sponsalia,” as is plain from the Hebrew.
BUT ONLY AN HUNDRED FORESKINS OF THE PHILISTINES.—Why did Saul ask for foreskins rather than the heads of the Philistines? I answer, lest David should bring heads, pretending them to be the heads of Philistines; for the Hebrews had laid aside their foreskins in circumcision: wherefore if David brought Saul foreskins, it was certain they were not the Hebrews’, since theirs had been cut off and circumcised, but the Philistines’. So Theodoret and Procopius. Add that to carry off so many heads was very difficult, and to offer them to the king would have been a horrid and cruel spectacle.
Moreover this marriage and this condition were treacherous. For Saul asked these hundred foreskins in order that David, fighting with a hundred Philistines, might be slain by one of them. So St. Chrysostom, in the homily On David and Saul; St. Augustine on Psalm 33; St. Ambrose, sermon 18 on Psalm 118. Again, Saul gave his Michol to David, that she might either ruin David or betray him to himself. But God, favouring David, shook off both, and turned them to David’s good and glory. For David both slew two hundred Philistines with great fortitude and glory, and Michol loved David more than Saul, and rescued him from the hands of Saul, as we shall hear in the next chapter.
HUNDRED MEN,—to offer Saul two hundred of their foreskins; Saul had asked only a hundred: but David offered two hundred, to show his liberality and generosity to Saul.
30. AND THE PRINCES OF THE PHILISTINES WENT FORTH,—to fight against the Hebrews. But why did they go out? I answer, from the ancient and innate dissension and hatred toward the Hebrews: for this stirred them to continual wars. Add that a recent cause of hatred and of new war arose, that the disgrace inflicted in the slaughter of Goliath they wished to blot out, their strength and forces being restored. A more recent cause was that David had slain two hundred of them and offered their foreskins to Saul, which they reckoned to be a huge shame and disgrace to them. The Rabbis give another cause, that David, as a new bridegroom, would for a year abstain from war, to attend to his wife and family: and therefore the Philistines thought it now time to invade the Hebrews, since David, whom alone they feared, was at rest. For so God ordains, Deuteronomy chap. 24, verse 5: “When a man hath lately taken a wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall any public business be enjoined him, but he shall be free at home without blame for one year, to rejoice with his wife.” But this law does not forbid a new bridegroom to go to war, but only commands that no one compel him to war or to another public burden; for this is what “enjoined” signifies. Wherefore the Philistines, if they moved arms, could fear that David, as a brave chiliarch, would at once meet them, as in fact he did meet them, as is here said: but they wished to try their usual war with the Hebrews, hoping that they would at last overcome David.