When Life’s Not Fair: Finding Peace In God’s Justice - 1 Samuel 18:20-30 Series

1 Samuel 18:20 Now Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased. 21 "I will give her to him," he thought, "so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him." So Saul said to David, "Now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law." 22 Then Saul ordered his attendants: "Speak to David privately and say, 'Look, the king is pleased with you, and his attendants all like you; now become his son-in-law.'" 23 They repeated these words to David. But David said, "Do you think it is a small matter to become the king's son-in-law? I'm only a poor man and little known." 24 When Saul's servants told him what David had said, 25 Saul replied, "Say to David, 'The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.'" Saul's plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines. 26 When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king's son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, 27 David and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage. 28 When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, 29 Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days. 30 The Philistine commanders continued to go out to battle, and as often as they did, David met with more success than the rest of Saul's officers, and his name became well known.

Introduction

In v. 20 Paul finds out that his daughter Michal is in love with David and the very first thought in his mind is how that could come in handy in his effort to kill David. He knows David is going to decline again because he feels he’s unworthy, so Saul hatches this plan. He knows David doesn’t have any money, so he makes the bride price an act of heroism. That will get past the problem of David thinking he is unworthy, and Saul figures if he makes that act of heroism dangerous enough, that will get David killed. So Saul gets the word out that the price is 100 Philistine foreskins. Most of the surrounding Gentile peoples practiced circumcision, so requiring foreskins would prove that it was actually Philistines that were killed, and more importantly, by requiring a part of the male body that is always covered by clothes it makes it that much more difficult. That is not something you could quickly do in the middle of a battle when there are other Philistines around. So David gathers some guys together and says, “Let’s go.”

He outmaneuvers a small band of Philistine soldiers and gets around behind them on some higher ground, uses the element of surprise, hits fast and hard, and he and his men deliver lethal blows to all of them before any of them could strike back. OK, now he’s got 5 – 95 more to go. Later he finds one Philistine soldier off by himself, 94 left to go. The problem is, now they are on to him. They keep finding the dead mutilated bodies of their comrades, and now they are on high alert. That is all conjecture – we don’t know for sure how it all happened. All we know is in a relatively short period of time David came back not with 100 foreskins, but with 200. So now David is a hero, his popularity goes through the roof, he marries Saul’s daughter Michal, and he is still alive and well. So much for Saul’s plan.

Injustice

We have been studying the life of David, and throughout most of 1 Samuel, David is contrasted with Saul. The train wreck of Saul’s life is caused, in large part, by the very wicked sin the Bible calls “fear of man.” Up to now we have been looking at it from the perspective of Saul, since that is the way it is presented in these chapters. But as we wrap up this study this morning, let’s take a moment now and think about it from David’s point of view. David is suffering two really hard things: betrayal and unfairness.

Betrayal

With the exception of the spear throwing incident, all Saul’s efforts to kill David are disguised as acts of friendliness toward David. Saul offers his daughters for David to marry, keeps promoting him in the military – pretending to be doing good to David while in reality he’s trying to kill him. Eventually it became clear to David what was going on, and that really hurt David. To be betrayed by someone you highly respect and love is an extremely painful thing. David wrote about what it was like for him in Ps. 55.