David vs. Saul – Michal tricks her father

Everything considered, I’d much rather have Michal on my team than Saul

After David won the hand of King Saul’s daughter Michal by giving Saul all those Philistine foreskins, Saul decided (once again) that David needed to die. To this end Saul gathered up his servants and his son Jonathan. He told them they needed to kill David.

Now Jonathan was a huge fan of David. Indeed I’ve heard it suggested that they were secret lovers. Anyway, Jonathan went to visit David and told him that Saul was trying to have him killed (again). He told David to hide in a secret place, then he would take his father Saul to a field by that secret place where they could talk about David, then he would tell David what was decided.

Jonathan told his father not to kill David because David was a good guy and had even killed Goliath. He said that it would be a sin to spill the blood of an innocent man. Well, this convinced Saul to not have David killed and Saul swore in the name of the Lord that David would not be slain. Jonathan let David know about Saul’s change of heart and once again David was allowed to hang out around Saul.

This much safer arrangement lasted until after the next war with the philistines. David distinguished himself in the field and Saul remembered that David was a famous war hero. Because Saul didn’t want anyone other than himself to be famous, the next time he saw David he tried to kill him with a javelin. David was smart enough to flee after the javelin throwing incident and hid in his house.

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to keep watch over it and kill David in the morning. David’s wife Michal was smart enough to know what was going on so she helped David escape out the window during the night. Then she made a fake David out of a small statue and a goat hair pillow. The next day when the servants knocked on the door Michal told them David was sick and couldn’t get out of bed. After they reported this to Saul they were sent back to carry the bed to Saul so he could kill David himself.

It didn’t take long for Saul to figure out it wasn’t really David in the bed (think the ring wraith scene in the prancing pony where they stab the pillows). He immediately demanded to know why his daughter Michal had deceived him. Michal answered him by saying, “I had to do it. David told me he would kill me if I didn’t help him.” Of course this was a blatant lie but I guess Michal didn’t want her dad to kill her for helping her husband escape death.

What awesome family dynamics, eh?

Ref: 1 Samuel 19

David and the Foreskins – A tale of inappropriate touching

Just like history class, but shorter

King David’s life is pretty thoroughly chronicled in the bible, from before he killed Goliath by throwing a rock at him, to his death. This tale takes place after the rock-throwing incident but before David becomes King.

At this time David is a war leader of the Israelites and works for King Saul. His main job is to kill Philistines. Because David is super sexy and extra good at killing people the Israeli people really like him. They like him more than the king which is a problem because King Saul doesn’t like competition. So God sends an evil spirit upon Saul who then throws a couple of javelins at David trying to not only kill him, but also pin him to the wall. Well, David dodges the javelins and this really freaks out Saul who figures this could only happen if God had decided to no longer like Saul, but like David instead. So naturally Saul moved David out of the palace and made him the captain of a fighting force of 1000 men.

The obvious solution is that David must die now, since God likes him. Saul had already figured out he couldn’t kill David so he tried to foist it off on the Philistines. Saul told David he could marry his daughter Merab (Saul’s daughter, not David’s) if he would just fight some more against the Philistines, figuring that eventually David would die. Well, this didn’t work. David didn’t die. To get even with David for not dying, Saul married off his daughter Merab to someone else.

Saul’s next move was to tell David he could marry a different daughter, Michal. Well David was pretty sure he didn’t have enough money to buy one of the King’s daughters but that was ok. You see, the King’s messengers told David all he would need to do was bring the king 100 Philistine foreskins. Saul was sure this would get David killed and he could go back to being God’s favorite.

I don’t know what the hell was wrong with Saul. He must have forgotten about David’s 1000 fighting men. Anyway, they pretty easily went over to Philistine, killed 200 men and cut off their foreskins. David took the foreskins and gave them to Saul who then gave David his daughter Michal in trade as promised.

Now this story proves how cool David was. You see, when someone asks David for 100 foreskins, he brings them 200. Go foreskins!

Ref: 1 Samuel 18