1 Samuel 18:18

Of course Saul knew that the people thought highly of David, so he used the trick of offering his older daughter Merab to David if David would prove himself brave in fighting the Lord's battles (v.17). David had good cause to be suspicious of this, for Saul had already promised his daughter to the man who would kill Goliath (ch. 17:25). Saul hoped that David would take such risks in his fighting that the Philistines would kill him. But David showed a humble spirit. He protested that he did not think himself worthy to be the king's son-in-law.

"And David said to Saul, 'Who am I?'" — for his humility was real, with nothing put on — and still God worked on his behalf in fresh ways. "Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father's clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?" But there was no truth or conscience toward God in Saul, and no care for David or regard for the promised word of a king. "But at the time when Merab, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite for a wife."

The Lord had been dishonoured, and His people threatened, and this was "the cause" that moved David to say to Saul, "Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." The honours and riches promised to the man who killed Goliath were not what moved him. After the victory we do not find him claiming them, splendid and flattering as they were — the very things for a man who wanted glory for himself. Instead we hear him saying, "Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father's clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?" and we see him going back to being the king's harpist.

Perhaps it was after he had endured the taunts of Eliab, his eldest brother, who charged him with pride and a bad heart, that he poured out his soul in the words of Psalm 131. Turning away from his brother, his soul turned towards his God with these words: "O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me."

The first thing worth noting is the king's humility. He has no thought of pride. Communion with the Lord, instead of exalting man, lowers him in his own estimation. "Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?" David is well aware of his origin and glories in it because this origin exalts the God who took him from the sheepfold!

With fitting modesty, David shrinks from the honour of being linked with the king, but he meets all the conditions, and in the end receives Saul's second daughter as his bride. This is a very faint foreshadowing, may we not say, of the Church, which is given to our Lord as the result of His glorious victory. "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."