(14) To Ish-bosheth.--The demand is made upon the de facto king that all may be done legally, and David may not appear to be reclaiming his wife by force. At the same time, Ish-bosheth is thus compelled to acknowledge the wrong done to David and his inability to refuse his demand. It appears from 2Samuel 3:16 that Abner was employed to execute the command, and, in fact, the whole matter was really determined by him, the king being merely the official and legal instrument.

An hundred foreskins.--David had actually delivered to Saul as her dowry two hundred, but only one hundred had been required (1Samuel 18:25; 1Samuel 18:27), and therefore only that number is mentioned.

Verse 14. - A hundred foreskins. This was the number which Saul had required (1 Samuel 18:25), and David acted rightly in not boasting that he had really given twice as many (1 Samuel 18:27). As he had paid her father the stipulated price, Michal, by Oriental law, was David's property.

3:7-21 Many, like Abner, are not above committing base crimes, who are too proud to bear reproof, or even the suspicion of being guilty. While men go on in sin, and apparently without concern, they are often conscious that they are fighting against God. Many mean to serve their own purposes; and will betray those who trust them, when they can get any advantage. Yet the Lord serves his own designs, even by those who are thus actuated by revenge, ambition, or lust; but as they intend not to honour him, in the end they will be thrown aside with contempt. There was real generosity both to Michal and to the memory of Saul, in David's receiving the former, remembering probably how once he owed his life to her affection, and knowing that she was separated from him partly by her father's authority. Let no man set his heart on that which he is not entitled to. If any disagreement has separated husband and wife, as they expect the blessing of God, let them be reconciled, and live together in love.And David sent messengers to Ishbosheth, Saul's son,.... When Abner's messengers returned to him, and acquainted him with the condition of David's entering into a league with him, it is highly probable that Abner sent them or others to David, to let him know that he could not do this of himself; that it was advisable for him to write to Ishbosheth, whose sister she was, and demand her of him; and that then he would use his interest with Ishbosheth to grant it, and this method David took:

saying, deliver me my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for an hundred foreskins of the Philistines; two arguments he made use of to enforce his demand; one is, that it was his wife he required, to whom he had a right, and no other man; and the other is, that he had purchased her at a great expense, at the risk of his life, in slaying an hundred Philistines, whose foreskins he paid in for her at the instance of Saul; he mentions but one hundred, though he gave two hundred as her dowry, no more being required than one hundred; see 1 Samuel 18:25. Josephus very wrongly says six hundred (b); the Syriac and Arabic have here two hundred.

(b) Antiqu. l 7. c. 1. sect. 4.