And Saul said to David, Behold my elder daughter Merab, her will I give you as your wife: only be you valiant for me, and fight the LORD'S battles. For Saul said, Let not my hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him.
All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 18:17 Go To 1 Samuel 18
Bede
AD 735
Because Saul was anointed with a holy chrism and given governorship over the kingdom, he preserved himself as a type of Christ. At that time we understood his two daughters to be two peoples, which were begotten by the twofold faith and love for Christ for salvation, namely, of the body and the mind, and made perfect by discipline. We understood the elder daughter to refer to the synagogue and the younger daughter the church. However, because the circumstances have changed in this passage, inasmuch as David represents Christ the Lord and Saul represents the people of the Jews who envied him, the older daughter who was promised but not given, means that portion of the same people which is more numerous and powerful and was promised to the brave and desirable bridegroom. When the predecessors of that portion of the Israelites (that is to say, the scribes, priests, Pharisees and elders of the people) came together to hear him, they called him a good teacher—and what is more, a singularly learned teacher. They wanted to learn to simply test him so, they browbeat him with many a question. And yet that portion of Israel was not given to Christ but to another, when the same teachers, seeking to be called rabbi by men, compelled those they could to listen to them. Now the younger daughter who by her devotion deserved to be given to David is surely that portion of the Jewish people that is less esteemed owing to their lesser numbers and despised position but that prefers to follow, love and hear their Lord and Savior rather than the scribes and experts in the law. They hear Christ say, “Do not fear, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.” Therefore, the Pharisees and other leaders of the Jews said to Christ, “Look, we entrust to you that larger part of the synagogue which has been subjected to us. Go ahead and teach it. Only see to it that you be brave in soul and fight with the word for the freedom of the people to whom it was commanded to preserve the law of God and to serve him alone. For ‘we know that you are truthful and that you do not favor anyone nor do you regard any individual but you teach the way of the Lord in truth. Now is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or should we not give it?’ ” However, they said these things while the servants of Herod were present so that, if he should have forbidden them to pay taxes, they themselves would have seemed not to be responsible for his death, if the Herodians would have punished him.
