1 Samuel 18:27

Study note

Setting — David acts after his servants report Saul’s terms, fulfilling the king’s condition before the wedding day arrives. This event occurs between Saul’s report of David’s military success and his later realization that the LORD is with David.

The words — וַיַּךְ (va/i.Yakh) means “and he struck down,” and מָאתַ֣יִם (ma.Ta.yim) means “two hundred.” The text explicitly states that David and his men killed two hundred Philistines to secure the marriage payment.

The thread — The death-count bride price parallels the thirty men in Judges 14:19 and resurfaces in 2 Samuel 3:14 when David demands Michal back. Saul’s prior commissioning of David as commander of a thousand men in 1 Samuel 18:13 establishes the military framework for this fulfillment.

Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that covenant loyalty requires concrete, costly action rather than mere words. It requires the reader to track how royal favor shifts through fulfilled conditions, not through emotional declarations.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.