1 Samuel 18:21 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And Saul said, &c.— Houbigant renders this, But Saul determined that he would propose to give her to him, that he might be ensnared by means of her, and fall into the hands of the Philistines. It is not to be imagined that Michal, who loved David, would lay any snares for him: Saul prepared the snare by means of her; hoping, that when David should undertake to fight the Philistines for her sake, he would fall in battle. The latter clause of the verse he renders thus: Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law, on another condition. His first condition was, the conquest of Goliath; his second, an hundred foreskins of the Philistines. Nothing can be more despicable than the shuffling, base, and insidious conduct of Saul, throughout this whole transaction. Ludolf, in his History of Ethiopia, b. 1 Chronicles 16 informs us, that it is to this day the custom in Ethiopia to judge of the number of the dead in a battle, not by the heads, but by those signs of victory which Saul demanded from David.