FUTURE KING DAVID OVER PERFORMS EXPECTATIONS: SEVERED PENIS TIPS FOR A WEDDING DOWRY

 

2 Samuel 18 > 1 Kings

WARNING: Mass penis scalping

CONTEXT: ~ 1000 BCE The Israelite monarchy has its first succession crisis as King Saul tries to get David killed, but instead is gifted the tips of a couple hundred Philistine dicks as a dowry.

In the course of describing our American creation myth, the concept of “taking a scalp” arose when brave American patriots were fighting indigenous inhabitants who – like Canaanites – were unhappy about Christian white people stealing their land.¹ Scalping was the removal of the hair and top of the head as a battle trophy and further served as proof for bounty payments.

In the case of Late Bronze Age biblical battles, trophies were a little more personal: the foreskin from a dead enemy warrior’s penis. 

In this brief interlude, we follow the beginning of David’s career as he enjoys the limelight after slaying Goliath the Gittite². Following young David’s defeat of the large Philistine champion³, King Saul becomes concerned with the young shepherd’s growing popularity and success as a military leader. He is jealous that the women are proclaiming David’s martial prowess.

“As they danced, they sang: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.’” – 1 Samuel 18:7 [NIV]

In order to get rid of David without being blamed for it, Saul comes up with a plan to bestow his daughter Princess Merab unto David, while also promoting him into a more prominent and dangerous position in the army. Saul wants to set things up so David dies in battle but the king isn’t blamed for his death.⁴

David rejects the first marriage offer, but ends up in the cross hairs of another daughter instead. At this point in the story, Saul’s other daughter Michal is said to love him. There is some hint that Saul believes Merab is a liability who will somehow make it more likely that David will die in battle.

However, when the king suggests he marry Merab instead of Michal, David points out he is a poor man with no dowry. 

Not a problem, says Saul: just bring me the foreskins of a hundred Philistines and you get Michal. This grizzly endeavor would entail killing the soldiers, then trimming the foreskin from their penises. The foreskins would be proof that the involuntary donator was not an Israelite: there should be no foreskin on an Israelite on account of male genital mutilation required by YHWH.

Saul’s plan is for David to get himself killed while hunting trophy penis parts.

Naturally, young David proves himself a mensch once again by exceeding expectations. He doubles down by presenting King Saul with two hundred foreskins as a dowry. The nuptial deal is sealed (because what betrothed doesn’t want to brag about her foreskin dowry to her friends). Thus, two hundred dead and mutilated Philistines involuntarily give their lives so the future king could have a nice down payment for the bride.

Michal’s response to this honor is not recorded. However, the marriage later seems to have encountered challenges, especially after Michal criticizes David for dancing and celebrating a little too much after the king recaptures the Ark of the Covenant and brings it back to Israel. The portrayal of David as a man who loves music, is a fancy dancer and not averse to getting naked when the mood is upon him is consistent throughout the biblical narrative.

We do get some appreciation of how the Creator builds order into the universe by designing the male organ with a foreskin. This simple expedient allows fast identification of who is a Hebrew and who is not. There are a surprising number of Bible stories in which abrupt circumcision is a factor, including Moses’s wife doing speed surgery to save Moses’s life (see Fun Bible Story: Emergency Circumcision Saves Moses), a group circumcision in which the hundred year old Abram sports a new phallus fashion and the horrific butchery of the men of Shechem.

However, this is the only episode in which the penis tips were offered as a down payment for a wedding.

 

“David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law.”

– 2 Samuel 18

 

NOTES:

1. Spend some time looking up the “Manifest Destiny” if you’d like to know how true this really is. White Europeans used the Old Testament to justify their identity as the “new Israelites.” And pretty much none of them were even Jewish. The unfortunate indigenous stood in for Canaanites. Similar to Hebrew Bible, God forgot to tell them he had sold their land. YHWH had been rebranded as “God” at this point, but he’s the same blood old (testament) thirsty deity.
2. Gittite: a resident of Gath, a Philistine city at the northern border with Israelite territory.
3. It’s quite amazing how many of the ancient Hebrews’ enemies were giants. Goliath was described as about 9 feet tall. He had a giant son named Ishbibenob and four giant friends, There was Og, the King of Bashan, whose bed measured 13.5 ft long. The intrepid Israelites also stole the land of other giant clans: the Anakims and Emim. They did not have to fight the 450 ft. tall Niphilim of Genesis and Book of 1 Enoch fame, which is no doubt fortunate.
4. David later duplicates this behavior with more success by sending the husband of his new girlfriend Bathsheba to die in battle. He then marries the widow, who bears him Solomon.
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