ContradictionsReading order 378Bible context 2 min read
How many Philistine foreskins did David buy his first wife with?
David's later description gives a price of one hundred foreskins, while the narrated delivery totals two hundred. An agreed price and a delivered quantity are not necessarily the same number.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
A marriage price of one hundred and an actual delivery of two hundred need not describe the same exact quantity.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
David recalls marrying Michal for one hundred Philistine foreskins
And David sent messengers to Ish–bosheth Saul’s son, saying, Deliver me my wife Michal, which I espoused to me for an hundred foreskins of the Philistines.
2 Samuel 3:14
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Samuel 3
David delivers two hundred foreskins before receiving Michal as wife
Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king’s son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.
1 Samuel 18:27
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)