Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 18:25

"And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king`s enemies. Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines." — 1 Samuel 18:25 (ASV)

A hundred foreskins. —Wordsworth’s note here, which he derives from Theodoret, is curious. Foreskins! Why not heads? Here is a sign of Saul’s suspicious and malignant spirit. He, judging for himself, impiously suspects that David would go out and destroy some of the Israelites — Saul’s own subjects — as he himself desired to destroy David, his own deliverer; and the foreskins were required as a proof that those who were killed were not Israelites. Josephus, however, with a strange exaggeration, mentions 600 heads as the price of Michal.