We get a similar instance in Israelitish history as recorded in the first book of Samuel, where Saul being afraid of David, sought a favourable opportunity to get him slain by the Philistines. There is the story of the love of Michal, Saul's daughter, for David, and the use Saul endeavoured to make of that fact in carrying out his evil designs. The news that Michal had thus fallen in love, pleased Saul, and he said, "I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him." So David was told that the King would make him his son-in-law. But it was customary in those times for the bridegroom to _give_ a dowry instead of as at other times and in other places, to _receive_ one, and David immediately raised the objection that this was out of his power as he was but a poor man. This was Saul's opportunity and his message was, "the King desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines." Of course this involved the slaughter of a hundred of the enemy, and Saul made sure in attempting such a task, David would fall before odds so terribly against him. In commanding the foreskins to be brought to him Saul made sure that they would be Philistines who were slain, they being almost the only uncircumcised people about him. This proposal, however, it seems, did not alarm David in the least, he went forth at once on his terrible mission and actually brought back thrice the number of foreskins required of him by the King. This is not the only case on record of such a mutilation; mention is made by Gill the commentator of an Asiatic writer who speaks of a people that cut off the genital parts of men, and gave them to their wives for a dowry. So sacred was the organ in question deemed in ancient times, especially in Israel, that it was used as the means of administering the most binding form of oath then known. It is described as putting the hand upon the thigh, and instances are found in Genesis xxiv., 2, and xlvii., 29. In the former of these passages Abraham requires his elder servant to put his hand under his thigh and take an oath respecting the wife he would seek for his son Isaac. In the second passage, it is Jacob requiring his son Joseph to perform a similar action; in each case what is meant is that the genital organ, the symbol of the Creator and the object of worship among all ancient nations was to be touched in the act of making the promise.