1 Samuel 18:28

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Saul saw and knew that Yahweh was with David; and Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וּמִיכַ֥ל

Mîykâl

H4324

“and · Michal”

Conjunction + Noun, Proper

Appears 18× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Samuel 14:49

Full BDB Definition

Origin: apparently the same as H4323

TWOT: None

Michal = "who is like God" - daughter of king Saul, sister of Jonathan, wife of king David, and mother of five; given to David as wife for the bride price of 100 Philistine foreskins; while still married to David, her father gave her in marriage to another, Phaltiel; at the death of Saul, David forced her to return

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11: words
10: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וּמִיכַ֥ל Michal H4324 — appearing just 18 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וּמִיכַ֥ל Michal H4324 occurs in 17 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
6 nouns
1 preposition
1 conjunction

Verb forms

וַיַּ֤רְא Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיֵּ֔דַע Qal · Sequential Imperfect
אֲהֵבַֽתְהוּ Qal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

שָׁאוּל֙ Saul H7586 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 15 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 18:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 30:27 Laban said to him, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, stay here, for I have divined that Yahweh has blessed me for your sake."
Genesis 37:8–11 His brothers said to him, "Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?" They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words.
Genesis 39:3 His master saw that Yahweh was with him, and that Yahweh made all that he did prosper in his hand.
1 Samuel 24:20 Now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.
1 Samuel 26:25 Then Saul said to David, Blessed be you, my son David: you shall both do mightily, and shall surely prevail. So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.
Revelation 3:9 Behold, I give of the synagogue of Satan, of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 1 Samuel 18:28 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֤רְא שָׁאוּל֙ וַיֵּ֔דַע כִּ֥י יְהוָ֖ה עִם דָּוִ֑ד וּמִיכַ֥ל בַּת שָׁא֖וּל אֲהֵבַֽתְהוּ

Saul saw and knew that Yahweh was with David; and Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 18:28 Septuagint · lemma form

And Saul saw that the Lord was with David, and that all Israel loved him.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַחֲזָא שָׁאוּל וִידַע אֲרֵי מֵימְרָא דַייָ בְּסַעֲדֵיהּ דְדָוִד וּמִיכַל בַּת שָׁאוּל רַחַמְתֵּיהּ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 1 Samuel 18:28 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

1Sa 18:28 And Saul saw and knew that the LORD [was] with David, and [that] Michal Saul’s daughter loved him.

Ver. 28. And Saul saw and knew.] The greater was his sin in persecuting David, whom he knew God favoured; and that without remorse unto the death. Was not this the unpardonable sin?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

1Sa 18:28-29. Saul knew that the Lord was with David — He was convinced of it, by the success which he constantly had in all his undertakings. And Saul was yet the more afraid of David — Having thus advanced him; and seeing no hope of bringing his designs to pass against him. And Saul became David’s enemy continually — He was every day more resolved to destroy him. Such strange blindness did his anger and hatred, and such like passions, bring upon him, that he set himself against him, who he saw and knew, had God for his friend! In what a lost condition must Saul’s mind have now been!

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) Saul saw . . . that the Lord was with David.—The success of the last savage enterprise, and the return of David with his ghastly spoils, filled the unhappy king with dismay. His daughter’s love, too, for the rising soldier contributed to his trouble. Saul felt that all that David undertook prospered—that surely another and a higher Power was helping him. So his fear grew, we read in 1Sa_18:29, and the paroxysms of jealous hatred deepened into a lifelong enmity.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

28. that Michal Saul’s daughter loved him] The reading of the Sept. certainly suits the context better: “that all Israel loved him.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

David. Of the subsequent verses, the Roman Septuagint has only the following words. "And all Israel lived him; (29) and Saul still continued to be in awe of him." The Alexandrian manuscript agrees with the Hebrew, only, instead of Michol, &c., it reads, "all Israel." If the contested passages were omitted, the history would be less perplexed. But we must wait for the decision of the Church in matters of this nature, and never decide to peremptorily. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 28, 20. The failure of his evil purpose, and the knowledge that Michal loved her husband, and would protect him against his intrigues, and that the marriage had brought rank and influence to David, made Saul hate him all the more bitterly, because he could not now openly put to death one so closely connected with him.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

1 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 11 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Mîykâl (“Michal”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Michal” (Mîykâl) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does 1 Samuel 14:49, which shares the word «Michal», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “Saul” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיַּ֤רְא» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“Saul” occurs 2× in this single verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.