22 Saul commanded his servants, "Talk with David secretly, and say, 'Behold, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you: now therefore be the king's son-in-law.'"
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And Saul commanded his servants, saying, commune with David secretly,.... And persuade him to marry Michal, and assure him of Saul's real regard to him, and good intention towards him; for it seems that David being ill used in the affair of his eldest daughter, did not listen to the proposals of Saul as to the youngest, and therefore Saul took this method to bring him into them:
and say, behold, the king hath a delight in thee; bore a good will towards him, had an high opinion of him, and it would be a pleasure to him that he should he his son-in-law:
and all his servants love thee; which might be true in general, excepting some few; which was no small mortification to Saul, though he here pleads it, and puts his servants on making use of it to gain his present purpose:
now therefore be the king's son in law; accept of the proposal he has made, and marry his youngest daughter.
Saul therefore employed his courtiers to persuade David to accept his offer. In this way we may reconcile in a very simple manner the apparent discrepancy, that Saul is said to have offered his daughter to David himself, and yet he commissioned his servants to talk to David privately of the king's willingness to give him his daughter. The omission of 1-Samuel 18:21 in the Septuagint is to be explained partly from the fact that בּשׁתּים points back to 1-Samuel 18:17-19, which are wanting in this version, and partly also in all probability from the idea entertained by the translators that the statement itself is at variance with 1-Samuel 18:22. The courtiers were to talk to David בּלּט, "in private," i.e., as though they were doing it behind the king's back.
*More commentary available at chapter level.