Jonathan Opens a Battle That Saul Nearly Closes Against Him

“The young man that bare his armour” was the prince’s squire, carrying shield and spare weapons and finishing off the fallen. “He told not his father” is set down plainly, and it sounds different after 20:2, where Jonathan insists that his father tells him everything.

Saul sits under a pomegranate tree, in Hebrew a rimmon, with six hundred men. The last six hundred Benjaminites to survive a disaster held out at the rock Rimmon (Judges 20:47). Migron lies on the same invasion road Isaiah traces past Michmash (Isaiah 10:28).

The priest’s pedigree reaches back through Ichabod, the child named “no glory” on the day the ark was lost (4:21), to Eli himself, whose house was placed under sentence in 2:31–33. The royal camp carries a condemned priesthood with it. Ahiah is probably the Ahimelech of 22:9, also a son of Ahitub.

“Sharp rock” is literally “a tooth of the crag”, a jagged spur on each side of the pass. Seneh means “thorny”, the word for the burning bush (Exodus 3:2). Bozez is less certain, perhaps “shining” or “slippery”. The two crags are named like landmarks a soldier would remember.

“Forefront” renders a word meaning a column or pillar of rock. One crag faced north toward Michmash and the other south; the standard Hebrew text reads Geba again, as in 13:16. The gorge between them is still traced today in the Wadi es-Suweinit.

“Uncircumcised” is soldiers’ contempt, and David will reach for the same word about Goliath (17:26, 36). “No restraint to the LORD” means nothing holds him back, with the word used of a womb being shut or rain being held. Many or few is Gideon’s lesson (Judges 7:2), put in a sentence.

“According to thy heart” uses the same Hebrew construction as the “man after his own heart” of 13:14, one verse after Saul was told he had lost the kingdom. The armourbearer says “heart” twice in a short reply. The Greek renders it “as your heart is, so is my heart”.

“Discover ourselves” is the 1611 sense of uncover, to show ourselves in the open. Jonathan deliberately gives up surprise, the one advantage two men might have had against a garrison, and makes being seen part of the plan.

“Tarry” is dommu, “be still”, the verb Joshua used when he told the sun to stand still over Gibeon (Joshua 10:12). If the enemy says it, Jonathan will obey an order from the Philistines, which is part of what makes the test honest.

Asking for a sign has precedent: Abraham’s servant at the well (Genesis 24:14) and Gideon with the fleece (Judges 6:36–40). Saul himself received three signs at his anointing (10:7). Jonathan sets the terms so that the enemy’s own words decide, and speaks of the victory as already done.

The first half of the plan is carried out in the very words of verse 8. The garrison sees two men, not an army, and takes them for stragglers crawling out of hiding. The taunt proves the Philistines expect no attack from below.

“We will shew you a thing” is a soldier’s threat, roughly “we’ll teach you a lesson”. Jonathan subtly enlarges his claim: in verse 10 the LORD delivered them “into our hand”, and now “into the hand of Israel”. Two men climb on behalf of a nation that does not know they have gone.

The division of labour is exact. Jonathan knocks men down, and the armourbearer, following behind, kills them, the squire’s grim task of finishing the fallen, as Abimelech’s armourbearer was asked to do (Judges 9:54). Climbing on hands and feet means neither could hold a shield while doing it.

The Hebrew is compressed, roughly “half a furrow of a yoke of field”. The King James “acre” fits well, since the English acre began as the land one yoke of oxen could plough in a day. Twenty men fall in a space a farmer could cover before lunch.

The Hebrew says the trembling was “a trembling of God”, which can mean an extremely great panic or a terror sent by God, and the book leaves both open. The word “trembling” appears four times over. The earth quakes, as thunder had routed the Philistines at Mizpah (7:10).

“Melted away” is the verb Rahab used of Canaan’s nerve before Israel (Joshua 2:9). The watchmen at Gibeah are looking across the gorge and see the enemy camp dissolving before anyone in Israel’s camp knows why.

Saul numbers his men again, the verb of Bezek (11:8) and of Gilgal (13:15). Each count in these chapters is smaller than the last: three hundred and thirty thousand, then six hundred, and now the discovery that two are gone and they are the two who matter.

Saul’s order “bring hither” is the same command David will give Abiathar when he wants the ephod (23:9; 30:7). The ark had been lodged at Kiriath-jearim since 7:1–2, which is one reason many readers find the Greek “ephod” easier to picture in a battle camp.

“Withdraw thine hand” suggests the priest’s hand was already reaching into the ephod’s pouch for the lots, though that is an inference. Saul cuts off the inquiry because the noise is growing. Before the night is out, God will not answer him when he asks (verse 37).

“Every man’s sword was against his fellow” is Gideon’s victory repeated almost word for word (Judges 7:22). “Discomfiture” translates mehumah, a panicked confusion, the word used for the deadly panic that swept the Philistine cities when the ark came among them (5:9, 11).

Some Hebrews had been serving in the Philistine camp, conscripts or mercenaries, and they change sides mid-battle. The Philistine lords remember this kind of thing in 29:4 when they refuse to let David march with them: “lest in the battle he be an adversary to us.”

The men who had hidden in caves and pits in 13:6 come out of the hill country of Ephraim once the enemy is running. “Followed hard” is the verb for clinging close, the verb of Ruth cleaving to Naomi (Ruth 1:14), here used of a pursuit.

“So the LORD saved Israel that day” repeats almost exactly the line after the Red Sea: “Thus the LORD saved Israel that day” (Exodus 14:30). Beth-aven lies west of Michmash; the fight has moved off the ridge and is rolling downhill.

“Distressed” is the verb from which Exodus names the Egyptian taskmasters (Exodus 5:6); Saul’s oath makes him a driver of his own men. “Adjured” means put under a sworn curse. The oath ends in the first person: “that I may be avenged”, one verse after the LORD is said to have saved.

The land of milk and honey becomes literal: wild honey lies on the forest floor, dripping from combs in trees or rocks. The Hebrew phrase “all they of the land” is awkward and may mean simply that the whole army entered the wood.

“The honey dropped” is literally “a flow of honey”. The detail that no one put hand to mouth is the measure of how seriously the oath was held. Hungry men walked past food on the ground rather than risk the curse.

Jonathan eats without breaking stride, dipping the tip of his staff and lifting it to his mouth. The Hebrew margin says his eyes “brightened”; the written consonants read “saw”. Either way, the verse repeats “put his hand to his mouth” from verse 26, so the one exception is exactly measured.

The soldier quotes the oath but drops Saul’s words about his own vengeance and adds “this day”. “Straitly” means strictly. The last clause, “the people were faint”, reads like the account’s own aside, showing the cost before Jonathan names it.

“Troubled” is achar, the verb in Joshua’s sentence on Achan: “Why hast thou troubled us?” (Joshua 7:25). Achan broke a ban and was found by lot; the lot is about to fall here too, but Jonathan uses the verb against his father, not himself. Elijah and Ahab trade the same word (1 Kings 18:17–18).

“If haply” means “if only”. Jonathan argues entirely on military grounds, not piety: fed men pursue further. His question is left hanging, and verse 46 will answer it when the Philistines get away to their own place.

From Michmash to Aijalon is some twenty miles west and downhill, through the Beth-horon descent to the valley where Joshua once asked the moon to stand still (Joshua 10:12). The day’s pursuit covers a great distance on empty stomachs, and the verse closes with the result: very faint.

“Flew upon” is the verb for a bird of prey swooping, and Samuel will throw it at Saul himself in 15:19: “didst fly upon the spoil”. Slaughtering “on the ground” meant the animals lay flat and the blood could not drain away before the meat was cut.

The law forbade eating flesh with its blood (Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 12:23). “Ye have transgressed” is bagad, to deal faithlessly. The great stone gave a raised slaughtering place where the blood could run off, and the command makes the king the supervisor of a correct slaughter.

The oath ran “until evening”, so by the time the herds are brought in “that night” eating has become lawful. Saul sends runners through the army, and every man leads his own ox to the stone. Disorder is turned into procedure in a single order.

The Hebrew reads awkwardly: “with it he began to build an altar to the LORD”, which may mean this was his first altar or that he began one and did not finish it. It may be the great stone of verse 33 that becomes the altar, though that is an inference.

The people reply “Do whatsoever seemeth good unto thee”, literally “good in thine eyes”, and will say it again in verse 40. It is the priest, not the king, who remembers to consult God, after Saul cut short the last inquiry in verse 19.

Saul frames two yes-or-no questions, the form the sacred lots could answer. “He answered him not that day” is the first silence. By 28:6 it has become total: the LORD answers him neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

“The chief of the people” is literally “the corners” of the people, the cornerstones that hold a structure together, the same word used of the leaders at Mizpah in Judges 20:2. Saul assumes the silence has a culprit before any inquiry has been made.

Saul borrows the language of verse 23 in his oath, “the LORD liveth, which saveth Israel”, and uses it to promise a death. This is the day’s second oath. The people’s silence answers the king as God’s silence answered him.

The royal house stands on one side and the whole army on the other, a picture of the division the oath has made. The people answer with the same words as verse 36, but now their agreement sounds like withdrawal rather than enthusiasm.

“Give a perfect lot” translates havah tamim; the Greek has a far longer prayer: if the guilt is in me or Jonathan, give Urim; if in the people, give Thummim. Tamim and Thummim share a root, and many think the Hebrew lost a line. “Taken” is the verb used when the lot captured Achan (Joshua 7:16–18) and Saul himself (10:20–21).

Saul orders the final throw between himself and his son. The Greek text adds an exchange here: Saul declares that whoever is taken will die, the people protest that this shall not be, and Saul overrules them. The Hebrew gives only the command and its result.

“Tell me what thou hast done” is Joshua’s command to Achan (Joshua 7:19). Jonathan’s last words, literally “here I am, I will die”, can be heard as resignation or as a stunned protest at the price of a mouthful of honey.

“God do so and more also” is the self-curse formula Eli used on young Samuel (3:17) and Ruth on herself (Ruth 1:17). Saul ends by naming his son to his face. This is his third oath in a single day, and each has narrowed toward Jonathan.

“Rescued” is padah, the verb for ransoming, used of buying back a firstborn (Exodus 13:13). The people swear by the living LORD against the king’s oath by the same LORD. “Not one hair of his head” is a proverbial guarantee, repeated later at 2 Samuel 14:11 and 1 Kings 1:52.

The pursuit ends without the night raid Saul proposed, and the Philistines survive to fight again, which is just what Jonathan predicted in verse 30. “Their own place” means home to the coastal cities; they will be back at the valley of Elah by chapter 17.

“Took the kingdom” uses lakad, the verb of the lot that “took” Saul and Jonathan in verses 41 and 42. “Vexed them” follows the Hebrew “acted wickedly” or “condemned”; the Greek reads “was victorious”, which differs by a single Hebrew letter. Zobah was an Aramean kingdom north of Damascus, later fought by David (2 Samuel 8:3).

“Gathered an host” can also be read “did valiantly”, the phrase used in Numbers 24:18. Delivering Israel from “them that spoiled them” is the exact formula of the judges (Judges 2:16). The Amalekite campaign mentioned here is told at length in the next chapter.

Ishui is not named elsewhere; the lists in 31:2 and 1 Chronicles 8:33 have Abinadab and Eshbaal among Saul’s sons, and some identify Ishui with one of them. Merab and Michal are introduced now because both will be offered to David in 18:17–27.

Ahinoam is also the name of David’s wife from Jezreel (25:43). Some scholars have suggested the two are one woman taken with Saul’s house, reading 2 Samuel 12:8, but that is speculation. Whether “Saul’s uncle” means Ner or Abner is ambiguous in the Hebrew.

The next verse settles verse 50: Kish and Ner were both sons of Abiel (compare 9:1), so Ner is Saul’s uncle and Abner his cousin. The army’s commander is family, the usual arrangement for a young royal house that could not yet trust outsiders.

“Strong man” is gibbor and “valiant man” is ben chayil. Two chapters later a servant recommends David to Saul in almost the same terms, “a mighty valiant man” (16:18), and Saul takes him on. This closing habit is how David enters the court.