FIRST SAMUEL 13-18

An Exegetical Commentary by Nate Wilson, updated in the year of our Lord 2021

NAVIGATION: to chapters 1-6 | to chapters 7-12 | | to chapters 19-24 |to chapters 25-31

Click here to download a map of cities mentioned in I Samuel.

I Samuel CHAPTER 13

Introduction

• Chapter 13 begins with a formula for summarizing the beginning and ending of the reign of kings that is repeated throughout the books of the Kings and Chronicles: “So-and-so was a son of X number of years when he began to reign, and he reigned X number of years.” How­ever, some numbers seem to be missing in the Hebrew text for Saul's age and reign here.

  • All the other 19 kings listed in the Bible with this formula have numbers for their beginning age and length of reign, but Saul does not have a number for his age here, and there is only the number “two” for the length of his reign.

  • The oldest-known manuscripts don't have this verse at all, which is one way to avoid the textual problem.

  • The Latin Vulgate, the Chaldee Targums, and the English King James versions decided to put the number “one” for Saul's age at the beginning of his reign, and then the number “two” for the number of years he reigned,

    • referring either figuratively to Saul’s lack of experience (Targums), or

    • literally to the first year or two after he was anointed to the time the Lord rejected him.

  • Most contemporary English versions (NASB, NIV, ESV, NET, NLT) fill in a computed number, pegging Saul at 30 years of age when he began to reign and giving his reign a length of 42 years.

    • But the number 30 apparently comes from a partial copy of a copy that a monk named Lucian made of the Septuagint, and it showed up for the first time in English in the 1881 Revised Version, the grandaddy of the ESV.

    • Thirty years, however, seems too young for Saul to have had a son capable of killing armed Philistine soldiers. If I had to put a number in there, I’d say the NASB should have stuck with the age of 40 that its parent edition, the ASV of 1901, inserted.

    • But I don’t think we have to write-in an age; the commentaries I read from the most-knowledgeable scholars of the Hebrew language maintained that the number had fallen out of the text¹, so they left a blank there in their translation (AJV). Alternately, I think we can translate ben sanah as, “He was of age,” and leave it at that.

    • As for the length of Saul’s reign, the Apostle Paul said in Acts 13:21, “They asked for a king; so God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years” (NKJV), so that proves the 42-year computations of the NASB, NIV, and NLT wrong (as well as the 20 year computation of Josephus²), but every reliable manuscript of 1 Samuel 13 says “two years.” How can that be reconciled with Acts 13? The best explanation I have found is that Saul did indeed reign 40 years, but he only reigned two years with God’s favor upon him. He was rejected by God after two years, and, in a sense, David, after being anointed, would have been co-regent for the last 38 years of Saul’s reign, just waiting to take over (Willet, Lightfoot, Gill, Tsumura). So Saul was a righteous king for 2 years, but his reign extended to 40.

• In verse 2, we see that Saul appointed a bodyguard for himself of 2,000 soldiers, and a body­guard for his son Jonathan of 1,000 soldiers. (Saul is training his son for military leadership and administration, and probably anticipating that his son will be king after him.) But that's a standing army of only 3,000 troops.

• Now, if Saul is only 30 or 40, that makes Jonathan a pretty young man! Now what happens when you give a boy a tool? He wants to use it! So Jonathan mobilizes his thousand soldiers to knock out the Philistine fort at Gebah.

  • This is a couple hundred years late, but this is what God had told the Hebrews to do back in Moses’ and Joshua's time – get rid of the Canaanites, so he’s doing the right thing.

  • But now King Saul has a problem: The major cities of the Philistines out on the west coast are going to hear about his son's attack on their fort, and they're going to get mad and fight back. But is Israel able to defend itself in a full-on war with the Philistines?

• Saul has to do something, and quick, so he follows the pattern of Joshua, Ehud, and Gideon, when they called the men of Israel to gather for war; he blows a horn. In order to mobilize the whole nation of Israel, I imagine he sent some of his 2,000 troops out to all the villages with horns too, and they sounded the call-to-arms.

vs. 4-7 The Dire Situation

• The call-to-arms seems to have consisted of three announcements in v.4:

1. Saul has won a victory against a Philistine outpost³,

2. The Philistines are all riled up against Israel now (Literally, they think Israel “stinks”), and

3. Saul is mobilizing an army at Gilgal.

• It’s curious that Saul’s message doesn’t give Jonathan credit for taking out that Philistine garrison; one has to wonder why.

  • Was Saul trying to take credit for a victory he didn’t win?

  • Or was he trying to protect Jonathan’s reputation by taking the blame after Jonathan had foolishly poked their enemies in the eye?

  • Or had he actually ordered Jonathan to do it? (Henry) I don’t know.

• But the Philistines mobilized to destroy the Israelites, whom they considered to be pesky hillbillys.

  • They marched up from the coast to Mikmash, and pitched their army tents there, about 8 miles north of Jerusalem, opposite Saul's 2,000 troops, outnumbering them at least 15 to 1.

  • They wheeled in a staggering number of chariots,

    • The NIV divides their number by ten, even though the Hebrew and Septuagint and Vulgate all agree it was 30,000 – which may have included supply wagons⁴.

    • (There is only one other battle in Scripture that mentions a larger number of chariots, and that was when Joab and Abishai fought against a Moabite army with 32,000 chariots - and won with God’s help in 1 Chron. 19.)

  • As for the Philistine footsoldiers, the first century Jewish historian Josephus put the number 300,000 down for “as many [troops] as [grains of] sand on the shore of the sea,” so maybe Israel was overmatched by as much as 100:1 – we don’t know for sure.

  • Whatever the case, Saul withdraws from Mikmash about 10 miles away to Gilgal.

    • Gilgal was the first beachhead established in the Promised Land by Joshua,

    • and was where Saul had been officially made king in the last chapter.

    • And Gilgal was where the Prophet Samuel had told him to wait.

• Now, most of the Israelites who saw what was shaping up decided to get out-of-the-way rather than join Saul's army.

  • They figured it was safer to stay alive in a cave and become a Philistine vassal afterward than to get slaughtered in in this battle.

  • A lot of them had dug hidey-holes back in Gideon's day⁵ to survive raids from the Canaanites, so they resorted helter-skelter to those: caves, bramble-thickets, crevices in big rocks, cellars, burial crypts, pits, water-cisterns – anywhere that would provide some cover.

  • Others took to flight and ran for the Eastern border, hoping to cross the Jordan River and find a safe place far away.

• Question: Was this what God had called them to do?

  • No, God had not instructed the Israelites to fear the Canaanites and hide from them; God had commanded His people not to be afraid of them and to destroy them.

  • What instructions has God left you with? How about, “Occupy ‘till I come” (Luke 19:13), or, “Go into all the world and make disciples” (Matt. 28:19). Christians don’t have the option of embracing a defeatist attitude in the face of overwhelming attacks by the world.

• Saul bravely stood his ground in contrast to the skittish Israelites.

  • This was one of his good character traits. He embraced his duty and his calling as lord-protector of his people, even at the risk of his own life.

  • Saul was faithful to carry out his role as king, even though it didn’t look like he would be successful.

  • Saul knew that God had called him to be Israel’s deliverer, and he knew that God was not through with Israel, so it was worth defending his nation.

  • It was truly manly of him to hold his post and not quit despite the imminent danger!

• It takes wisdom to know God’s calling upon your life and to know what you should fight to defend and what positions to abandon because they are not hills worth dying on.

  • It takes wisdom to balance the repeated proverbial wisdom that “a righteous man sees evil and hides himself” (Prov. 22:3 & 27:12),

  • with the apostolic commands to “Put on the full armor of God… stand against the devil” (Eph. 6), and “Fight the good fight...” (1 Tim. 6:12).

  • Don’t give up and give ground to the enemy just because you don’t see how you could win.

vs. 8-12 The Impatient Deed

• Well, the few troops who remained with Saul in Gilgal were shaking in their boots,

• But they were waiting for Samuel in Gilgal because Samuel’s instructions in 1 Samuel 10:8 were, “Go down ahead of me toward Gilgal, and, you'll see, I'll be coming down to you to offer a whole-burnt offering and to sacrifice peace-sacrifices. For seven days, you shall wait expectantly until I come to you, then I will make known to you what you should do.” (NAW)

• The Hebrew word translated “wait” is also translated “hope” in many places throughout the Old Testament⁶; it is not twiddle-your-thumbs waiting, it is “expectant” waiting based upon the hope that God will bring deliverance.

• A time had been set, but the appointed week came and went, and it didn’t look like God or Samuel were going to show up on time. So Saul jumped the gun. If he had waited just a couple more hours, Saul would have seen Samuel to do the sacrifice (v.10), but he was impatient and didn’t trust God.

• A similar thing happened a couple hundred years later in 2 Kings 6-7. The Syrians laid seige to the Israelite city of Samaria until the people inside the city were starving. When King Joram discovered that his people were resorting to cannibalism, he said, “Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?” That very night that God caused the Syrian army to panic and run home. Joram jumped the gun by half a day. Saul lost his kingdom over being impatient for just an hour or two.

• One thing's for sure; we cannot be impatient with the God of the universe. He does as He pleases.

  • There was a song we sang at my college church that goes, “He may not come when you want Him, but He's right on time!”

  • God likes to build trust, patience, and perseverance in us by waiting until the last minute to come through.

  • And when His timing is like that, it becomes all the more obvious that it was His hand rather than ours that does the work.

• However, instead of keeping his eyes on God, Saul was watching the people. With his eyes on the people, he couldn't help but have a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as more and more of them got nervous and decided to desert the army and go home.

• Now, the law in Deuteronomy 20 said to let the faint-hearted and preoccupied soldiers go home

  • But Saul should have remembered the rest of Deuteronomy 20 that says, “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt” (v.1, NKJV).

  • Saul should have remembered Gideon also, how God made his little band of 300 soldiers victor­ious over just-as-large an army of Midianites: “a multitude… as the sand of the seashore” (Jdg 7).

• But Saul didn't have faith like Gideon. As Saul saw his army dwindle from 3,000 to a mere 600, he decided, in a desperate move to stop the ebb of Israelite soldiers, to offer sacrifices to invoke God's favor and go ahead to war before he was down any more troops.

• But Saul offered sacrifices that only a priest could do.

  • The Levitical manual for offering sacrifices said: “The priest shall burn up the whole on the altar as a sacrifice for burning up, a fire-offering of a soothing aroma to Yahweh” (Lev. 1:9b, NAW), “And the priest shall offer up the whole-burnt-offering and the grain-offering at the altar, and so the priest shall make atonement...” (Lev. 14:20, NAW).

  • Looking at the whole book of 1 Sam, apart from this instance, it was only Samuel (1 Sam. 7:9) and other Levites (1 Sam. 6:14-15) who “offered up whole-burnt-offerings,” no one else.

  • “[Saul] presumed to offer sacrifice without Samuel, and nothing appears to the contrary but that he did it himself⁷, though he was neither priest nor prophet, as if, because he was a king, he might do any thing⁸.” ~Matthew Henry, 1714 AD

  • Furthermore, Samuel had specifically told Saul, “I'll be coming down to you to offer up a whole-burnt offering…” (10:8) You can’t get much more specific than that!

  • In light of such clear statements from the Torah and from Samuel, the people should have stopped Saul, but no one did! Don’t stand idly by when others are sinning!

• And then when Samuel does arrive, shortly after Saul took the priestly administration into his own hands, Saul acts like nothing is wrong:

  • “Hey Samuel, blessings on ya! Glad you could make it! Hey, you wanna do the honors on the peace offerings now?”

  • “[Saul] went out to ‘bless’ [Samuel] ... as if he now thought himself a complete priest, empowered to bless as well as sacrifice…!” ~Matthew Henry

  • And when Samuel signals that it’s not o.k., Saul starts making excuses: “Look, Samuel, it’s your fault! You didn’t come when you said you would! And the Philistines, I couldn’t help it, they were about to attack me!”

  • And then he rationalizes his sin:

    • “I wouldn’t want to go into battle without a chapel service first. I was just trying to honor God!!!”

    • “It’s not like I was sinning high-handedly. I ‘felt compelled’ to do it; I had to ‘work up the courage’ and ‘force myself’ to do it. Literally, I used ‘restraint.’ Self-control is a good thing, right? After all, I did wait 7 days! Don’t get all hoity-toity about it.”

  • Do you see how easy it is to rationalize disobedience to God?

    • “It wasn’t really adultery. I just fell out of love with my spouse; I shouldn’t have married them in the first place; I was really in love with this other person; that’s who I really should have been married to in the first place. Far be it from me to undermine the importance of marriage!”

    • “Well, I know it’s a sin, but since God is sovereign over everything, it will have been His will if I do it, so if I do this sin, I will just be doing God’s will, and He will work all things together for good anyway.”

    • Or, “Most Christians do it; it’s normal. Sure it might not be ideal, but it isn’t that big a deal because everybody does it; let’s not have an oversensitive conscience and make an issue of it.”

    • Matthew Henry is so quotable; he wrote, “[T]here is no little sin, because [there is] no little god to sin against.”

  • Saul instead should have been saying, “Oh Samuel. I’m so sorry for being impatient. I had my eyes on the people instead of on Yahweh, and I usurped your job. I need a guilt offering, just for me. I’ll provide the bull; can you find it in your heart to sacrifice it for me after what I did?” That’s the kind of contrite heart God honors, but that’s not where Saul’s heart was.

• King David, however, when he was in similar circumstances, took a different course of action. In Psalm 31 he wrote, “It is in You, Yahweh, that I have taken refuge; I will not ever be ashamed. Deliver me in Your righteousness! Incline Your ear toward me; rescue me quickly! Become for me a mighty rock – a house with secure places – in order to cause me to be saved (for You are my rock-mountain and my secure place), so, for the sake of Your reputation, guide me, and lead me. You will get me out of the net which they hid to [capture] me because You are my strength. It is into Your hand that I will commit my spirit. You, Yahweh the true God, redeem me... 15 My circumstances are in Your control. Rescue me from the control of my enemies and from those who are hunting me down. Cause Your face to shine upon your servant; cause me to be saved in your lovingkindness! ... 22 Now, as for me, I said in my alarm, ‘I have been cut off from before Your eyes.’ Nevertheless, You heeded the sound of my pleas for mercy when I hollered to You. Love Yahweh, all you His godly ones! Those being faithful are the ones Yahweh is protecting, but He is paying back in excess the one who acts out haughtiness. Y'all be strong – and He will cause your heart to be firm, all you who are waiting for Yahweh!" (NAW)

New Testament Excursus on Waiting Expectantly

• “Waiting expectantly” for the Lord is not just an Old Testament concept; it applies to us as well! One way to recognize this is to look at how this Hebrew word for “wait/יחל” was translated into Greek, and how the Greek-equivalent words were used in the New Testament, which was written in Greek.

• Of the 40 times that this Hebrew verb יחל occurs in the Old Testament, the two words most frequently used to translate it into Greek were ελπιζω (which means “hope”) and ‘υπομενω (which means “persevere”)⁹. How are these equivalent words in Greek used to build Christian doctrine in the New Testament? (NASB is quoted here)

  • Rom. 15:12 Isaiah says, "THERE SHALL COME THE ROOT OF JESSE, AND HE WHO ARISES TO RULE OVER THE GENTILES, IN HIM SHALL THE GENTILES HOPE*."

  • 2Cor. 1:10b “God...[is the one] on whom we have set our hope*. And He will yet deliver us”

  • 1Tim. 4:10 “...we have fixed our hope* on the living God, who is the Savior...”

  • 1Tim. 6:17 “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope* on the uncertainty of riches, but on God...”

  • Heb. 11:1 “...faith is the assurance of things hoped* for, the conviction of things not seen”

  • 1Pe. 1:13 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope* completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

  • Mat. 10:22 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured* to the end who will be saved.”

  • Mat. 24:13 “But the one who endures* to the end, he will be saved.”

  • 1Cor. 13:7 “Love... bears... believes... hopes*... endures* all things.”

  • 2Ti. 2:12 “If we endure*, we will also reign with Him; If we deny... He also will deny us”

  • Heb. 12:3 “For consider Him [Jesus] who has endured* such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

  • Jas. 1:12 “Blessed is a man who perseveres* under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

  • Jas. 5:11 “We count those blessed who endured*. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”

• Do you see how Saul violated a basic principle of relating to God by failing to endure in hope and wait on the Lord and His timing for deliverance? Samuel wasn’t overreacting.

vs. 13-14 The Consequences

• Samuel rebukes Saul (“What have you done?”) and declares his punishment: God is going to set up another kingly family in the place of his.

• “Then Samuel said to Saul, you acted foolishly, for you did not keep the command of Yahweh your God which He commanded, for it was at this time that Yahweh would have established your kingship over Israel for time-out-of-mind¹⁰, but now your kingdom will not go on. Yahweh has sought out for Himself a man [whose] heart is like His, and Yahweh has commanded for him to preside [to be prince/captain/ruler] over His people because you did not value what Yahweh commanded you [enough to obey Him].”

• The word “now” shows up in verses 12, 13, and 14: Saul said, “The Philistines are going to come down on me now…,” but the prophet’s reply is, “It was now that Yahweh would have set up your kingship… yet now [because of your rogue action] your kingdom will not go on.”

  • Brothers and sisters, NOW is the time that God wants to bless you for trusting in Him!

  • Romans 13:11 “...now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” (NKJV)

  • Don’t compromise because it seems like something needs to happen right now, but it doesn’t seem like God is helping! Persevere with hope in your savior Jesus.

  • God tends to wait until the last moment to come through in order to give His people opportunity to exercise faith (“without faith it is impossible to please God” Heb. 11:7).

• Now, as much as we might sympathize with Saul, considering the enormous pressure he was under, the fact that he nevertheless violated the arrangements God had set for his reign – and did not repent for it – cannot be swept under the carpet.

  • If an Army General sends a lower officer with specific instructions to do a certain thing a certain way, and that lower officer does it his own way, ignoring the General’s instructions, he not going to remain in a leadership role in the Army for long!

  • But that’s essentially what Saul did. By following a different protocol – other than what God had commanded (which was to wait seven days for Samuel to come and offer sacrifices), Saul effectively took upon himself the role of ultimate authority to make decisions over the nation’s worship practices and wartime practices (and the timing of them). And in doing so, Saul demonstrated that he was not serving God as regent/president, but was acting upon his own authority as high king in his own right. Saul was declaring himself independent of God as the final authority¹¹, which is exactly what God warned him not to do in chapter 12!

  • Do you see how serious a matter it is to disregard God’s authority and take matters into your own hands – to lead your way instead of God’s way?

• Whom God can King He can also un-king. It was God who had Saul anointed “to preside over the people of Israel” in 1 Samuel 9:16, and now God will command Samuel to anoint some­one else to preside. Thus we read in Psalm 89:20 ,“I have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him. My hand will sustain him...” (NIV).

  • This is a lot like the message to the old priest Eli back in 1 Samuel 2:30 “...I said that your household... would conduct themselves before my face for time-out-of-mind, but now, this is the declaration of Yahweh, Far be it from me, because those who glorify me I will glorify, but those who despise me will become insignificant” (NAW). When Eli failed to confront sin and repent of sin, God replaced him with Samuel as priest.

  • And later, the prophet Hanani would deliver a very similar message to Asa king of Judah, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. In this you have done foolishly; therefore from now on you shall have wars” (2 Chron. 16:7-9, NKJV).

  • God isn’t depending on you; He can raise somebody else up, but He will delight in any­one whose heart is like His and who will beg His forgiveness and repent¹² over sin.

• If we are irresponsible with our position at church or work or our position as parents, we deserve to have our office or job or our children taken away.

• Praise God that He is gracious and allows us to serve Him on this earth despite our failures.

• May God make us patient in waiting on His timing, diligent in obeying Him, and careful with all the responsibilities with which He has entrusted us!

1 Samuel 13 - Side-by side comparison of versions^A

I Samuel CHAPTER 14

INTRO: What is it that makes a person courageous?

What the World says

• If we take our cue from Madison Avenue, we might believe that smoking Marlboroughs or driving a 4x4 truck is what makes a man strong.

• If we look to the TV, we might believe that conquering a beautiful woman or seducing a handsome man or beating another person in a contest of strength or leaving them speechless in an argument is essence of courage.

• If we listen to modern business consultants and psychologists, we hear that courage comes from within—all you need is good self-esteem; “believe in yourself and you can do anything!”

What God says

• I want to tell you that all those things will fail you. Owning more toys will never give you true courage.

• Conquering another person has nothing to do with manhood.

• And when you look inside yourself all you are going to get is more of who you already are—a sinful human being.

• These are not the way to find courage. Courage comes from a different source—from God. More specifically, we must exercise Biblical faith in God to find true courage.

In the Bible, when God spoke to His man at the beginning of the book of Joshua, what did He say, “Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be dismayed... for if you look deep into yourself, and only trust your heart, you will find the strength to carry on?!?!” NO! “…For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go!” FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD! It is Biblical faith in God that gives strength and courage!

Introducing Jonathan

Let’s turn to First Samuel chapter 14 and look at a paragon of manliness in the Bible. This man had incredible courage. He was a warrior par excellence. He had amazing self-discipline. He was tough, and yet one of the things he is best known for is his loyalty in friendship. And this man had faith. First Samuel 14 gives us a brief glimpse into the life of Jonathan.

The Plight of Israel

The context of this chapter is that Jonathan’s Dad, Saul, had just been crowned the first king of the country of Israel two years ago. (Use Map) Up until now, the country of Israel was a weak federation of tribes living up in the hills, surrounded by other nations who were more cruel and powerful than they were. The biggest problem at this time was a people called the Philistines who had migrated from a superior culture base in the area of Greece and spread out along the flat coastal land between the central mountains of Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. The Philistines were a more advanced civilization—they knew how to make superior weapons out of iron, and they also had horse-drawn chariots, things the Israelites didn’t have. Militarily, the Israelites were at a disadvantage, stuck with inferior weapons and slower modes of transportation. The Philistines, however, were worried about the unification of Israel under one king; they didn’t want a powerful, united kingdom right next-door, so they made persistent attempts to divide and weaken the Israelites whenever they made attempts at unity.

Philistine Battle Plan

In Chapter 13, Saul made a quick trip from his capitol city hometown of Gibeah to the nearby area of Gilgal, where the great prophet Samuel was going to offer a sacrifice. Saul had called the people of Israel to come and join him for this solemn occasion. This expression of national unity worried the Philistines, so they marched an army of 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and more foot-soldiers than could be counted, straight through the middle of Israel and set up for battle at Michmash, fanning out across the middle of Israel to cut the Southern part of Israel off from the support of the Northern tribes. The only escape route was across the Jordan River in the other direction, and some people were doing just that. Others were finding hideouts in the caves along the Dead Sea coast.

Saul’s position in Gilgal placed him poorly on the opposite side of the Philistine army from the residential areas of central Israel on the other side of the Philistine front, leaving the Philistines free to raid the Israelite homes unopposed, so Saul moved to join Jonathan and his troops in Gibeah, which at least positioned the Israelite troops between the Philistines and the Judean hills settlements of Israel to the south. By this time, only 600 of the over 3,000 Israelite soldiers were left bravely standing by King Saul and Prince Jonathan.

Furthermore, they were weaponless. The Philistines, in a calculated effort to keep the Israelites from defending themselves militarily, had killed or deported all the Israelite blacksmiths so that they could not make weapons¹³. Jonathan and Saul were the only Israelites who had a sword or spear; the other 600 had nothing but clubs and garden tools to fight against the Philistines’ swords and spears. They were dead meat!

So, this is the context of one of the most amazing exercises of courage in the entire Bible. Jonathan and his bodyguard challenge a whole Philistine garrison, and they end up demolishing them and turning the tide of the war! Notice what it is that Jonathan attributes this kind of courage to. What gave him the guts to take on a whole bunker full of Philistine warriors?

The Source of Jonathan’s Courage

Look at verse 6: "Maybe Yahweh will work for us–nothing is impossible for Him, so He could win a battle if we are many or if we are few." “Yahweh is not restrained by many or by few.”

• Remember, Moses and Joshua told us that with the LORD, one of us will chase a thousand! (Deut. 32:32, Josh 23:10)

• Jonathan’s faith in the LORD is what gave him the guts to face this superior group of armed Philistines.

• And it wasn’t just blind faith, It was faith in a Biblical truth about God—His sovereignty.

The lack of any sort of “restraint” is unique to God. There is no one who can put restraints on God. He is totally unlimited in His power, unlimited in His knowledge—He can do whatever He pleases, and nothing can hold Him back. Jonathan knew that as long as he was doing the will of a sovereign God, he had nothing to fear. “God can not only save us, but save by us... An active faith will venture far in God's cause upon an 'it may be.'” ~Matthew Henry

The Source of Fear

Now, the opposite of courage is fear, and the root of fear is the awareness of your limitations in the face of potential harm.

• A child has no fear because he is not aware of his limitations and he is not aware of the harm that can be done to him. That is not courage; that is ignorance.

• Fear is when we know that there is someone or something which is more powerful than we are, and therefore can hurt us. We are naturally afraid of what is stronger than we are, and we try to protect ourselves from getting hurt by it.

• If an army is camped in the next valley that outnumbers your army 1000 to 1, it is natural to be afraid of their superior strength and technology and protect yourself by hiding. That’s what most of the Israelites were doing.

• If we know that a missionary crossing the ocean is likely to face death from a million things outside his control--tropical diseases, travel mishaps, linguistic misunderstandings, antagonistic natives, witch doctors, and evil spirits--our natural reaction is to protect ourselves from these dangers by staying home.

• Martin Luther knew from experience that Satan's “craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate,” but in his famous hymn, he counters that fear with faith: “And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us.”

Jonathan’s Example of Courage

Now, if we know—as Jonathan knew—that we are accompanied by a God who knows no limitations because He is totally sovereign over all the things that threaten us, if we know that such a God loves us and will be our constant companion as we carry out His will, then we lose all grounds for fear, just like Jonathan did. This is Biblical courage, when we can no longer be intimidated by the things of this world which stand against God’s will.

This is Biblical courage, when we can no longer be intimidated by the things of this world which stand against God’s will. Jonathan knew that the inferiority of His Israelite army was not a limitation for God, for God could save “by many or by few.” Jonathan knew that it was God’s will that he defend his nation and preserve the people of God - from whom would come the Messiah. He knew it was God’s will that Israel not be wiped out yet, and he knew that the inferiority of his Israelite army was not a restraining factor for the sovereign Lord, so he no longer had grounds to be afraid of the Philistine army; he went after them!

The Philistine army in the valley apparently had an observation post on a high point on one side of the ravine at Mikmash, so they could see everything that was going on and give intelligence to the officers down on the ground. From the description, it sounds like it was about half an acre in area, and it was that observation post which Jonathan and his brave armor-bearer decided to attack. As the main body of Philistine troops moved west to engage Israel in battle, the Philistine presence on the east side would have grown thin, and it was there that Jonathan decided to penetrate (Tsumura). Jonathan chose an easily-defensible spot in the rocks that would give an advantage to a duo fighting against a mob. Then he crawled up to the Philistine fort with the sure faith that "God has given them into our hands!" And, wonder of wonders, they wasted the 20 Philistine warriors there! Perhaps Jonathan’s armor-bearer was carrying the sword, so Jonathan used a club to knock his enemies down, and the armor-bearer finished them off once they were on the ground. The Philistines may not have been able to see how many men were coming up to attack them, so, in their minds it may have been a whole army, which might have led to them panicking rather than standing their ground (K&D).

This caused no little consternation in the Philistine camp. ("We thought the Israelites had no swords!"). And now they didn’t have their observation post up on the high ground anymore, so they didn’t know what was going on. Then God followed up with an earthquake (literally a “trembling of God” which is a way of stating a superlative in Hebrew (“the greatest trembling possible” cf. 5:9), but also seems to have have had a supernatural origin, and it put the Philistines over the edge!¹⁴

Contrast with Saul

Now, back in the Israelite camp, Saul was not exercising this kind of Biblical faith, so he had no courage. He did not know God’s will, and he did not know God’s power, therefore he was afraid of the huge Philistine army that was threatening him. He was trying to exercise responsibility in his own strength. His eyes were on the men, watching the Philistine's movements and re-counting his men to see who else had left. If you don’t know how powerful God is, and you’re not sure what He wants, then you will never have true courage.

• Saul calls for the ark¹⁵, perhaps treating it like a magic charm to somehow enhance the accuracy of the priest's use of the ephod with the Urim and Thumim lot-casting apparatus in it, but Saul changes his mind and sends the priest away before the priest can get advice from God. Here is a second instance of Saul's impatience with God: He didn't wait the full 7 days in Gilgal, and now he won't even wait for the few minutes it would take for his chaplain to offer a prayer before rushing into battle.

• v.21–The rumbling in the Philistine camp grabbed the Israelite's attention ("THEY'RE COMING!") and they prepared for a last stand. But, what a shock to find the Philistines panicking and fighting each other!

• There were apparently Israelite solders within the ranks of the Philistines - perhaps captives or perhaps turn-coats who had joined the Philistine army (or been forced to join it), and they realized that the tide had turned, so they seized the weapons available to them and fought against the Philistines from within their own ranks. God also turned the Philistines themselves to stabbing each other with their swords. And, as it became evident that the battle was turning in favor of Israel, the Israelite men who had hidden themselves in hidey-holes to avoid the battle now came out to join the battle, and it turned into a rout of the Philistine army, chasing them out of Israel back to the Mediterranean coast.

• v.23–Who gets the credit? Again, not Jonathan, but GOD, as well He should!

Example of C.T. Studd

C.T. Studd was a famous British athlete about a hundred years ago who took an amazing step of courage and faith to go to China and later Africa as a missionary, back when it was utterly foolhardy to do such a thing. There were no airplanes, no vaccines, no language training centers, no hostage mediation services, no telephones, none of that! The life expectancy of a missionary in Africa was less than 2 years. But Studd knew that it is God’s will that the Gospel be preached to the uttermost parts of the earth, and he knew that God’s power is limitless. Listen to what he said:

I am more than ever determined that no ring or limit shall be placed around us, other than that of our Lord Himself, ‘To the uttermost parts,’ ‘To every creature.’ I belong and will ever belong to ‘The Great God’ party. I will have naught to do with “The Little God’ party… Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible, by faith in the omnipotence, fidelity and wisdom of the Almighty Savior Who gave the command.

Is there a wall in our path? By our God we will leap over it! Are there lions and scorpions in our way! We will trample them under our feet! Does a mountain bar our progress? Saying, “be removed and cast into the sea,’; we will march on. Soldiers of Jesus! Never Surrender!”

C.T. Studd is one of the reasons why the Christians in China and in Africa far outnumber the Christians in the United States today. Like Jonathan, God granted Him success when he exercised Biblical faith and courage.

And when we look at the end of the Gospel of Mark, we see that Jesus set His disciples to expect this very thing: And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." (Mark 16:15-18, NKJV)

Blessings From Courage

Often, God is just waiting for His people to exercise faith in Him before He really does the impressive stuff, and this was the case in 1 Samuel 14. Once Jonathan took that bold step of faith and started fighting Philistines, God sent an earthquake to shake up the rest of them. This emboldened the traitors and slaves to break ranks with the enemy and start fighting them instead. And Jonathan's courage inspired all the men in hiding to come out of their caves and rout the Philistine army, even though it had seemed impossible up ‘till then. “There is no limitation with God to save by many or by few!”

The Challenge to Us Today

And there is no limitation with God in regards to the challenges He has set before us. Like Jonathan, we must exercise Biblical faith to find the strength and courage we need. We must believe that there are no limitations with God, and we must know what He has commanded us to do in the Bible. If we have these two things—confidence in the will of God, and confidence in the Sovereignty of God, we can face anything without fear! If we’re like Saul, who should have known what he was supposed to do, yet was unwilling to face it and trust in God, we will never have the courage we need.

Knowing God’s Will

It’s not that difficult to know what God’s will is for your life. There are only a few basic things. As a Christian you are to worship God alone, participate in the fellowship of the church, and confront the world with Christ. As a husband and father, you are to protect and nurture your wife and children. Anything you must do to fulfill these few things is God’s will. It’s really pretty simple—you don’t need to be like Saul and seek some kind of special direction from God. Jonathan didn’t need God to speak out of the sky and tell him to assault the Philistines; he already knew all he needed to know; that he was armed to defend the people of God and so he just did it the best way he could, and God blessed him for doing His will.

In Vocations

Some of us need courage simply to pursue our own vocations. If your job does not prevent you from worshiping God, does not prevent you from fellowship with Believers, does not prevent you from sharing the faith with others - and, men, if your job does provide income to protect and nurture your wife and children, then work that job with the confidence that you are doing God’s will and that He is sovereign enough to fulfill His purposes through it!

On the other hand, it can be a step of Biblical faith to leave the stable income of one job to gain greater ministry opportunities in another. For me personally, that has been the greatest test of my faith. Am I willing to work as a missionary and let God take care of the bills? That’s scary. I had to remind myself often that it is God’s will for His name to be declared among the nations and that God has more than enough resources to take care of my needs, and that has given me the courage to face situations which the world considers to be crazy.

In Child-rearing

• For some of us, it is our children. I’ve had my kids act up so bad that people have, in all seriousness, asked if they’re demon-possessed.

• Follow the way of Saul, and our reaction is, “I’m too tired; my kid is impossible; should I discipline him or not; ahh, just let my wife handle it.”

• Do we have the confidence that it is God’s will that we, as fathers bring our children up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord”?

• Do we believe that God is powerful enough to control even the heart of a two-year-old? A twelve-year-old? A 22-year-old? If so, we have nothing to fear with our children.

• We must jump into the battle for our children’s hearts, knowing it is God’s will that we do so and knowing that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me!” God will reward that kind of faith and courage.

In Witnessing

If you’re afraid to share your faith, you need to get a dose of Jonathan’s courage! 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Do not fear what they fear and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.” If it is God’s will for you to tell other people about Jesus, and if He knows everything—including every thought your evangelistic prospect is going to think, then what do we have to be afraid of? God will give us the words to say and will bless the exercise of our faith if we will just do it!

Conclusion

Do you get the idea? God calls us to courage. Jonathan was courageous because he knew what God wanted done and he trusted that God was big enough to enable him to do it. If there’s anything that strikes fear in your heart, anything you know you ought to do, but you feel you can’t do, you need to apply the same principles Jonathan did, know what God’s basic will is, remembering how powerful He is, and just do it! God will reward that kind of faith and courage!

Father, we want to do great things for You and see Your blessings poured out in our lives and in the lives of others, but we are afraid. Afraid of the dangers, afraid of poverty, afraid of ridicule, afraid of failure. Please strengthen our faith in You to believe that You are truly sovereign—that you are not limited in any way. Please give us the courage to trust You and obey Your word, no matter how scary it is to step out from what the rest of the world is doing. Dear God, give us faith and courage to do Your will. Amen.

Discussion Questions:

• Are you wondering whether or not you are doing God’s will in a certain area of your life? How much confirmation is necessary before you know if something is God’s will?

• When is a time when you have had to exercise real courage? What gave you courage?

• How can we know where the line is in going overboard with courage—when does faith become presumption? Why wasn’t Jonathan being presumptuous?

• What about things that you know are not God’s will, but you do anyway. Are they a matter of faith? (Whether you believe your way is best or whether you have faith that obeying God is the only way to true satisfaction.)

Appendix: Septuagint translations of the Hebrew verb yachal “wait”

• Twenty-two occurrences of “hope”

  • ἐλπίζω in Psalms 30:25, 32:18 & 22, 37:16, 41:6 & 12, 42:5, 68:4, 70:14, 129:5&6, 130:3, 146:11, Isa. 42:4, 51:5,

  • ἐπήλπιζω in Psalm 118:43, 49, 74, 81, 114, 147

• Six instances of of "persevere"

  • ὑπομενω in 2 Kings 6:33, Job 6:11, 14:14 32:16, Lam. 3:21, Micah 7:7 (+ μενῶ in 2 Sam. 18:14)

• A few forms of “begin/rule”

  • αρχω in Ezek. 13:6,

  • there were a few others with variant meanings from the Hebrew

• Two forms of “have”

  • ἐπισχὼν in Gen. 8:10&12

  • προσέσχον in Job 29:21

• Two forms of “see”

  • ἐνωτίζεσθέ in Job 32:11

  • ἀπῶσται in Ezekiel 19:5

• One form of “stand”

  • ὑποστῇ in Micah 5:6

Note that these are Septuagint chapter and verse numbers, not English references, so if you look these up in English, for instance in the Psalms, you might need to look forward one chapter or backward one verse to find the English match.

• As I’ve meditated on the second half of chapter 14, I’ve become convinced that the main theme is the breakdown of relationship between Saul and his son Jonathan.

• Encouraging godly families is one of the pillars of our church, and the relationship between fathers and sons is so crucial to that.

• So I want to examine what went wrong, so that parents and children in the church can recognize these six common problems and resolve them Biblically before they become the kinds of crises that developed in Jonathan and Saul.

Vs. 24-26 - Saul’s “very thoughtless” revenge-curse

• v. 24–Rash words spoken by Saul nearly led him to kill his own son. It makes no sense to tell a disadvantaged army to fast, for they are outnumbered to begin with and are only going to get weaker! But the men respected King Saul and didn't eat, even when they saw wild honey oozing out of some beehives in the woods as they ran through.¹⁶

• Saul attempted to enforce compliance to the fast by means of an oath, the breaking of which would bring a supernatural curse. This mix of superstition and spirituality with military discipline is inappropriate. Army commanders punish with push-ups or laps or demotions or dishonorable discharge, not by threatening them with divine judgment.

• Saul also seems to have a distorted reason for the mission of chasing out the Philistines. He says at the end of v.24 that he wants to avenge himself of his enemies, but he is supposed to be God’s regent, fighting against God’s enemies, and leaving vengeance up to God. Later on in 1 Sam 18:25, Saul again expresses that the Philistines are his personal enemies. But God said in the law: “You shall not take vengeance... I am the LORD... [Lev. 19:18] ... take vengeance for the LORD… [Num. 31:3] Vengeance is Mine, and recompense... I will render vengeance to My enemies [Deut. 32:35 & 41]” (NKJV)

• This personal vengeance coupled with overreach in authority appears to be representative of Saul’s leadership, the poor leadership under which his son Jonathan lived all his life and grew to despise because of its pettiness and inappropriateness. This is the first breakdown I observe, and it shows forth in....

Vs. 27-30 - Jonathan’s critical attitude toward his father

• The chapter begins with Jonathan going AWOL and “not tell[ing] his father.”

  • Soldiers that take off and do their own thing without permission can mess up everything.

  • Why didn’t Jonathan tell his father that he was going up against the Philistine watchpost?

    • Perhaps he was unwilling to submit to authority if his Dad said No.

    • Or perhaps he feared his father would not respond reasonably.

• Anyway, it was while Jonathan was out fighting the Philistine fort that Saul had issued the command to the Israelite army to fast for the rest of the day, so Jonathan wasn’t there to hear the order, so when he saw honey dripping out of a tree, he ate some. No problem.

• But when his buddies told him of his father's command, he dishonored his dad by harsh criticism: v.29 “But Jonathan, when he was informed, nevertheless said, “My father has troubled the land: see now how my eyes have brightened because I tasted a little of this honey!” If the troops could have grabbed snacks here and there like I have done, we could have whupped up on even more Philistines. Even I can see what a bad idea that was of my Dad’s!

  • Jonathan was right about his father "troubling the land," but wrong to dishonor his father. Here is the second breakdown I observe.

  • The 5^th commandment is “Honor your father and your mother.” Usually that entails obedience to their commands and positive respect for them. When a child speaks of his parents to other people, he should not complain about their unreasonableness, but rather find some good point about them and proactively honor them in word somehow, even if it is a small thing. Occasionally, children might have to disobey parents, but only when they command something directly against the Bible. Likewise, if a parent breaks the laws of God and of civil government through crime or abuse, a child may have to hold parents accountable to their authorities. Parents may retaliate by accusing the child of dishonoring them, but it is not breaking the 5^th commandment if done with faithfulness to God and a loving desire for the parents to be made right with God.

• Another problem with Jonathan’s response is that he makes too light of an oath. Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?” (NASB)

  • Now, it probably was the case that Saul took oath-making too lightly as well, but that caused a breakdown in his son’s respect for keeping vows. Jonathan could have said, “Oops, I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry; please forgive me. I will offer a guilt offering for unintentional sin next time I’m at the tabernacle.” But no, he said, in effect, “It’s no big deal. There was nothing wrong with what I did. Dad shouldn’t have made such a rash oath.”

  • I’ve seen that breakdown in integrity happen with promises made by friends. “It’s no big deal. I didn’t mean it. It was a mistake. I had a right to. Something came up.”

  • When we take membership vows, that is a very serious thing to which God will hold you accountable. Acting as though you have little commitment to the church after vowing “to support its worship and work,” or just up and leaving without transferring your commitments in an offense God will not dismiss lightly.

  • The same kind of careful consideration should also be given to marriage vows, baptismal or dedicational vows, and to the vows of deacons and elders.

Vs. 31-35 - Saul provides a merciful fix for the army’s sin of eating blood

• Returning to our story, the Philistine army is retreating across the center of Israel back to their cities on the Mediterranean coast, and Saul and his armies pursue them until sunset, making it some 15 miles¹⁷ from Mikmash to Aijalon, where you’d come out of the hill-country of Benjamin down to the coastal plain. (Which is why Saul suggests they “go down” in v.36 to keep pursuing the Philistines.)

• v.32 Saul's command to fast was only in force for that day though, and his soldiers were hungry, so as soon as the sun set, they stopped and ate everything they could get their hands on – even raw, bloody meat! (Perhaps the cattle came from Philistia or perhaps the Philistines had plundered the cattle from Israelite homes in their earlier raiding.)

• But God didn't want His people eating blood: Lev. 3:17 “This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your places of residence: You shall not eat any fat or any blood! … 17:13 any man from the children of Israel - or from the visitors who are visiting in their midst - who hunts live game or a bird which may be eaten, must therefore pour out its blood and cover it with dirt, because the soul of every body is [represented by] its blood; it is [represented] in its soul… I am Yahweh y'all's God... 19:26 Y'all may not eat [meat] with the blood…” (NAW, cf. Deut. 12:21-24)

• So, some of the more conscientious soldiers – perhaps Levites – talked to Saul about it, and Saul acted responsibly:

  • In v. 33, he calls the attention of his men to their accountability to God and how they had broken their covenant with God by eating blood: “You have transgressed/broken faith/acted treacherously.”

  • He then personally holds his men accountable for draining the blood out of their future steak dinners properly on a large stone. Saul stands there well into the night, supervising the butchering of the rest of the animals to make sure they do it according to God’s law.

  • And finally, verse 35 speaks of an “altar,” which implies that Saul also arranged for sacrifices to be made to atone for the guilt of the soldiers who had broken God’s law. (Perhaps these sacrifices were also thanks-offerings to thank God for their victory that day.)

  • I suspect that the stone itself was the “beginning” of that altar¹⁸. Nowhere else in scripture does it mention Saul building any other altars to Yahweh, so I think the Hebrew word haykhayl in verse 35 speaks of “beginning” (but not finishing) to make that altar, not that it was the “first” of many altars.¹⁹

  • Here, Saul sets a good example. Puritan commentator Andrew Willett noted in his commentary over 400 years ago: “[I]f they were so careful even in the tumult and business of battle, to keep a ceremonial precept; how much more careful ought Christian soldiers to be to keep the moral commandments of God, which are much neglected among them.”

• But this makes the parallel situation of Saul’s death-wish against Jonathan all the more troubling. In his father’s judicious handling of the army that night, Jonathan saw that his Dad was perfectly capable of a charitable, protective attitude towards his soldiers to keep them right with God, yet Saul would not extend the same graces to his son.

Vs. 36-37 - Saul’s next-day Guidance fiasco

• Saul, the Savior of Israel, has been stuck watching men butcher animals all night while the Philistines retreat further and further from striking range, and he eventually can’t take it any longer. He says in v.36, “Let’s go finish what we started, and kill all the rest of those Philistines before it gets any later tonight!”

• I think Saul is upholding his responsibility: God called him to deliver Israel and destroy the Caananites in the Promised Land. Striking while the Philistines were in retreat – before they reached their fortified cities on the coast – would have been a strategic way to destroy them. And this verse says that his soldiers were willing to follow him and dedicate the rest of the night to this mission.

• But the priest, Ahaiah, voices a call, literally to “draw near” to God first.

  • The text is not clear as to whether the priest is calling for a quick devotional prayer or whether he’s calling for a delay of an hour or two to offer sacrifices, or whether he’s calling for a halt until they see whether or not God approves of this new mission. The wording could support any of those, but it appears to me that it rocked Saul back on his heels and made him feel like he should stop everything and seek permission and blessing from God first.

  • I think he knew the right thing to do, but didn’t have the faith to do it, and he became fixated on getting a supernatural sign before going forward.

  • So in v.37 Saul asked the priest for a word from God as to whether or not he should plunder the Philistines some more ... but no word came immediately.

  • In fact, if we take the day and night system of the Hebrews literally, no word came from God for the rest of the day, so they’re sitting there in Aijalon twiddling their thumbs all day the next day while the Philistines make it safely home to their fortified cities.

• Now, Saul was not a patient man, and this had to have been incredibly frustrating. As his anger builds over being stymied by his own lack of confidence and his own failure to do what he thought best, he began to fixate upon finding a scapegoat to take his anger out on.

  • Here is another breakdown. This father knows what to do but is afraid to do it, and instead of facing that failure begging God for restoration, he turns the shame and frustration into anger against his son. This, of course, does nothing to increase his son’s respect or trust in return.

Vs. 38-45 Saul Tries to Kill Jonathan over breaking his fast

• Now, individual sin does affect corporate bodies, so it’s important not to hide sin because when it is not dealt with, puzzling harms come to other people that you’re connected to. But I question whether Saul was on the right track with this witch hunt, as it were.

• Saul said in v.38, “Bring here all the cornerstones of the nation and let us know and see this day by whom this sin occurred, for he shall surely be put to death - even if it is confirmed in my son Jonathan - if Yahweh the Savior of Israel is alive.”

• Now, why did Saul say in v.39, "If it is my son, Jonathan..."? Why single Jonathan out?

  • The way Saul organized the casting of lots, starting with a cast to determine between Saul and Jonathan and the rest of Israel, suggests to me that he already thought it was Jonathan.

  • We know from v.17 that Saul knew Jonathan was not present when he gave the command not to eat the day of the battle, so Saul knew Jonathan couldn't have known about the oath.

  • We also know from v.33 that Saul knew his army had sinned in eating blood,

  • We also know that Saul knew how to smooth things over with God when a sin became known. He had just done it for his army when they disobeyed God’s command not to eat blood. Just ask God to forgive the sin by offering a sacrifice on the altar, stop disobeying and start obeying God again. The fact that the lots did not identify the army’s clear disobedience to God’s command as an unresolved sin is further proof that it must have been properly atoned for and repented of. Therefore Jonathan’s eating the honey could also be atoned for and repented of.

  • The army had not violated Saul’s command; they had violated God’s command about food by eating blood. Jonathan, however, had not violated God’s command; he had violated Saul’s command about food by eating honey.²⁰

  • No inconvenience had been imposed on Saul by the sin of his army against God (except perhaps for him having to supervise the butchering), but inconvenience and public shame had come to Saul because of his son’s criticism and because of the delay that was occurring in finishing off the Philistines.

  • I think that the difference was that Saul was personally offended at Jonathan, and I think Saul wanted to kill him for it. We see Saul later on with the same murderous intent toward David when David upstages him.

  • Saul says that the culprit must “surely die” – which I take to mean that there will be no consideration of him paying a ransom for his life to get out of the death sentence. But this is before the sin has even been exposed or put to a trial! That is not due process of justice!

  • Some commentators like Matthew Henry say that Saul was not trying to kill Jonathan, but even Matthew Henry noted how strangely “triumphant” Saul becomes after Jonathan’s confession and how enthusiastic Saul is about killing him.

• Saul has Ahiah the priest cast lots in order to confirm who should take the blame for God not answering him.

  • By the way, when God doesn’t seem to be answering your prayers, it’s probably your fault, not somebody else’s fault.

  • And God has given us better ways of discovering sin problems.

    • He has given us His Holy Spirit to “convict of sin,” so all you need to do is ask the Holy Spirit to bring to your attention any sin that you have overlooked. Then you can ask God to forgive you of that sin on the basis of the blood that Jesus shed for you at Calvary, and your communion with God will be restored.

    • God also sends other people – like prophets – to call our attention to sin when we’re too thick-headed to figure it out for ourselves.

    • We don’t need to go casting lots, but that’s what Saul did.

  • The ESV, NET Bible, and 2011 NIV add additional comments not in the Hebrew text from the oldest-known manuscripts of this verse (which happen to be in Greek and Latin) about how the Urim and Thumim were used in casting lots:

    • The white “Urim” stone was supposed to fall out of the priest’s pouch if Saul or Jonathan were at fault,

    • and the black “Thumim” stone was supposed to fall out if the army was at fault.

    • The KJV & NAS simply translate the Hebrew word “Thumim” meaning “perfect.”

• Interestingly enough, God caused the lots to point the blame at Jonathan, so Jonathan confessed to the only hidden fault he can think of: he had eaten a little honey off the tip of his spear, not knowing that his Dad had forbidden anyone to eat anything that day.

  • Now, most of the commentators I read²¹ maintained that Jonathan ended his confession with a period, “Behold I must die.” That is the interpretation of the KJV, ESV, and NASB, but I favor the NIV’s interpretation here, which ends Jonathan’s confession with a question mark, “Must I die [for this]?” The New International Commentary on the Old Testament written by David Tsumura offered in proof for this that Saul would not have argued back in the next verse that Jonathan must indeed die if Jonathan’s words had not challenged the justice of this verdict of death.

  • God does take oaths seriously, so they are not to be violated lightly, but God’s word makes provision for when we make stupid promises: According to Leviticus 5, a sin offering could make amends for a thoughtless oath, and Leviticus 27 gives standards by which a man could be ransomed by money after being sentenced to death (although there were some particularly-heinous crimes where ransom payments were not allowed in the law so that the worst criminals had to die). ²²

  • But Jonathan’s was not a capital offense. Nobody had died over Jonathan's honey; in fact, Jonathan's fighting the day before had saved the lives of all the men there.

• The injustice of the situation and the unreasonableness of Saul finally became too much for the rest of the Israelite tribal chiefs gathered at the scene. They intervened and rescued Jonathan from Saul’s madness.

  • They countered Saul’s oaths binding him to kill Jonathan with oaths of equal strength binding them to keep Jonathan from harm.

  • And they appealed to Saul that since Jonathan won a great deliverance for Israel, God must be on his side and therefore he couldn’t be considered a criminal.

  • Although this must have been really hard on Saul’s pride for the nation to give the credit for this victory to Jonathan rather than to himself, he was man-centered enough to follow the will of the people, so when it became clear that they were not going to support putting Jonathan to death, Saul dropped it, although some years later, he tried again to kill Jonathan.

• This whole broughaha cost precious time such that the opportunity to crush the Philistine army was lost. The Philistines regrouped in their fortified cities, and Saul went back up to his house on the hill in Gibeah.

• All these problems could have been solved by small exercises of self-discipline early on - especially on the part of Saul - not to become angry and speak rashly. Jonathan could probably have come out from under guilt if he had manifested a humble and repentant attitude about his father's counsel, even after unwittingly breaking it. But pride and misdirected anger broke down their relationship.

Vs. 47-52 – Saul Continues to Fight, but misses family members

• vs.47-52 offer a sort of Epilogue on Saul’s life, commenting on two things: His continued warfare and his family.

• In regards to his continued warfare, he responsibly carried out the role God gave him of delivering Israel from enemies.

  • The verb that opens v.47 implies that Saul stopped farming and gave himself wholly to the military mission of defending his nation.

  • He pushed back on

    • Tsobah to the North

    • Moabites & Edomites to the South,

    • Ammonites to the East,

    • and Philistines to the West (Saul spent the rest of his life fighting against the Philistines, according to v.52)

    • The campaign against the Amalekites mentioned in v.48 is going to be the subject of the next chapter.

  • Saul was a great warrior, and he, by God's power, subdued the nations around Israel and set the foundation for Israel's future unity and sovereignty under David and Solomon.

• The other subject covered in the epilogue to chapter 14 is Saul’s family, but this exposes more breakdowns between father and son:

  • Only 1 of Saul’s 2 wives is mentioned, and only 5 of Saul’s 8 children are mentioned.

    • In 2 Sam. 21:8, we discover that Saul had two sons (Ammoni and Mephiboseth) by a woman named Rizpah – none of whom are mentioned in 1 Samuel.

    • Then in chapter 31, we discover another son of Saul named Abinadab (whose name means “My father is noble”) but we don’t know who his mom was²³.

    • Jonathan is mentioned, of course, but the fact that others were not mentioned raises questions about Saul’s relationship with them.

  • Furthermore, consider the meaning of the names Saul gave his sons:

    • Jonathan means “Yahweh gave” (That’s a wonderful name – it’s kinda like my name!)

    • The two daughters, likewise, have good meanings to their names: Merab means “increasing,” and Michael (who became one of David’s wives) means “Who is like God?”

    • But we see some real problems with the names of the later sons: The second son Ishvi means “he resembles [or is equal to] me” (shifting from God to self in orientation). An alternate spelling in some of the oldest manuscripts²⁴ is Ishbaal (“Baal’s man”). Ish-bosheth seems to be an alternate name for the same son in 1 Chronicles (8:33) – that means “man of shame.” Can you imagine calling your own son that?

    • The third “Melchi-shuah” means “My god is wealth.”

• I suspect that a reason for the omission of the names of family members and for the dreadful names of some of Saul’s sons is to further show the estrangement between Saul and his children. He didn’t bother to give them all names that would bless them, and he didn’t even bother to list them all in his history book.

  • Fathers, don’t play favorites with your children; don’t leave your wife for other women; and don’t leave your children out of your life.

Conclusion

• Well, that’s not a happy note to end on, but some scriptures like this one are mostly warnings against certain sins.

  • Personal vengeance

  • Overreaching authority

  • Failure to honor parents

  • Failure to take vows seriously

  • Unwillingness to extend to a son the same justice and charity and protection afforded other men

  • Knowing what God wants you to do but being afraid to do it, and turning the shame and frustration of failure into anger against a son

  • Blame-shifting

  • Taking offenses personally, allowing anger to grow until unreasonable and murderous thoughts develop

  • Overlooking some children, playing favorites with other children, even dedicating children to false gods.

• May God lead us not into these temptations, but deliver us from these evils!

Appendix: Genealogy of Saul

m. = married, c. = concubine, r. = raped

Squares = males, Circles = females

All the information comes from the Bible, but the salmon-colored names are in 1 Sam. 14.

FWIW, Merib-baal is the name of Jonathan’s son given in 1 Chron 8 instead of Mephibosheth.

1 Samuel 14 - Side-by side comparison of versions^BP