He proposes this emendation, B'nayn tyBfr, " let the Hebrews fall away," according to the Alex, text rjderyj/cao-LV ol SovXol, without reflecting that the very expression ol SovXoc is sufficient to render the Alex, reading suspicious, and that Saul could not have summoned the people in all the land to fall away from the Philistines, since they had not yet conquered and taken possession of the whole. Moreover, the correctness of U*p^ is confirmed by W»B> ^^-^ in ver. 4. " All Israel heard," not the call to fall away, but the news, " Saul has smitteii a garrison of the Philistines, and Israel has also made itself stinking icith the Philistines" i.e. hated in consequence of the bold and successful attack made by Jonathan, which proved that the Israelites would no longer allow themselves to be oppressed by the Philistines. " And the people let themselves be called together after Saul to Gilgal." PV^, to permit to summon to war (as in Judg. vii. 23, 24). The words are incorrectly rendered by the Vulgate, u clamavit ergo populus post Saul," and by Luther, " Then the people cried after Saul to Gilgal." Saul drew back to Gilgal, when the Philistines advanced with a large army, to make preparations for the further conflict (see at ver. 13). — Ver. 5. The Philistines also did not delay to avenge the defeat at Geba. They collected an innumerable army: 30,000 chariots, 0000 horsemen, and people, i.e. foot-soldiers, without number (as the sand by the sea-shore; cf. Judg. vii. 12, Josh. xi. 4, etc.). 33*1 by the side of E^'ne can only mean war chariots. 30,000 war chariots, however, bear no proportion whatever to 6000 horsemen, not only because the number of war chariots is invariably smaller than that of the horsemen (cf. 2 Sam. x. 18; 1 Kings x. 26; 2 Chron. xii. 3), but also, as Bochart observes in his Hieroz. p. i. lib. ii. c. 9, because such a number of war chariots is never met with either in sacred or profane history, not even in the case of nations that were much more powerful than the Philistines. The number is therefore certainly corrupt, and we must either read 3000 ('?K TWpVJ instead of vK DW), according to the Syriac and Arabic, or else simply 1000; and in the latter case the origin of the number thirty must be attributed to the fact, that through the oversight of a copyist the b of the word s&yP. was written twice, and consequently the second? was taken for the numeral thirty. This army was encamped " at Michmash, before (i.e. in the front, or on the western side of) Bethaven:" for, according to Josh. vii. 2, Bethaven was to the east of Michmash; and ricnp, when it occurs in geographical accounts, does not " always mean to the east," as Thenius erroneously maintains, but invariably means simply "in front" (see at Gen. ii. 14).1 — Vers. 6, 7. When the Israelites saw that they had come into a strait (P "W)> for the people were oppressed (by the Philistines), they hid themselves in the caves, thorn-bushes, rocks (i.e. clefts of the rocks), fortresses (Crny; see at Judg. ix. 46), and pits (which were to be found in the land); and Hebrews also went over the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead, whilst Saul was still at Gilgal; and all the people (the people of war who had been called together, ver. 4) trembled behind him, i.e. were gathered together in his train, or assembled round him as leader, trembling or in despair.
The Gilgal mentioned here cannot be Jiljilia, which is situated upon the high ground, as assumed in the Comm. on Joshua, p. 94, but must be the Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan. This is not only favoured by the expression VTV (the Philistines will come down from Michmash to Gilgal, ver. 12),
1 Consequently there is no ground whatever for altering the text according to the confused rendering of the LXX., h Maxpoig e% ivounia; Bottdapau koctoI vorov, for the purpose of substituting for the correct statement in the text a description which would be geographically wrong, viz. to the south-east of Beth-horon, since Michmash was neither to the south nor to the south-east, but to the east of Beth-horon.
but also by?JW (Samuel went up from Gilgal to Gibeab, ver. 15), and by the general attitude of Saul and bis army towards tbe Philistines. As the Philistines advanced with a powerful army, after Jonathan's victory over their garrison at Geba (to the south of Michmash), and encamped at Michmash (ver. 5); and Saul, after withdrawing from Gilgal, where he had gathered the Israelites together (vers. 4, 8, 12), with Jonathan and the six hundred men who were with him when the muster took place, took up bis position at Geba (vers. 15, 16), from which point Jonathan attacked the Philistine post in the pass of Michmash (ver. 23, and ch. xiv. 1 sqq.): Saul must have drawn back from the advancing army of the Philistines to the Gilgal in the Jordan valley, to make ready for the battle by collecting soldiers and presenting sacrifices, and then, after this had been done, must have advanced once more to Gibeab and Geba to commence the war with the army of the Philistines that wras encamped at Michmash. If, on the other hand, he had gone northwards to Jiljilia from Michmash, where lie was first stationed, to escape the advancing army of the Philistines; he would have had to attack the Philistines from the north when they were encamped at Michmash, and could not possibly have returned to Geba without coming into conflict with the Philistines, since Michmash was situated between Jiljilia and Geba. Vers. 8-15. Saul's untimely sacrifice. — Vers. 8, 9. Saul waited seven days for Samuel's coming, according to the time appointed by Samuel (see at ch. x. 8), before proceeding to offer the sacrifices through which the help of the Lord was to be secured for the approaching campaign (see ver. 12); and as Samuel did not come, the people began to disperse and leave him. The Ketliih br\"\ is either the Niphal?[?"}, as in Gen. viii. 12, or Piel?!?!5> ana" the Keri ^nisi (Hiphil) is unnecessary. The verb "IJJJ may easily be supplied to ^DiP "IBW from the word "Vita? (see Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 851). — Ver. 9. Saul then resolved, in his anxiety lest the people should lose all heart and forsake him altogether if there were any further delay, that he would offer the sacrifice without Samuel, npiyn?JP1 does not imply that Saul offered the sacrifice with his own hand, i.e. that he performed the priestly function upon this occasion. The cooperation of the priests in performing the duties belonging to them on such an occasion is taken for granted, just as in the case of the sacrifices offered by David and Solomon (2 Sam. xxiv. 25; 1 Kings iii. 4, viii. 63). — Vers. 10 sqq. The offering of the sacrifice was hardly finished when Samuel came and said to Saul, as he came to meet him and salute him, u What hast thou done?" Saul replied, "When I saiv that the people were scattered away from me, and thou earnest not at the time appointed, and the Philistines were assembled at Michmash, I thought the Philistines will come down to me to Gilgal now (to attack me), before I have entreated the face of Jehovah; and I overcame myself and offered the burnt-offering." '* \J3 npn: see Ex. xxxii. 11. — Ver. 13. Samuel replied, u Thou hast acted foolishly, (and) not kept the commandment of Jehovah thy God, which He commanded thee: for now {sc. if thou hadst obeyed His commandment) Jehovah would have established thy sovereignty over Israel for ever; but now (sc. since thou hast acted thus) thy sovereignty shall not continue." The antithesis of ppn nny and Dlpn k? nrijn requires that we should understand these two clauses conditionally. The conditional clauses are omitted, simply because they are at once suggested by the tenor of the address (see Ewald, § 358, a). The *3 (for) assigns the reason, and refers to ^??p? (" thou hast done foolishly "), the 'W IT1D$ ^ being merely added as explanatory. The non-continuance of the sovereignty is not to be regarded as a rejection, or as signifying that Saul had actually lost the throne so far as he himself was concerned; but D^pn K? (shall not continue) forms the antithesis to D?iy~ny j\DH (established for ever), and refers to the fact that it was not established in perpetuity by being transmitted to his descendants. It was not till his second transgression that Saul was rejected, or declared unworthy of being king over the people of God (ch. xv.). We are not compelled to assume an immediate rejection of Saul even by the further announcement made by Samuel, " Jehovah hath sought him a man after his own heart; him hath Jehovah appointed prince over His people; " for these words merely announce the purpose of God, without defining the time of its actual realization. Whether it would take place during Saul's reign, or not till after his death, was known only to God, and was made contingent upon Saul's further behaviour. But if Saul's sin did not consist, as we have observed above, in his having interfered with the prerogatives of the priests by offering the sacrifice himself, but simply in the fact that he had transgressed the commandment of God as revealed to him by Samuel, to postpone the sacrifice until Samuel arrived, the punishment which the prophet announced that God would inflict upon him in consequence appears a very severe one, since Saul had not come to the resolution either frivolously or presumptuously, but had been impelled and almost forced to act as he did by the difficulties in which he was placed in consequence of the prophet delaying his coming. But wherever, as in the present instance, there is a definite command given by the Lord, a man has no right to allow himself to be induced to transgress it, by fixing his attention upon the earthly circumstances in which he is placed. As Samuel had instructed Saul, as a direct command from Jehovah, to wait for his arrival before offering sacrifice, Saul might have trusted in the Lord that he would send His prophet at the right time and cause His command to be fulfilled, and ought not to have allowed his confidence to be shaken by the pressing danger of delay. The interval of seven days and the delay in Samuel's arrival were intended as a test of his faith, which he ought not to have lightly disregarded. Moreover, the matter in hand was the commencement of the war against the principal enemies of Israel, and Samuel was to tell him what he was to do (ch. x. 8). So that when Saul proceeded with the consecrating sacrifice for that very conflict, without the presence of Samuel, he showed clearly enough that he thought he could make war upon the enemies of his kingdom without the counsel and assistance of God. This was an act of rebellion against the sovereignty of Jehovah, for which the punishment announced was by no means too severe. — Ver. 15. After this occurrence Samuel went up to Gibeah, and Saul mustered the people who were with him, about six hundred men. Consequently Saul had not even accomplished the object of his unseasonable sacrifice, namely, to prevent the dispersion of the people. With this remark the account of the occurrence that decided the fate of Saul's monarchy is brought to a close.
Vers. 16-23. Disarming of Israel by the Philistines. — The following account is no doubt connected with the foregoing, so far as the facts are concerned, inasmuch as Jonathan's brave heroic deed, which brought the Israelites a splendid victory over the Philistines, terminated the war for which Saul had entreated the help of God by his sacrifice at Gilgal; but it is not formally connected with it, so as to form a compact and complete account of the successive stages of the war. On the contrary, the 16th verse, where we have an account of the Israelitish warriors and their enemies, commences a new section of the history, in which the devastating march of the Philistines through the land, and the disarming of the Israelites by these their enemies, are first of all depicted (vers. 17-23); and then the victory of the Israelites through Jonathan's daring and heroic courage, notwithstanding their utter prostration, is recorded (ch. xiv. 1-46), for the purpose of showing how the Lord had miraculously helped His people.1
Ver. 16. The two clauses of this verse are circumstantial clauses: " But Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were with him, were sitting, i.e. tarrying, in Geba of Benjamin (the present Jeba; see at ver. 3); and the Philistines had encamped at Michmash" Just as in vers. 2-4 it is not stated when or why Saul went from Michmash or Geba to Gilgal,
1 From this arrangement of the history, according to which the only two points that are minutely described in connection with the war with the Philistines are those which bring out the attitude of the king, whom the nation had desired to deliver it from its foes, towards Jehovah, and the way in which Jehovah acted towards His people, whilst all the rest is passed over, we may explain the absence of any closer connection between ver. 15 and ver. 10, and not from a gap in the text. The LXX., however, adopted the latter supposition, and according to the usual fashion filled up the gap by expanding ver. 15 in the following thoughtless manner: xctl dviarvi ^oe./xovvi'h kocI onrrfhQiv tx, TccKya.'hoiu' kmi to xctTcthn^^u, rov ~kx,ov dvifiin oiriaa 'Socov'h tig d-TircLVTYioiv OTtlaoa rov ~hu.ov rov Tro'Ki^toTOv' ocvrav k ctpoLyivofikvcAV ik Ya.'hya.'Kuu tic, Yafiau. Htvtocf^lv xoci t7rtaxt\p»T0 2#oj)A, x.t.A. For there is no sense in dg dKavmoiv oTriaco, and the whole thought, that the people who were left went up after Saul to meet the people of war, is unintelligible, since it is not stated whence the people of war had come, who are said to have met with those who had remained behind with Saul, and to have gone up with him from Gilgal to Gibeah. If, however, we overlook this, and assume that when Saul returned from Gilgal to Gibeah a further number of fighting men came to him from different parts of the land, how does this assumption agree with the account which follows, viz. that when Saul mustered the people he found only six hundred men, — a statement which is repeated again in ch. xiv. 2? The discrepancy remains even if we adopu Ewald's conjecture (Gesch. iii. 43), that tig oLxocvtyktiv is a false rendering of 21J5?, u to the conflict." Moreover, even with the Alexandrian filling up, no natural connection is secured between vers. 15 and 16, unless we identify Geba of Ben- but this change in his position is merely hinted at indirectly at the close of ver. 4; so here Saul's return from Gilgal to Geba with the fighting men who remained with him is not distinctly mentioned, but simply taken for granted as having already occurred. — Vers. 17, 18. Then the spoiler went out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. D^Kf] nBW is made subject to the verb to define the mode of action (see Ewald, § 279, c); and rashim is used here, as in ch. xi. 11. JVnDJsn, according to the context, is a hostile band that went out to devastate the land. The definite article points it out as well known. One company took the road to Ophrah into the land of Shual, i.e. went in a north-easterly direction, as, according to the Onom., Ophrah of Benjamin was five Roman miles to the east of Bethel (see at Josh, xviii. 23). Robinson supposes it to have been on the site of Tayibeh. The land of Shual (fox-land) is unknown; it may possibly have been identical with the land of Saalim (ch. ix. 5). The other company turned on the road to Beth-horon (Beit-ur: see at Josh. x. 11), that is to say, towards the west; the third, " the way to the territory that rises above the valley of Zeboim towards the jamin with Gibeah, as the Septuagint and its latest defenders have done, and not only change the participle D'Qt?'1 (ver. 16) into theaorist kxa-diaxu, but interpolate xod exheaov after " at Geba of Benjamin;" whereas the statement of the text "at Geba in Benjamin" is proved to be correct by the simple fact that Jonathan could only attempt or cany out the heroic deed recorded in ch. xiv. from Geba and not from Gibeah; and the alteration of the participle into the aorist is just as arbitrary as the interpolation of xotl txXctto*. From all this it follows that the Septuagint version has not preserved the original reading, as Ewald and Thenius suppose, but contains nothing more than a mistaken attempt to restore the missing link. It is true the Vulgate contains the same filling up as the Septuagint, but with one alteration, which upsets the assertion made by Thenius, that the repetition of the expression ^apjin p, ** YoiAyot'Kuv, caused the reading contained in the Septuagint to be dropped out of the Hebrew text. For the text of the Vulgate runs as follows: Surrcxit ant em Samuel et ascendit de GaUjalis in Gabaa Benjamin. Et reliqui populi asa nderunt post Saul obviampopulo, qui expugnabant eos venientes do Galgala in Gabaa in colle Benjamin. Et recensuit Saul, etc. Jerome has therefore rendered the first two elan ver. 15 in perfect accordance with the Hebrew text; and the addition which follows is nothing more than a gloss that has found its way into his translation from the Itala, and in which de Galgala in colle Benjamin is still retained, whereas Jerome himself rendered i?3^3n p de Galgalis.
desert." These descriptions are obscure; and the valley of Zeboim altogether unknown. There is a town of this name (D"»tfw, different from D^> Deut. xxix. 22, Gen. xiv. 2, 8; or B^hy, Hos. xi. 8, in the vale of Siddim) mentioned in Neh. xi. 34, which was inhabited by Benjaminites, and was apparently situated in the south-eastern portion of the land of Benjamin, to the north-east of Jerusalem, from which it follows that the third company pursued its devastating course in a southeasterly direction from Michmash towards Jericho. " The wilderness" is probably the desert of Judah. The intention of the Philistines in carrying out these devastating expeditions, was no doubt to entice the men who were gathered round Saul and Jonathan out of their secure positions at Gibeah and Geba, and force them to fight. — Vers. 19 sqq. The Israelites could not offer a successful resistance to these devastating raids, as there was no smith to be found in the whole land: " For the Philistines thought the Hebrews might make themselves sword or spear" (1»N followed by |Q, " to say, or think, that not,v equivalent to being unwilling that it should be done). Consequently (as the words clearly imply) when they proceeded to occupy the land of Israel as described in ver. 5, they disarmed the people throughout, i.e. as far as they penetrated, and carried off the smiths, who might have been able to forge weapons; so that, as is still further related in ver. 20, all Israel was obliged to go to the Philistines, every one to sharpen his edge-tool, and his ploughshare, and his axe, and his chopper. According to Isa. ii. 4, Micah iv. 3, and Joel iv. 10, flK is an iron instrument used in agriculture; the majority of the ancient versions render it ploughshare. The word toKnno is striking after the previous intJnnD (from ntShriD); and the meaning of both words is uncertain. According to the etymology, HKnno might denote any kind of edge-tool, even the ploughshare. The second intjnnp is rendered to hpeiravov avrov (his sickle) by the LXX., and sarculum by Jerome, a small garden hoe for loosening and weeding the soil. The fact that the word is connected with DTIP, the axe or hatchet, favours the idea that it signifies a hoe or spade rather than a sickle. Some of the words in ver. 21 are still more obscure. ^J)\ which is the reading adopted by all the earlier translators, indicates that the result is about to be given of the facts mentioned before: " And there came to fissuras habens, obtusus ensis, whereas the meaning to hammer, i.e. to sharpen by hammering, cannot be established. The insertion of the article before HTXB is as striking as the omission of it before D*3; also the stat. abs. instead of the construct riT^Q. These anomalies render it a very probable conjecture that the reading may have been D^sn TO&n {inf. Hipli. nomin.). Accordingly the rendering would be, " so that bluntness of the edges occurred in the edge-tools, and the ploughshares, and the trident, and the axes, and the setting of the goad." fvfa\> BW is to be regarded as a nom. comp. like our trident, denoting an instrument with three prongs, according to the Chaldee and the Eabbins (see Ges. Thes. p. 1219). Jfn, stimulus, is probably a pointed instrument generally, since the meaning goad is fully established in the case of |ta"Y1 by Eccl. xii. II.1 — Ver. 22. On the day of battle, therefore, the people with Saul and Jonathan were without either sword or spear; Saul and Jonathan were the only persons provided with them. The account of the expedition of the Israelites, and their victory over the Ammonites, given in ver. 11, is apparently at variance with this description of the situation of the Israelites, since the
1 Ver. 21 runs very differently in the LXX., namely, kxi jju 6 rpvyirrii irotpo; tov depifyu/, toc Be oxsvyi iju rps7; <jIk7^oi dg tiv ooovroi, kxi tyi cc^ty?] xetl TV ^piTFxutf) V7rcarxaig qv q ctvr-/i; and Thenius and Bottcher propose an emendation of the Hebrew text accordingly, so as to obtain the following meaning: " And the sharpening of the edges in the case of the spades and ploughshares was done at three shekels a tooth (i.e. three shekels each), and for the axe and sickle it was the same" (Thenius); or, u and the same for the sickles, and for the axes, and for setting the prong" (Bottcher). But here also it is easy enough to discover that the LXX. had not another text before them that was different from the Masoretic text, but merely confounded *V¥Sn with TV3H, rpv/mog, and took pth\> BvtPi which was unintelligible to them, e conjcctura for j^;n 'p& CvL", altogether regardless of the sense or nonsense of their own translation. The latest supporters of this senseless rendering, however, have neither undertaken to prove the possibility of translating ohovrx (6lov;), "each single piece" (i.e. each), or inquired into the value of money at that time, so as to see whether three shekels would be an unexampled charge for the sharpening of an axe or sickle.
war in question not only presupposes the possession of weapons by the Israelites, but must also have resulted in their capturing a considerable quantity. The discrepancy is very easily removed, however, when we look carefully at all the circumstances. For instance, we can hardly picture the Israelites to ourselves as amply provided with ordinary weapons in this expedition against the Ammonites. Moreover, the disarming of the Israelites by the Philistines took place for the most part if not entirely after this expedition, viz. at the time when the Philistines swept over the land with an innumerable army after Jonathan had smitten their garrison at Geba (vers. 3, 5), so that the fighting men who gathered round Saul and Jonathan after that could hardly bring many arms with them. Lastly, the words "there was neither sword nor spear found in the hands of all the people with Saul and Jonathan" must not be too closely pressed, but simply affirm that the GOO fighting men of Saul and Jonathan were not provided with the necessary arms, because the Philistines had prevented the possibility of their arming themselves in the ordinary way by depriving the people of all their smiths.
Yer. 23 forms the transition to the heroic act of Jonathan described in ch. xiv.: "An outpost of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash;" i.e. the Philistines pushed forward a company of soldiers to the pass ("9^P, the crossing place) of Michmash, to prevent an attack being made by the Israelites upon their camp. Between Geba and Michmash there runs the great deep Wady es Suweinit, which goes down from Beitin and Bireh (Bethel and Beeroth) to the valley of the Jordan, and intersects the ridge upon which the two places are situated, so that the sides of the wady form very precipitous walls. When Bobinson was travelling from Jeba to Mukhmas he had to go down a very steep and rugged path into this deep wady (Pal. ii. p. 116). "The way," he says in his Biblical Researches,
p. 289, " was so steep, and the rocky steps so high, that we were compelled to dismount; while the baggage mules got along with great difficulty. Here, where wTe crossed, several short side wadys came in from the south-west and north-west. The ridges between these terminate in elevating points projecting into the great wady; and the most easterly of these bluffs on each side were probably the outposts of the two garrisons of Israel and the Philistines. The road passes around the eastern side of the southern hill, the post of Israel, and then strikes up over the western part of the northern one, the post of the Philistines, and the scene of Jonathan's adventure."
Jonathan's heroic act, and Israel's victory over the Philistines, saul's wars and family. — chap xiv.
Vers. 1-15. Jonathan s heroic act. — With strong faith and confidence in the might of the Lord, that He could give the victory even through the hands of very few, Jonathan resolved to attack the outpost of the Philistines at the pass of Mukhmas, accompanied by his armour-bearer alone, and the Lord crowned his enterprise with a marvellous victory. — Ver. 1. Jonathan said to his armour-bearer, u We will go over to the post of the Philistines, that is over there" To these words, which introduce the occurrences that followed, there are attached from V3K7* to ver. 5 a series of sentences introduced to explain the situation, and the thread of the narrative is resumed in ver. 6 by a repetition of Jonathan's words. It is first of all observed that Jonathan did not disclose his intentions to his father, who would hardly have approved of so daring an enterprise. Then follows a description of the place where Saul was stationed with the six hundred men, viz. u at the end of Gibeah (i.e. the extreme northern end), under the pomegranate-tree (Rimmon) which is by Migron." Rimmon is not the rock Rimmon (Judg. xx. 45), which was on the north-east of Michmash, but is an appellative* noun, signifying a pomegranate-tree. Migron is a locality with which we are not acquainted, upon the north side of Gibeah, and a different place from the Migron which was on the north or north-west of Michmash (Isa. x. 28). Gibeah (Tuleil el Phul) was an hour and a quarter from Geba, and from the pass which led across to Michmash. Consequently, when Saul was encamped with his six hundred men on the north of Gibeah, he may have been hardly an hour's journey from Geba. — Ver. 3. Along with Saul and his six hundred men, there was also Ahiah, the son of Ahitub, the (elder) brother of Ichabod, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest at Shiloh, and therefore a great-grandson of Eli, wearing the ephod, i.e. in the high priest's robes. Ahiah is generally supposed to be the same person as AJrimelech, the son of Ahitub (ch. xxii. 9 sqq.), in which case Ahiah (n*H^> brother, i.e. friend of Jehovah) would be only another form of the name Ahimelech (i.e. brother or friend of the King, viz. Jehovah). This is very probable, although Ahimelech might have been Ahiah' s brother, who succeeded him in the office of high priest on account of his having died without sons, since there is an interval of at least ten years between the events related in this chapter and those referred to in ch. xxii. Ahimelech was afterwards slain by Saul along with the priests of Nob (ch. xxii. 9 sqq.); the only one who escaped being his son Abiathar, who fled to David and, according to ch. xxx. 7, was invested with the ephod. It follows, therefore, that Ahiah (or Ahimelech) must have had a son at least ten years old at the time of the war referred to here, viz. the Abiathar mentioned in ch. xxx. 7, and must have been thirty or thirty-five years old himself, since Saul had reigned at least twenty-two years, and Abiathar had become high priest a few years before the death of Saul. These assumptions may be very easily reconciled with the passage before us. As Eli was ninety-eight years old when he died, his son Phinehas, who had been killed in battle a short time before, might have been sixty or sixty-five years old, and have left a son of forty years of age, namely Ahitub. Forty years later, therefore, i.e. at the beginning of Saul's reign, Ahitub's son Ahiah (Ahimelech) might have been about fifty years old; and at the death of Ahimelech, which took place ten or twelve years after that, his son Abiathar might have been as much as thirty years of age, and have succeeded his father in the office of high priest. But Abiathar cannot have been older than this when his father died, since he was high priest during the whole of David's forty years' reign, until Solomon deposed him soon after he ascended the throne (1 Kings ii. 26 sqq.). Compare with this the remarks on 2 Sam. viii. 17. Jonathan had also refrained from telling the people anything about his intentions, so that they did not know that he had gone.
In vers. 4, 5, the locality is more minutely described. Between the passes, through which Jonathan endeavoured to cross over to go up to the post of the Philistines, there was a sharp rock on this side, and also one upon the other. One of these was called Bozez} the other Seneh; one (formed) a pillar (P^VD), i.e. a steep height towards the north opposite to Michmash, the other towards the south opposite to Geba. The expression u between the passes'" may be explained from the remark of Robinson quoted above, viz. that at the point where lie passed the Wady Suweinit, side wadys enter it from the south-west and north-west. These side wadys supply so manv different crossings. Between them, however, on the north and south walls of the deep valley, were the jagged rocks Bozez and Seneh, which rose up like pillars to a great height. These were probably the "hills" which Robinson saw to the left of the pass by which he crossed: " Two hills of a conical or rather spherical form, having steep rocky sides, with small wadys running up behind so as almost to isolate them. One is on the side towards Jeba, and the other towards Mukhmas " (Pal. ii. p. 116). — Ver. 6. And Jonathan said to his armour-bearer, u Come, ice will go over to the post of these uncircumcised; it may be that Jehovah will work for us; for (there is) no lrindrance for Jehovah to work salvation by many or few." Jonathan's resolution arose from the strong conviction that Israel was the nation of God, and possessed in Jehovah an omnipotent God, who would not refuse His help to His people in their conflict with the foes of His kingdom, if they would only put their whole trust in Him. — Ver. 7. As the armour-bearer approved of Jonathan's resolution ("HJ TOM, turn thither), and was ready to follow him, Jonathan fixed upon a sign by which lie would ascertain whether the Lord would prosper his undertaking. — Vers. 8 sqq. u Behold, we go over to the people and sliow ourselves to them. If they say to us, Wait (ych, keep quiet) till we come to you, we will stand still in our place, and not go up to them; but if they say thus, Come up unto us, then ice will go up, for Jehovah hath (in that case) delivered them into our hand." The sign was well chosen. If the Philistines said, tl Wait till we come," they would show some courage; but if they said, " Come up to us," it would be a sign that they were cowardly, and had not courage enough to leave their position and attack the Hebrews. It was not tempting God for Jonathan to fix upon such a sign by which to determine the success of his enterprise; for he did it in the exercise of his calling, when fighting not for personal objects, but for the kingdom of God, which the uncircumcised were threatening to annihilate, and in the most confident belief that the Lord would deliver and preserve His people. Such faith as this God. would not put to shame. — Vers. 11 sqq. When the two showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, they said, "Behold, Hebrews come forth out of the holes in which they have hidden themselves" And the men of the garrison cried out to Jonathan and his armourbearer, "Come up to us, and we will tell you a word" i.e. we will communicate something to you. This was ridicule at the daring of the two men, whilst for all that they had not courage enough to meet them bravely and drive them back. In this Jonathan received the desired sign that the Lord had given the Philistines into the hand of the Israelites: he therefore clambered up the rock on his hands and feet, and his armour-bearer after him; and uthey (the Philistines) fell before Jonathan" i.e. were smitten down by him, "and his armour-bearer was slaying behind him." — Ver. 14. The first stroke that Jonathan and his armour-bearer struck was (amounted to) about twenty men " on about half a furrow of an acre of field" ^}¥®, a furrow, as in Ps. cxxix. 3, is in the absolute state instead of the construct, because several nouns follow in the construct state (cf. Ewald, § 291, a). ^p¥, lit. things bound together, then a pair; here it signifies a pair or yoke of oxen, but in the transferred sense of a piece of land that could be ploughed in one morning with a yoke of oxen, like the Latin jugum, jugerum. It is called the furrow of an acre of land, because the length only of half an acre of land was to be given, and not the breadth or the entire circumference. The Philistines, that is to say, took to flight in alarm as soon as the brave heroes really ascended, so that the twenty men were smitten one after another in the distance of half a rood of land. Their terror and flight are perfectly conceivable, if we consider that the outpost of the Philistines was so stationed upon the top of the ridge of the steep mountain wall, that they could not see how many were following, and the Philistines could not imagine it possible that two Hebrews would have ventured to climb the rock alone and make an attack upon them. Sallust relates a similar occurrence in connection with the scaling of a castle in the Numidian war (Bell. Jugurth. c. 89, 90). — Yer. 15. And there arose a terror in the camp upon the field (i.e. in the principal camp) as well as among all the people (of the advanced outpost of the Philistines); the garrison {i.e. the army that was encamped at Michmash), and the spoilers, they also trembled, and the earth quaked, sc. with the noise and tumult of the frightened foe; " and it grew into a trembling of God" i.e. a supernatural terror miraculously infused by God into the Philistines. The subject to the last WH is either rrnn^ the alarm in the camp, or all that has been mentioned before, i.e. the alarm with the noise and tumult that sprang out of it.
Vers. 16-23. Flight and defeat of the Philistines. — Ver. 16. The spies of Saul at Gibeah saw how the multitude (in the camp of the Philistines) melted away and was beaten more and more. The words b?H1 Tp*l_ are obscure. The Rabbins are unanimous in adopting the explanation magis magisque frangebatur, and have therefore probably taken ti^n as an inf. absol. fivrj, and interpreted D?n according to Judg. v. 26. This was also the case with the Chaldee; and Gesenius (Thes. p. 383) has adopted the same rendering, except that he has taken D?n in the sense of dissolutus, dissipatus est. Others take Di?n as adverbial ("and thither"), and supply the correlate Zp? (hither), so as to bring out the meaning " hither and thither" Thus the LXX. render it evOev kol evOev, but they have not translated sfej at all. — Ver. 17. Saul conjectured at once that the excitement in the camp of the Philistines was occasioned by an attack made by Israelitish warriors, and therefore commanded the people: K3"V7j?B, u Muster (number) now, and see who has gone away from us;" and "Jonathan and his armour-bearer were not there," i.e. they were missing. — Vers. 18 sqq. Saul therefore resolved to ask God, through the priest Ahiah, what he should do; whether he should go out with his army against the Philistines or no. But whilst he was talking with the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines became greater and greater, so that he saw from that what ought to be done under the circumstances, and stopped the priest's inquiring of God, and set out with his people without delay. We are struck, however, with the expression in ver. 18, " Bring hither the ark of God," and the explanation which follows, "for the ark of God was at t/iat time with the children of Israel" inasmuch as the ark was then deposited at Kirjath-jearim, and it is a very improbable thing that it should have been in the little camp of Saul. Moreover, in other cases where the high priest is spoken of as inquiring the will of God, there is no mention made of the ark, but only of the ephod, the high priest's shoulder-dress, upon which there were fastened the Urim and Thummim, through which inquiry was made of God. And in addition to this, the verb nB^an is not really applicable to the ark, which was not an object that could be carried about at will; whereas this verb is the current expression used to signify the fetching of the ephod (vid. ch. xxiii. 9, xxx. 7). All these circumstances render the correctness of the Masoretic text extremely doubtful, notwithstanding the fact that the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate support it, and recommend rather the reading adopted by the LXX., Trpoadyaye to 'EcfrovS' ore avrbs rjpev to 'EcpovS iv rfj rjfJ-epa i/celvy ivooirLov 'Icrpa?]\, which would give as the Hebrew text, ^>fcob» *:zb mnn Disn ntosn Kbb wn *3 lissn nwzn. In anv case,?$nvP ^ at the end of the verse should be read B* *jj?? or *?Wj since } gives no sense at all. — Ver. 19. " It increased more and more; " lit. increasing and becoming greater. The subject 'U1 ponni is placed absolutely at the head, so that the verb "^ is appended in the form of an apodosis. T1* ^P^, " draw thy hand in" (back); i.e. leave off now. — Yer. 20. u And (i.e. in consequence of the increasing tumult in the enemy's camp) Saul had himself, and all the people with him, called" i.e. called together for battle; and when they came to the war, i.e. to the place of conflict, " behold, there was the sword of the one against the other, a very great confusion" in consequence partly of terror, and partly of the circumstance alluded to in ver. 21. — Ver. 21. " And the Hebrews were with the Philistines as before (yesterday and the day before yesterday), who had come along with them in the camp round about; they also came over to Israel, which was with Saul and Jonathan" y2D means distributed round about among the Philistines. Those Israelites whom the Philistines had incorporated into their army are called Hebrews, according to the name which was current among foreigners, whilst those who wTere with Saul are called Israel, according to the sacred name of the nation. The difficulty which many expositors have found in the word rii-np has been very correctly solved, so far as the sense is concerned, by the earlier translators, by the interpolation of " they returned:" l^n (Chald.), eTrearpafyriarav (LXX.), reversi sunt (Vulg.), and similarly the Syriac and Arabic. We are not at liberty, however, to amend the Hebrew text in this manner, as nothing more is omitted than the finite verb Wl before the infinitive W>)? (for this construction, see Gesenius, Gramm. § 132, 3, Anm. 1), and this might easily be left out here, since it stands at the beginning of the verse in the main clause. The literal rendering would be, they were to be with Israel, i.e. they came over to Israel. The fact that the Hebrews who were serving in the army of the Philistines came over to Saul and his host, and turned their weapons against their oppressors, naturally heightened the confusion in the camp of the Philistines, and accelerated their defeat; and this was still further increased by the fact that the Israelites who had concealed themselves on the mountains of Ephraim also joined the Israelitish army, as soon as they heard of the flight of the Philistines (ver. 22). — Ver. 23. u Thus the Lord helped Israel that day, and the conflict went out beyond Bethaven." Bethaven was on the east of Michmash, and, according to ver. 31, the Philistines fled westwards from Michmash to Ajalon. But if we bear in mind that the camp of the Philistines was on the eastern side of Michmash before Bethaven, according to ch. xiii. 5, and that the Israelites forced their way into it from the south, we shall see that the battle might easily have spread out beyond Bethaven, and that eventually the main body of the enemy might have fled as far as Ajalon, and have been pursued to that point by the victorious Israelites.
Vers. 24-31. Saul' 's precipitate haste. — Ver. 24. The men of Israel were pressed (i.e. fatigued) on that day, sc. through the military service and fighting. Then Saul adjured the people, saying, " Cursed be the man that eateth bread until the evening, and (till) / have avenged myself upon mine enemies."?X\ fut. apoc. of H7KS for rfrfePj from n?s? to swear, Hiphil to adjure or require an oath of a person. The people took the oath by saying " amen'1 to what Saul had uttered. This command of Saul did not proceed from a proper attitude towards the Lord, but was an act of false zeal, in which Saul had more regard to himself and his own kingly power than to the cause of the kingdom of Jehovah, as we may see at once from the expression '\S\ *R&@3, " till / have avenged myself upon mine enemies." It was a despotic measure which not only failed to accomplish its object (see vers. 30, 31), but brought Saul into the unfortunate position of being unable to carry out the oath (see ver. 45). All the people kept the command. " They tasted no bread" DyD~K7J is not to be connected with %JTOp31 as an apodosis. — Yer. 25. " And all the land (i.e. all the people of the land who had gathered round Saul: vid. ver. 29) came into the woody country; there icas honey upon the field." "W signifies here a woody district, in which forests alternated with tracts of arable land and meadows. — Ver. 26. When the people came into the wood and saw a stream of honey (of wild or wood bees), " no one put his hand to his mouth (sc. to eat of the honey), because they feared the oath." — Ver. 27. But Jonathan, who had not heard his father's oath, dipped (in the heat of pursuit, that he might not have to stop) the point of his staff in the new honey, and put it to his mouth, " and his eyes became bright;" his lost strength, which is reflected in the eye, having been brought back by this invigorating taste. The Chethibh ru&nn is probably to be read n:iOri7 the eyes became seeing, received their power of vision again. The Masoretes have substituted as the Keri ^l^, from "liK, to become bright, according to ver. 29; and this is probably the correct reading, as the letters might easily be transposed. — Vers. 28 sqq. When one of the people told him thereupon of his father's oath, in consequence of which the people were exhausted (D^n *13H belongs to the man's words; and *|JW is the same as in Judg. iv. 21), Jonathan condemned the prohibition. u My father has brought the land {i.e. the people of the land, as in ver. 25) into trouble p?V, see at Gen. xxxiv. 30): see how bright mine eyes have become because I tasted a little of this honey. How much more if the people had eaten to-day of the booty of its enemies, would not the overthrow among the Philistines truly have then become great0!" ^ *]&*, lit. to this (there comes) also that = not to mention how much more; and nny \D is an emphatic introduction of the apodosis, as in Gen. xxxi. 42, xliii. 10, and other passages, and the apodosis itself is to be taken as a question.
Vers. 31-46. Result of the battle, and consequences of SauFs rashness. — Ver. 31. " On that day they smote the Philistines from Michmash to Ajalon" which has been preserved in the village of Ydlo (see at Josh. xix. 42), and was about three geographical miles to the south-west of Michmash; u and the people were very faint" because Saul had forbidden them to eat before the evening (ver. 24). — Ver. 32. They therefore " fell voraciously upon the booty" — (the Chethibh WW is no doubt merely an error in writing for BJW, imperf. Kal of B\P with Dagesh forte implic. instead of BJW, as we may see from ch. xv. 19, since the meaning required by the context, viz. to fall upon a thing, cannot be established in the case of i"OT with PN. On the other hand, there does not appear to be any necessity to supply the article before 7X?i anc^ 'ms Keri seems only to have been taken from the parallel passage in ch. xv. 19), — " and took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground (n¥"!*?, lit. to the earth, so that when they were slaughtered the animal fell upon the ground, and remained lying in its blood, and was cut in pieces), and ate upon the blood'1'' (WH?V, with which D"1}??X, " lying to the blood" is interchanged in ver. 34), i.e. the flesh along with the blood which adhered to it, by doing which they sinned against the law in Lev. xix. 26. This sin had been occasioned by Saul himself through the prohibition which he issued. — Vers. 33, 34. When this was told to Saul, he said, " Ye act faithlessly towards Jehovah" by transgressing the laws of the covenant; " roll me now (lit. this day) a large stone. Scatter yourselves among the people, and say to them, Let every one bring his ox and his sheep to me, and slay here " (upon the stone that has been rolled up), viz. so that the blood could run off properly upon the ground, and the flesh be separated from the blood. This the people also did. — Ver. 35. As a thanksgiving for this victory, Saul built an altar to the Lord. frfeC ni327?nn? " he began to build it," i.e. he built this altar at the beginning, or as the first altar. This altar was probably not intended to serve as a place of sacrifice, but simply to be a memorial of the presence of God, or the revelation of God which Saul had received in the marvellous victory. — Ver. 36. After the people had strengthened themselves in the evening with food, Saul wanted to pursue the Philistines still farther during the night, and to plunder among them until the light (i.e. till break of day), and utterly destroy them. The people assented to this proposal, but the priest (Ahiah) wished first of all to obtain the decision of God upon the matter. u We will draw near to God here" (before the altar which has just been built). — Ver. 37. But when Saul inquired of God (through the Urim and Thummim of the high priest), "Shall I go down after the Philistines? wilt Thou deliver them into the hand of Israel t" God did not answer him. Saul was to perceive from this, that the guilt of some sin was resting upon the people, on account of which the Lord had turned away His countenance, and was withdrawing His help. — Vers. 38, 39. When Saul perceived this, he directed all the heads of the people (pinnoth, as in Judg. xx. 2) to draw near to learn whereby (wherein) the sin had occurred that day, and declared, " As truly as Jehovah liveth, icho has brought salvation to Israel, even if it were upon Jonathan my son, he shall die." The first *2 in ver. 39 is explanatory; the second and third serve to introduce the words, like on, quod; and the repetition serves to give emphasis, lit. " that even if it were upon my son, that he shall die" " And of all the people no one answered him" from terror at the king's word. — Ver. 40. In order to find out the guilt, or rather the culprit, Saul proceeded to the lot; and for this purpose he made all the people stand on one side, whilst he and his son Jonathan went to the other, and then solemnly addressed Jehovah thus: u God of Israel, give innocence (of mind, i.e. truth). And the lot fell upon Said and Jonathan (",?p1, as in ch. x. 20, 21); and the people went out," sc. without the lot falling upon them, i.e. they went out free. — Ver. 42. When they proceeded still further to cast lots between Saul and his son (v^sn, sc.?"ji3; cf. 1 Chron. xxvi. 14, Neh. xi. 11, etc.), Jonathan was taken.1 — Vers. 43,
1 In the Alex, version, vers. 41 and 42 are lengthened out with long paraphrases upon the course pursued in casting the lots: xxl elVg 2«ot/A, Kvpie 6 6t6g \aoxvfh rt, on ovx x7rsxpidyig ru <5ovA<y aov ay/xepou; ti tv tftol q tu '\avx6xv tw via pov q xbtxia,; xvptt 6 6i6$ 'lapoc'/j'A Bo? BjjAoyf xxl zxv raos i'ikyi, lioc hvj Tto "Kxa aov ' lapxfa, "hog Zyj oaiorvirx, xxl xXvipovrxi \ovx6xv xxl 2aovA, xxl 6 T^xogi'&fhQi. Ver. 42: Kxl urn Ixov'h, BotAAgrs xvx pkaov zpov xxl clvx pLiaov ' lavxdxv rov visv (aov' 6u xv xxTXx~hYipaariTXi Kvpiog xir o$ xvkr to. Kxl tlmi/ 6 "hxog Trpog 2oso£>A, Ovx 'tan to py/ax rovro. Kxl xxnxpxrws 2«oi)A rov "Axov, xxl fixKKovaiv xux f/.iaoi> xvrov xxl xux f^kacu \uuxdxv rov viov xvrov, xxl xxTxx~hv\povTxi ' lowxQxv. One portion of these additions is also found in the text of our present Vulgate, and reads as follows: Et dixit Saul ad Dominum Deum Israel: Domine Deus Israel, da indicium! quid est quod non responderis servo tuo Jiodie? Si in me aut in Jonatha Jilio meo est iniquitas, da ostensionem; aut si Itxc iniquitas est in populo tuo, da sanctitatem. Et deprehensus est Jonathas et Saul, populus autem exivit. The beginning and end of this verse, as well as ver. 42, agree here most accurately with the Hebrew text. But the words from quid est quod to da sanctitatem are interpolated, so that D^Dfl ran are translated twice;
44. When Saul asked him what he had done, Jonathan confessed that he had tasted a little honey (see ver. 27), and resigned himself to the punishment suspended over him, saying, "Behold, I shall die;" and Saul pronounced sentence of death upon him, accompanying it with an oath (" God do so," etc.: vid. Ruth i. 17). — Ver. 45. But the people interposed, " Shall Jonathan die, who has achieved this great salvation (victory) in Israel? God forbid! As truly as Jehovah liveth, not a hair shall fall from his head upon the ground; for he hath wrought (the victory) with God to-day." Thus the people delivered Jonathan from death. The objection raised by the people was so conclusive, that Saul was obliged to yield.
What Jonathan had done was not wrong in itself, but became so simply on account of the oath with which Saul had first in the words da indicium, and then in the interpolation da ostensionem. This repetition of the same words, and that in different renderings, when taken in connection with the agreement of the Vulgate with the Hebrew text at the beginning and end of the verse, shows clearly enough, that the interpolated clauses did not originate with Jerome, but are simply inserted in his translation from the Itala. The additions of the LXX., in which rxfa uKy is evidently only a distortion of vj oLqikicc, are regarded by Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 48) and Thenius as an original portion of the text which has dropped out from the Masoretic text. They therefore infer, that instead of D^ftfl we ought to read D^n (Thummim), and that we have here the full formula used in connection with the use of the Urim and Thummim, from which it may be seen, that this mode of divine revelation consisted simply in a sacred lot, or in the use of two dice, the one of which was fixed upon at the outset as meaning no, and the other as meaning yes. So much at any rate is indisputable, that the Septuagint translator took D^DD in the sense of thummim, and so assumed that Saul had the guilty person discovered by resorting to the Urim and Thummim. But this assumption is also decidedly erroneous, together with all the Inferences based upon it. For, in the first place, the verbs 7»Bn and iy}i can be proved to be never used throughout the whole of the Old Testament to signify the use of the Urim and Thummim, and to be nothing more than technical expressions used to denote the casting of a simple lot (see the passages cited above in the text). Moreover, such passages as ch. x. 22, and ii. 5, 23, show most unmistakeably that the divine oracle of the Urim and Thummim did not consist merely in a sacred lot with yes and no, but that God gave such answers through it as could never have been given through the lots. The Septuagint expansions of the text are nothing more, therefore, than a subjective and really erroneous interpretation on the part of the translators, which arose simply from the mistaken idea that D^DH was thummim, and which is therefore utterly worthless.
forbidden it. But Jonathan did not hear the oath, and therefore had not even consciously transgressed. Nevertheless a curse lay upon Israel, which was to be brought to light as a warning for the culprit. Therefore Jehovah had given no reply to Saul. But when the lot, which had the force of a divine verdict, fell upon Jonathan, sentence of death was not thereby pronounced upon him by God; but it was simply made manifest, that through his transgression of his father's oath, with which he was not acquainted, guilt had been brought upon Israel. The breach of a command issued with a solemn oath, even when it took place unconsciously, excited the wrath of God, as being a profanation of the divine name. But such a sin could only rest as guilt upon the man who had committed, or the man who occasioned it. Now where the command in question was one of God himself, there could be no question, that even in the case of unconscious transgression the sin fell upon the transgressor, and it was necessary that it should either be expiated by him or forgiven him. But where the command of a man had been unconsciously transgressed, the guilt might also fall upon the man who issued the command, that is to say, if he did it without being authorized or empowered by God. In the present instance, Saul had issued the prohibition without divine authority, and had made it obligatory upon the people by a solemn oath. The people had conscientiously obeyed the command, but Jonathan had transgressed it without being aware of it. For this Saul was about to punish him with death, in order to keep his oath. But the people opposed it. They not only pronounced Jonathan innocent, because he had broken the king's command unconsciously, but they also exclaimed that he had gained the victory for Israel u with God." In this fact (Jonathan's victory) there was a divine verdict. And Saul could not fail to recognise now, that it was not Jonathan, but he himself, who had sinned, and through his arbitrary and despotic command had brought guilt upon Israel, on account of which God had given him no reply. — Ver. 46. With the feeling of this guilt, Saul gave up any further pursuit of the Philistines: he "went up" (sc. to Gibeah) "from behind the Philistines" i.e. desisting from any further pursuit. But the Philistines went to their place, i.e. back into their own land.
Vers. 47-52. General Summary of Saul's other Wars, and Account of his Family. — Ver. 47. " But Saul had taken the sovereignty" As Saul had first of all secured a recognition of himself as king on the part of all thc-tribes of Israel, through his victory over the Ammonites at Jabesh (ch. xi. 12 sqq.), so it was through the victory which he had gained over the Philistines, and by which these obstinate foes of Israel were driven back into their own land, that he first acquired the kingship over Israel, i.e. first really secured the regal authority over the Israelites. This is the meaning of rDl7E>n TO; and this statement is not at variance either with the election of Saul by lot (ch. x. 17 sqq.), or with his confirmation at Gilgal (ch. xi. 14, 15). But as Saul had to fight for the sovereignty, and could only secure it by successful warfare, his other wars are placed in the foreground in the summary account of his reign which follows (vers. 47, 48), whilst the notices concerning his family, which stand at the very beginning in the case of the other kings, are not mentioned till afterwards (vers. 49-51). Saul fought successfully against all the enemies of Israel round about; against Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, the kings of Zobah, a district of Syria on this side the Euphrates (see at 2 Sam. viii. 3), and against the Philistines. The war against the Ammonites is described in ch. xi.; but with the Philistines Saul had to wage repeated war all the days of his life (ver. 52). The other wars are none of them more fully described, simply because they were of no importance to the history of the kingdom of God, having neither furnished occasion for any miraculous displays of divine omnipotence, nor brought about the subjection of hostile nations to the power of Israel. " Whithersoever he turned, he inflicted punishment." This is the rendering which Luther has very aptly given to WW"}); for V^nn signifies to declare wrong, hence to condemn, more especially as applied to judges: here it denotes sentence or condemnation by deeds. Saul chastised these nations for their attacks upon Israel. — Ver. 48. " And he acquired power "?*n nvy (as in Num. xxiv. 18) does not merely signify he proved himself brave, or he formed an army, but denotes the development and unfolding of power in various respects. Here it relates more particularly to the development of strength in the war against Amalek, by virtue of which Saul smote this arch-enemy of Israel, and put an end to their depredations. This war is described more fully in ch. xv., on account of its consequences in relation to Saul's own sovereignty.— Vers. 49-51. SauVs family. — Yer. 49. Only three of his sons are mentioned, namely those who fell with him, according to ch. xxxi. 2, in the war with the Philistines. Jisvi is only another name for Abinadab (ch. xxxi. 2; 1 Chron. viii. 33, ix. 39). In these passages in the Chronicles there is a fourth mentioned, Esh-baal, i.e. the one w»ho is called Ish-bosheth in 2 Sam. ii. 8, etc., and who was set up by Abner as the antagonist of David. The reason why he is not mentioned here it is impossible to determine. It may be that the name has fallen out simply through some mistake in copying: the daughters Michal and Merab are mentioned, with special reference to the occurrence described in ch. xviii. 17 sqq. — Vers. 50, 51. Abner the general was also Saul's cousin. For " son of Abiel" {ben Abiel) we must read "sons of Abiel" (bne Abiel: see ch. ix. 1). — Yer. 52. The statement, " and the war was hard (severe) against the Philistines as long as Saul lived" merely serves to explain the notice which follows, namely, that Saul took or drew to himself every strong man and every brave man that he saw. If we observe this, which is the true relation between the two clauses in this verse, the appearance of abruptness which we find in the first notice completely vanishes, and the verse follows very suitably upon the allusion to the general. The meaning might be expressed in this manner: And as Saul had to carry on a severe war against the Philistines his whole life long, he drew to himself every powerful man and every brave man that he met with.
As Saul had transgressed the commandment of God which was given to him through Samuel, by the sacrifice which he offered at Gilgal in the war with the Philistines at the very commencement of his reign, and had thereby drawn upon himself the threat that his monarchy should not be continued in perpetuity (ch. xiii. 13, 14); so his disobedience in the war against the Amalekites was followed by his rejection on the part of God. The Amalekites were the first heathen nation to attack the Israelites after their deliverance out of Egypt, which they did in the most treacherous manner on their journey from Egypt to Sinai; and they had been threatened by God with extermination in consequence. This Moses enjoined upon Joshua, and also committed to writing, for the Israelites to observe in all future generations (Ex. xvii. 8-16). As the Amalekites afterwards manifested the same hostility to the people of God which they had displayed in this first attack, on every occasion which appeared favourable to their ravages, the Lord instructed Samuel to issue the command to Saul, to wage war against Amalek, and to smite man and beast with the ban, i.e. to put all to death (vers. 1-3). But when Saul had smitten them, he not only left Agag the king alive, but spared the best of the cattle that he had taken as booty, and merely executed the ban upon such animals as were worthless (vers. 4-9). He was rejected by the Lord for this disobedience, so that he was to be no longer king over Israel. His rejection was announced to him by Samuel (vers. 10-23), and was not retracted in spite of his prayer for the forgiveness of his sin (vers. 24-35). In fact, Saul had no excuse for this breach of the divine command; it was nothing but open rebellion against the sovereignty of God in Israel; and if Jehovah would continue King of Israel, He must punish it by the rejection of the rebel. For Saul no longer desired to be the medium of the sovereignty of Jehovah, or the executor of the commands of the God-king, but simply wanted to reign according to his own arbitrary will. Nevertheless this rejection was not followed by his outward deposition. The Lord merely took away His Spirit, had David anointed king by Samuel, and thenceforward so directed the steps of Saul and David, that as time advanced the hearts of the people were turned away more and more from Saul to David; and on the death of Saul, the attempt of the ambitious Abner to raise his son Ishbosheth to the throne could not possibly have any lasting success.
Vers. 1-3. The aecount of the war against the Amalekites is a very condensed one, and is restricted to a description of the conduct of Saul on that occasion. Without mentioning either the time or the immediate occasion of the war, the narrative commences with the command of God which Samuel solemnly communicated to Saul, to go and exterminate that people.
Samuel commenced with the words, " Jehovah sent me to anoint thee to be king over His people, over Israel" in order to show to Saul the obligation which rested upon him to receive his commission as coming from God, and to proceed at once to fulfil it. The allusion to the anointing points back not to ch. xi. 15, but to ch. x. 1. — Ver. 2. " Thus saith the Lord of Zebaoth, I have looked iipon ichat Amalek did to Israel, that it placed itself in his way when he came up out of Egypt'''' (Ex. xvii. 8). Samuel merely mentions this first outbreak of hostility on the part of Amalek towards the people of Israel, because in this the same disposition was already manifested which now made the people ripe for the judgment of extermination (vid. Ex. xvii. 14). The hostility which they had now displayed, according to ver. 33, there was no necessity for the prophet to mention particularly, since it was well known to Saul and all Israel. When God looks upon a sin, directs His glance towards it, He must punish it according to His own holiness. This Wj?3 points at the very outset to the punishment about to be proclaimed. — Ver. 3. Saul is to smite and ban everything belonging to it without reserve, i.e. to put to death both man and beast. The last clause 'U1 nriDHl is only an explanation and exemplification of 'W DflDinrn. " From man to woman," etc., i.e. men and women, children and sucklings, etc.
Vers. 4-9. Saul summoned the people to war, and mustered them (those who were summoned) at Telaim (this was probably the same place as the Telern mentioned in Josh. xv. 24, and is to be looked for in the eastern portion of the Negeb). " Two hundred thousand foot, and ten thousand of the men of Judah;" this implies that the two hundred thousand were from the other tribes. These numbers are not too large; for a powerful Bedouin nation, such as the Amalekites were, could not possibly be successfully attacked with a small army, but only by raising the whole of the military force of Israel. — Ver. 5. He then advanced as far as the city of the Amalekites, the situation of which is altogether unknown, and placed an ambush in the valley, yw does not come from S'H, to fight, i.e. to quarrel, not to give battle, but was understood even by the early translators as a contracted form of 3HH5L, the Iliphil of 3"]N. And modern commentators have generally understood it in the same way; but Olshausen (Hebr. Gramm. p. 572) questions the correctness of the reading, and Thenius proposes to alter 7*183 3fJJ into JTDTPtp TplW.?nj refers to a valley in the neighbourhood of the citv of the Amalekites. — Ver. 6. Saul directed the Kenites to come out from among the Amalekites, that they might not perish with them (1QpK, imp. Kal of *1PN), as they had shown affection to the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt (compare Num. x. 29 with Judg. i. 16). He then smote the Amalekites from Havilah in the direction towards Shur, which lay before (to the east of) Eg}rpt (cf. Gen. xxv. 18). Shur is the desert of Jifar, i.e. that portion of the desert of Arabia which borders upon Egypt (see at Gen. xvi. 7). Havilah, the country of the Chaulotaans, on the border of Arabia Petrsea towards Yemen (see at Gen. x. 29). — Vers. 8, 9. Their king, Agag, he took alive (on the name, see at Num. xxiv. 7), but all the people he banned with the edge of the sword, i.e. he had them put to death without quarter. "All" i.e. all that fell into the hands of the Israelites. For it follows from the very nature of the case that many escaped, and consequently there is nothing striking in the fact that Amalekites are mentioned again at a later period (ch. xxvii. 8, xxx. 1; 2 Sam. viii. 12). The last remnant was destroyed by the Simeonites upon the mountains of Seir in the reign of Hezekiah (1 Chron. iv. 43). Only, king Agag did Saul and the people (of Israel) spare, also u the best of the sheep and oxen, and the animals of the second birth, and the lambs and everything good; these they would not ban" B^P, according to D. Kimchi and R. Tanch., are pi1? D"JP, i.e. animalia secundo partu edita, which were considered superior to the others (vid. Roediger in Ges. Thes. p. 1451); and D^S, pasture lambs, i.e. fat lambs. There is no necessity, therefore,, for the conjecture of Ewald and Thenius, D^Dtrp, fattened, and D^S, vineyards; nor for the far-fetched explanation given by Bochart, viz. camels with two humps and camel-saddles, to say nothing of the fact that camel-saddles and vineyards are altogether out of place here. In " all that was good" the things already mentioned singly are all included. i"DN?pn, the property; here it is applied to cattle, as in Gen. xxxiii. 14. nppimriT^, despised, undervalued. The form of the word is not contracted from a noun nnrp and the participle npJ (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 463), but seems to be a participle Niph. formed from a noun TOD. But as such a form is contrary to all analogy, Ewald and Olshausen regard the reading as corrupt. D!p3 (from DpD): flowing away; used with reference to diseased cattle, or such as have perished. The reason for sparing the best cattle is very apparent, namely selfishness. But it is not so easy to determine why Agag should have been spared by Saul. It is by no means probable that he wished thereby to do honour to the royal dignity. O. v. Gerlach's supposition, that vanity or the desire to make a display with a royal slave was the actual reason, is a much more probable one.
Vers. 10-23. The word of the Lord came to Samuel: " It repenteth me that I have made Saul king, for he hath turned away from me, and not set up (carried out) my word." (On the repentance of God, see the remarks on Gen. vi. 6.) That this does not express any changeableness in the divine nature, but simply the sorrow of the divine love at the rebellion of sinners, is evident enough from ver. 29. '" *?n*?? ^^, to turn round from following God, in order to go his own ways. This wTas Saul's real sin. He would no longer be the follower and servant of the Lord, but would be absolute ruler in Israel. Pride arising from the consciousness of his own strength, led him astray to break the command of God. What more God said to Samuel is not communicated here, because it could easily be gathered and supplied from what Samuel himself proceeded to do (see more particularly vers. 16 sqq.). In order to avoid repetitions, only the principal feature in the divine revelation is mentioned here, and the details are given fully afterwards in the account of the fulfilment of the instructions. Samuel was deeply agitated by this word of the Lord. " It burned (in) him" sc. wrath (*|$, compare Gen. xxxi. 36 with xxx. 2), not on account of the repentance to which God had given utterance at having raised up Saul as king, nor merely at Saul's disobedience, but at the frustration of the purpose of God in calling him to be king in consequence of his disobedience, from which he might justly dread the worst results in relation to the glory of Jehovah and his own prophetic labours.1 The opinion
1 " Many grave thoughts seem to have presented themselves at once to Samuel and disturbed his mind, when he reflected upon the dishonour which might be heaped upon the name of God, and the occasion which the rejection and deposition of Saul would furnish to wicked men for blaspheming God. For Saul had been anointed by the ministry of Samuel, and he
that • W is also used to signify deep distress cannot be established from 2 Sam. iv. 8. u And lie cried to Jehovah the whole night" sc. praying for Saul to be forgiven. But it was in vain. This is evident from what follows, where Samuel maintains the cause of his God with strength and decision, after having wrestled with God in prayer. — Ver. 12. The next morning, after receiving the revelation from God (ver. 11), Samuel rose up early, to go and meet Saul as he was returning from the war. On the way it was told him, " Saul has come to Carmel" — i.e. Kurmul, upon the mountains of Judah to the south-east of Hebron (see at Josh. xv. 55) — " setting himself a memorial" (T, a hand, then a memorial or monument, inasmuch as the hand calls attention to anything: see 2 Sam. xviii. 18), u and has turned and proceeded farther, and gone down to GilgaV (in the valley of the Jordan, as in ch. xiii. 4). — Ver. 13. When Samuel met him there, Saul attempted to hide his consciousness of guilt by a feigned friendly welcome. " Blessed be thou of the Lord" (vid. Ruth ii. 20, Gen. xiv. 19, etc=) was his greeting to the prophet; " / have set up the word of Jehovah." — Vers. 14, 15. But the prophet stripped his hypocrisy at once with the question. " What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and a lowing of oxen that I hear?" Saul replied (ver. 15), " They have brought them from the AmaleJcites, because the 'people spared the best sheep and oxen, to sacrifice them to the J^ord thy God; and the rest we have banned." So that it was not Saul, but the people, who had transgressed the command of the Lord, and that with the most laudable intention, viz. to offer the best of the cattle that had been taken, as a thank-offering to the Lord. The falsehood and hypocrisy of these words lay upon the very surface; for even if the cattle spared were really intended as sacrifices to the Lord, not only the people, but Saul also, would have had their own interests in view (vid. ver. 9), since the flesh of thankofferings was appropriated to sacrificial meals. — Vers. 16 sqq.
bad been chosen by God himself from all the people, and called by Ilim to the throne. If, therefore, he was nevertheless deposed, it seemed likely that so much would be detracted from the authority of Samuel and the confidence of the people in his teaching, and, moreover, that the worship of God wcul. 1 be overturned, and the greatest disturbance ensue; in fact, that universal confusion would burst upon the nation. These were probably the grounds up >ii which Samuel's great indignation rested." — Calvin.
Samuel therefore bade him be silent, syjn, " leave off," excusing thyself any further. " I will tell thee what Jehovah hath said to me this night" (The Chethibh niDfcfa is evidently a copyist's error for 10NS1.) " Is it not true, when thou wast little in thine eyes (a reference to Saul's own words, ch. ix. 21), thou didst become head of the tribes of Israel? and Jehovah anointed thee king over Israel, and Jehovah sent thee on the way, and said, Go and ban the sinners, the Amalekites, and make war against them, until thou exterminatest them. And wherefore hast thou not hearkened, to the voice of Jehovah, and hast fallen upon the booty," etc. 1 (PR?, see at ch. xiv. 32.)
Even after this Saul wanted to justify himself, and to throw the blame of sparing the cattle upon the people. — Ver. 20. " Yea, I have hearkened to the voice of Jehovah p&?V? serving, like *3, to introduce the reply: here it is used in the sense of asseveration, utique, yea), and have brought Agag the king of the Amalekites. and banned Amalek." Brinmn^r A^a£ he mentioned probably as a practical proof that he had carried out the war of extermination against the Amalekites. — Ver. 21. Even the sparing of the cattle he endeavoured to defend as the fulfilment of a religious duty. The people had taken sheep and oxen from the booty, " as firstlings of the ban," to sacrifice to Jehovah. Sacrificing the best of the booty taken in war as an offering of first-fruits to the Lord, was not indeed prescribed in the law, but was a praiseworthy sign of piety, by which all honour was rendered to the Lord as the giver of the victory (see Num. xxxi. 48 sqq.). This, Saul meant to say, was what the people had done on the present occasion; only he overlooked the fact, that what was banned to the Lord could not be offered to Him as a burnt-offering, because, being most holy, it belonged to Him already (Lev. xxvii. 29), and according to Deut. xiii. 16, was to be put to death, as Samuel had expressly said to Saul (ver. 3). — Vers. 22, 23. Without entering, therefore, into any discussion of the meaning of the ban, as Saul only wanted to cover over his own wrong-doings by giving this turn to the affair, Samuel put a stop to any further excuses, by saying, " Hath Jehovah delight in burnt-offerings and slain- offerings as in hearkening to the voice of Jehovah? (i.e. in obedience to His word.) Behold, hearing (obeying) is better than s Iain-offerings, attending better than fat of rams." By saying this, Samuel did not reject sacrifices as worthless; he did not say that God took no pleasure in burnt-offerings and slain-offerings, but simply compared sacrifice with obedience to the command of God, and pronounced the latter of greater worth than the former. " It was as much as to say that the sum and substance of divine worship consisted in obedience, with which it should always begin, and that sacrifices were, so to speak, simple appendices, the force and worth of which were not so great as of obedience to the precepts of God" (Calvin). But it necessarily follows that sacrifices without obedience to the commandments of God are utterly worthless; in fact, are displeasing to God, as Ps. 1. 8 sqq., Isa. i. 11 sqq., Ixvi. 3, Jer. vi. 20, and all the prophets, distinctly affirm. There was no necessity, however, to carry out this truth any further. To tear off the cloak of hypocrisy, with which Saul hoped to cover his disobedience, it was quite enough to affirm that God's first demand was obedience, and that observing His word was better than sacrifice; because, as the Berleb. Bible puts it, " in sacrifices a man offers only the strange flesh of irrational animals, whereas in obedience he offers his own will, which is rational or spiritual worship " (Rom. xii. 8). This spiritual worship was shadowed forth in the sacrificial worship of the Old Testament. In the sacrificial animal the Israelite was to give up and sanctify his own person and life to the Lord. (For an examination of the meaning of the different sacrifices, see Pent. vol. ii. pp. 274 sqq., and Keil's Bibl. Archdol. i. § 41 sqq.) But if this were the design of the sacrifices, it was clear enough that God did not desire the animal sacrifice in itself, but first and chieflv obedience to His own word. In ver. 22, 2iD is not to be connected as an adjective with rat, " more than good sacrifice," as the Sept. and Thenius render it; it is rather to be taken as a predicate, u better than slain-offerings" and rnttD is placed first simply for the sake of emphasis. Any contrast between good and bad sacrifices, such as the former construction would introduce into the words, is not only foreign to the context, but also opposed to the parallelism. For Dy^ ~?0 does not mean fat rams, but the fat of rams; the fat portions taken from the ram, which were placed upon the altar in the case of the slain-offerings, and for which 3?n is the technical expression (compare Lev. iii. 9, 16, with vers. 4, 11, etc.). " For" continued Samuel (ver. 23), u rebellion is the sin of soothsaying, and opposition is heathenism and idolatry." ^ and iysn are the subjects, and synonymous in their meaning. Dpp riKttn? the sin of soothsaying, i.e. of divination in connection with the worship of idolatrous and demoniacal powers. In the second clause idols are mentioned instead of idolatry, and compared to resistance, but without any particle of comparison. Opposition is keeping idols and teraphim, i.e. it is like worshipping idols and teraphim. ft?, nothingness, then an idol or image (yid. Isa. lxvi. 3; Hos. iv. 15, x. 5, 8). On the teraphim as domestic and oracular deities, see at Gen. xxxi. 19. Opposition to God is compared by Samuel to soothsaying and oracles, because idolatry was manifested in both of them. All conscious disobedience is actually idolatry, because it makes self-will, the human I, into a god. So that all manifest opposition to the word and commandment of God is, like idolatry, a rejection of the true God. " Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He hath rejected thee, that thou mayst be no longer king." ^>p = T1?P nfalD (ver. 26), away from being king.
Vers. 24-35. This sentence made so powerful an impression upon Saul, that he confessed, " I have sinned: for I have transgressed the command of the Lord and thy words, because I feared the people, and hearkened to their voice." But these last words, with which he endeavoured to make his sin appear as small as possible, show that the consciousness of his guilt did not go very deep. Even if the people had really desired that the best of the cattle should be spared, he ought not as king to have given his consent to their wish, since God had commanded that they should all be banned {i.e. destroyed); and even though he had yielded from weakness, this weakness could not lessen his guilt before God. This repentance, therefore, was rather the effect of alarm at the rejection which had been announced to him, than the fruit of any genuine consciousness of sin. " It was not true and serious repentance, or the result of genuine sorrow of heart because he had offended God, but was merely repentance of the lips arising from fear of losing the kingdom, and of incurring public disgrace" (C. v. Lapide). This is apparent even from ver. 25, but still more from ver. 30. In ver. 25 he not only entreats Samuel for the forgiveness of his sin, but says, " Return with me, Uiat I may pray to the Lord."
The 2W presupposes that Samuel was about to go away after executing his commission. Saul entreated him to remain that he might pray, i.e. not only in order to obtain for him the forgiveness of his sin through his intercession, but, according to ver. 30, to show him honour before the elders of the people and before Israel, that his rejection might not be known. — Vers. 26, 27. This request Samuel refused, repeating at the same time the sentence of rejection, and turned to depart. " Then Saul laid hold of the lappet of his mantle (i.e. his upper garment), and it tore''' (lit. was torn off). That the Niphal JHjp is correct, and is not to be altered into HAN JHpJ, " Saul tore off the lappet," according to the rendering of the LXX., as Thenius supposes, is evident from the explanation which Samuel gave of the occurrence (ver. 28): " Jehovah hath torn the sovereignty of Israel from thee to-day, and given it to thy neighbour, who is better than thou.'7 As Saul was about to hold back the prophet by force, that he might obtain from him a revocation of the divine sentence, the tearing of the mantle, which took place accidentally, and evidently without any such intention on the part of Saul, was to serve as a sign of the rending away of the sovereignty from him. Samuel did not yet know to whom Jehovah would give it; he therefore used the expression *IJ£?, as JH is applied to any one with whom a person associates. To confirm his own words, he adds in ver. 29: " And also the Trust of Israel doth not lie and doth not repent, for He is not a man to repent" nvp signifies constancy, endurance, then confidence, trust, because a man can trust in what is constant. This meaning is to be retained here, where the word is used as a name for God, and not the meaning gloria, which is taken in 1 Chron. xxix. 11 from the Aramaean usage of speech, and would be altogether unsuitable here, where the context suggests the idea of unchangeableness. For a man's repentance or regret arises from his changeableness, from the fluctuations in his desires and actions. This is never the case with God; consequently He is?*pb^ nVP., the unchangeable One, in ichom Israel can trust, since He does not lie or deceive, or repent of His purposes. These words are spoken Oeoirpeirco^ (theomorphically), whereas in ver. 11 and other passages, which speak of God as repenting, the words are to be understood avOpwiro- 7ra6a)<; (anthropomorphically; cf. Num. xxiii. 19). — Vers. 30,
31. After this declaration as to the irrevocable character of the determination of God to reject Saul, Samuel yielded to the renewed entreaty of Saul, that he would honour him by his presence before the elders and the people, and remained whilst Saul worshipped, not merely " for the purpose of preserving the outward order until a new king should take his place" (O. v. Gerlach), but also to carry out the ban upon Agag, whom Saul had spared. — Ver. 32. After Saul had prayed, Samuel directed him to bring Agag the king of the Amalekites. Agag came ^3"]^ i.e. in a contented and joyous state of mind, and said (in his heart), " Surely the bitterness of death is vanished" not from any special pleasure at the thought of death, or from a heroic contempt of death, but because he thought that his life was to be granted him, as he had not been put to death at once, and was now about to be presented to the prophet (Clericus). — Yer. 33. But Samuel pronounced the sentence of death upon him: " As thy sword hath made women childless, so be thy mother childless before women! " D^3D is to be understood as a comparative: more childless than (other) women, i.e. the most childless of women, namely, because her son was the king. From these words of Samuel, it is very evident that Agag had carried on his wars with great cruelty, and had therefore forfeited his life according to the lex talionis. Samuel then hewed him in pieces " before the Lord at Gilgal" i.e. before the altar of Jehovah there; for the slaying of Agag being the execution of the ban, was an act performed for the glory of God. — Vers. 34, 35. After the prophet had thus maintained the rights of Jehovah in the presence of Saul, and carried out the ban upon Agag, he returned to his own home at Kamah; and Saul went to his house at Gibeah. From that time forward Samuel broke off all intercourse with the king whom Jehovah had rejected. " For Samuel was grieved for Saul, and it repented the Lord that he had made Saul king" i.e. because Samuel had loved Saul on account of his previous election; and yet, as Jehovah had rejected him unconditionally, he felt that he was precluded from doing anything to effect a change of heart in Saul, and his reinstatement as kinir.
Although the rejection of Saul on the part of God, which was announced to him by Samuel, was not followed by immediate deposition, but Saul remained king until his death, the consequences of his rejection were very speedily brought to light. Whilst Samuel, by the command of God, was secretly anointing David, the youngest son of Jesse, at Bethlehem, as king (ch. xvi. 1-13), the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul, and an evil spirit began to terrify him, so that he fell into melancholy; and his servants fetched David to the court, a? a man who could play on stringed instruments, that he might charm away the king's melancholy by his playing (ch. xvi. 14-23). Another war with the Philistines soon furnished David with the opportunity for displaying his heroic courage, by the defeat of the giant Goliath, before whom the whole army of the Israelites trembled; and to attract the eyes of the whole nation to himself, as the deliverer of Israel from its foes (ch. xvii. 1-54), in consequence of which Saul placed him above the men of war, whilst Saul's brave son Jonathan formed a bond of friendship with him (ch. xvii. 55-xviii. 5). But this victory, in commemorating which the women sang, " Saul hath slain a thousand, David ten thousand" (ch. xviii. 7), excited the jealousy of the melancholy king, so that the next day, in an attack of madness, he threw his spear at David, who was playing before him, and after that not only removed him from his presence, but by elevating him to the rank of chief captain, and by the promise to give him his daughter in marriage for the performance of brave deeds, endeavoured to entangle him in such conflicts with the Philistines as should cost him his life. And when this failed, and David prospered in all his undertakings, he began to be afraid of him, and cherished a lifelong hatred towards him (ch. xviii. 6-30). Jonathan did indeed try to intercede and allay his father's suspicions, and effect a reconciliation between Saul and David; but the evil spirit soon drove the jealous king to a fresh attack upon David's life, so that he was obliged to flee not only from the presence of Saul, but from his own house also, and went to Ram ah, to the prophet Samuel, whither, however, Saul soon followed him, though he was so overpowered by the Spirit of the prophets, that he could not do anything to David (ch. xix.). Another attempt on the part of.Jonathan to change his father's mind entirely failed, and so excited the wrath of Saul, that he actually threw the spear at his own son; so that no other course now remained for David, than to separate himself from his noble friend Jonathan, and seek safety in flight (ch. xx.). He therefore fled with his attendant first of all to Nob, where Ahimelech the high priest gave him some of the holy loaves and the sword of Goliath, on his representing to him that he was travelling hastily in the affairs of the king. He then proceeded to Achish, the king of the Philistines, at Gath; but having: been reco^- nised as the conqueror of Goliath, he was obliged to feign madness in order to save his life; and being driven away by Achish as a madman, he went to the cave of Adullam, and thence into the land of Moab. But he was summoned by the prophet to return to his own land, and went into the wood Hareth, in the land of Judah; whilst Saul, who had been informed by the Edomite Doeg of the occurrence at Nob, ordered all the priests who wrere there to be put to death, and the town itself to be ruthlessly destroyed, with all the men and beasts that it contained. Only one of Ahimelech's sons escaped the massacre, viz. Abiathar; and he took refuge with David (ch. xxi. xxii.). Saul now commenced a regular pursuit of David, who had gradually collected around him a company of 600 men. On receiving intelligence that David had smitten a marauding company of Philistines at Keilab, Saul followed him, with the hope of catching him in this fortified town; and when this plan failed, on account of the flight of David into the wilderness of Ziph, because the high priest had informed him of the intention of the inhabitants to deliver him up, Saul pursued him thither, and had actually surrounded David with his warriors, when a messenger arrived with the intelligence of an invasion of the land by the Philistines, and he wras suddenly called away to make war upon these foes (ch. xxiii.). But he had no sooner returned from the attack upon the Philistines, than he pursued David still farther into the wilderness of Engedi, where he entered into a large cave, behind which David and his men were concealed, so that he actually fell into David's hands, who might have put him to death. But from reverence for the anointed of the Lord, instead of doing him any harm, David merely cut off a corner of his coat, to show his pursuer, when he had left the cave, in what manner he had acted towards him, and to convince him of the injustice of his hostility. Saul was indeed moved to tears; but he was not disposed for all that to give up any further pursuit (ch. xxiv.). David was still obliged to wander about from place to place in the wilderness of Judah; and at length he was actually in want of the necessaries of life, so that on one occasion, when the rich Nabal had churlishly turned away the messengers who had been sent to him to ask for a present, he formed the resolution to take bloody revenge upon this hard-hearted fool, and was only restrained from carrying the resolution out by the timely and friendly intervention of the wise Abigail (ch. xxv.). Soon after this Saul came a second time into such a situation, that David could have killed him; but during the night, whilst Saul and all his people were sleeping, he slipped with Abishai into the camp of his enemy, and carried off as booty the spear that was at the king's head, that he might show him a second time how very far he was from seeking to take his life (ch. xxvi.). But all this only made David's situation an increasingly desperate one; so that eventually, in order to save his life, he resolved to fly into the country of the Philistines, and take refuge with Achish, the king of Gath, by whom he was now received in the most friendly manner, as a fugitive who had been proscribed by the king of Israel. At his request Achish assigned him the town of Ziklag as a dwelling-place for himself and his men, whence he made sundry excursions against different Bedouin tribes of the desert. In consequence of this, however, he was brought into a state of dependence upon this Philistian prince (ch. xxvii.); and shortly afterwards, when the Philistines made an attack upon the Israelites, he would have been perfectly unable to escape the necessity of fighting in their ranks against his own people and fatherland, if the other princes of the Philistines had not felt some mistrust of " these Hebrews," and compelled Achish to send David and his fighting men back to Ziklag (ch. xxix.). But this was also to put an end to his prolonged flight.
Saul's fear of the power of the Philistines, and the fact that he could not obtain any revelation from God, induced him to have recourse to a necromantist woman, and he was obliged to hear from the mouth of Samuel, whom she had invoked, not only the confirmation of his own rejection on the part of God, but also the announcement of his death (ch. xxviii.). In the battle which followed on the mountains of Gilboa, after his three sons had been put to death by his side, he fell upon his own sword, that he- might not fall alive into the hands of the archers of the enemy, who were hotly pursuing him (ch. xxxi.), whilst David in the meantime chastised the Amalekites for their attack upon Ziklag (ch. xxx.).
It is not stated anywhere how long the pursuit of David by Saul continued; the only notice given is that David dwelt a year and four months in the land of the Philistines (ch. xxvii. 7). If we compare with this the statement in 2 Sam. v. 4, that David was thirty years old when he became king (over Judah), the supposition that he was about twenty years old when Samuel anointed him, and therefore that the interval between Saul's rejection and his death was about ten years, will not be very far from the truth. The events which occurred during this interval are described in the most elaborate way, on the one hand because they show how Saul sank deeper and deeper, after the Spirit of God had left him on account of his rebellion against Jehovah, and not only was unable to procure any longer for the people that deliverance which they had expected from the king, but so weakened the power of the throne through the conflict which he carried on against David, whom the Lord had chosen ruler of the nation in his stead, that when he died the Philistines were able to inflict a total defeat upon the Israelites, and occupy a large portion of the land of Israel; and, on the other hand, because they teach how, after the Lord had anointed David ruler over His people, and had opened the way to the throne through the victory which he gained over Goliath, He humbled him by trouble and want, and trained him up as king after His own heart. On a closer examination of these occurrences, which we have only briefly hinted at, giving their main features merely, we see clearly how, from the very day when Samuel announced to Saul his rejection by God, he hardened himself more and more against the leadings of divine grace, and continued steadily ripening for the judgment of death. Immediately after this announcement an evil spirit took possession of his soul, so that he fell into trouble and melancholy; and when jealousy towards David was stirred up in his heart, he was seized with fits of raving madness, in which he tried to pierce David with a spear, and thus destroy the man whom he had come to love on account of his musical talent, which had exerted so beneficial an influence upon his mind (ch. xvi. 23, xviii. 10, 11, xix. 9, 10). These attacks of madness gradually gave place to hatred, which developed itself with full consciousness, and to a most deliberately planned hostility, which he concealed at first not only from David but also from all his own attendants, with the hope that he should be able to put an end to David's life through his stratagems, but which he afterwards proclaimed most openly as soon as these plans had failed. "When his hostility was first openly declared, his eagerness to seize upon his enemy carried him to such a length that he got into the company of prophets at Ramah, and was so completely overpowered by the Spirit of God dwelling there, that he lay before Samuel for a whole day in a state of prophetic ecstasy (ch. xix. 22 sqq.). But this irresistible power of the Spirit of God over him produced no change of heart. For immediately afterwards, when Jonathan began to intercede for David, Saul threw the spear at his own son (ch. xx. 33), and this time not in an attack of madness or insanity, but in full consciousness; for we do not read in this instance, as in ch. xviii. xix., that the evil spirit came upon him. He now proceeded to a consistent carrying out of his purpose of murder. He accused his courtiers of having conspired against him like Jonathan, and formed an alliance with David (ch. xxii. 6 sqq.), and caused the priests at Xob to be murdered in cold blood, and the whole town smitten with the edge of the sword, because Ahimelech had supplied David with bread; and this he did without paying any attention to the conclusive evidence of his innocence (ch. xxii. 11 sqq.). He then went with 3000 men in pursuit of David: and even after he had fallen twice into David's hands, and on both i sions had been magnanimously spared by him, he did not desist from plotting for his life until he had driven him out of the land; so that we may clearly see how each fresh proof of the righteousness of David's cause only increased his hatred, until at length, in the war against the Philistines, he rashly resorted to the godless arts of a necromancer which he himself had formerly prohibited, and eventually put an end to his own life by falling upon his sword.
Just as clearly may we discern in the guidance of David, from his anointing by Samuel to the death of Saul, how the Lord, as King of His people, trained him in the school of affliction to be His servant, and led him miraculously on to the goal of his divine calling. Having been lifted up as a young man by his anointing, and by the favour which he had acquired with Saul through his playing upon the harp, and still more by his victory over Goliath, far above the limited circumstances of his previous life, he might very easily have been puffed up in the consciousness of the spiritual gifts and powers conferred upon him, if God had not humbled his heart by want and tribulation. The first outbursts of jealousy on the part of Saul, and his first attempts to get rid of the favourite of the people, only furnished him with the opportunity to distinguish himself still more by brave deeds, and to make his name still dearer to the people (ch. xviii. 30). When, therefore, Saul's hostility was openly displayed, and neither Jonathan's friendship nor Samuel's prophetic authority could protect him any longer, he fled to the high priest Ahimelech, and from him to king Achish at Gath, and endeavoured to help himself through by resorting to falsehood. He did save himself in this way no doubt, but he brought destruction upon the priests at Nob. And he was very soon to learn how all that he did for his people was rewarded with ingratitude. The inhabitants of Keilah, whom he had rescued from their plunderers, wanted to deliver him up to Saul (ch. xxiii. 5, 12); and even the men of his own tribe, the Ziphites, betrayed him twice, so that he was no longer sure of his life even in his own land. But the more this necessarily shook his confidence in his own strength and wisdom, the more clearly did the Lord manifest himself as his faithful Shepherd. After Ahimelech had been put to death; his son Abiathar fled to David with the light and right of the high priest, so that he was now in a position to inquire the will and counsel of God in any difficulty into which he might be brought (ch. xxiii. 6). On two occasions God brought his mortal foe Saul into his hand, and David's conduct in botli these cases shows how the deliverance of God which he had hitherto experienced had strengthened his confidence in the Lord, and in the fulfilment of His promises (compare ch. xxiv. with ch. xxvi.). And his gracious preservation from carrying out his purposes of vengeance against Nabal (ch. xxv.) could not fail to strengthen him still more. Nevertheless, when his troubles threatened to continue without intermission, his courage began to sink and his faith to waver, so that he took refuge in the land of the Philistines, where, however, his wisdom and cunning brought him into a situation of such difficulty that nothing but the grace and fidelity of his God could possibly extricate him, and out of which he was delivered without any act of his own.
In this manner was the divine sentence of rejection fulfilled upon Saul, and the prospect which the anointing of David had set before him, of ascending the throne of Israel, carried out to completion. The account before us of the events which led to this result of the various complications, bears in all respects so thoroughly the stamp of internal truth and trustworthiness, that even modern critics are unanimous in acknowledging the genuine historical character of the biblical narrative upon the whole. At the same time, there are some things, such as the supposed irreconcilable discrepancy between ch. xvi. 14-23 and ch. xvii. 55-58, and certain repetitions, such as Saul's throwing the spear at David (ch. xviii. 10 and xix. 9, 10), the treachery of the Ziphites (ch. xxiii. 19 sqq. and xxvi. 1 sqq.), David's sparing Saul (ch. xxiv. 4 sqq. and xxvi. 5 sqq.), which they cannot explain in any other way than by the favourite hypothesis that we have here divergent accounts, or legendary traditions derived from two different sources that are here woven together; whereas, as we shall see when we come to the exposition of the chapters in question, not only do the discrepancies vanish on a more thorough and minute examination of the matter, but the repetitions are very clearly founded on facts.