Comments on 1 Samuel 14

     This chapter isn't supposed to be covered by the lesson, but
just a few quick comments.  This chapter contrasts Jonathan's
faithfulness with Sauls's foolishness and presents him as a
hapless victim, or near victim, of his father's rash behavior. 
     For example, in v. 8-10 we see Jonathan leaves it up to the
Philistines whether to do battle or not and attributes any
potential victory to God, whereas in 13:1-4 Saul instigates
contrary to the orders of Samuel.  And contrast the results of
the two incidents, in the first one the Israelites end up shaking
in their boots, but in this latter case with Jonathan the
Philistines end up shaking in their boots (v. 13-15).
     Then we have Saul's preposterous command that the armies of
Israel not eat anything until he obtain his revenge against the
Philistines (v. 24).  The armies end up so starved that once the
battle is over they eat meat without removing the blood first (v.
32-34), an act prohibited under the Law (cf. Gen. 9:1-7).  The
result is the Lord is angered and refuses to communicate with
Saul at all (v. 37).  But rather than admit he was wrong in
making such a foolish oath causing them to sin (and Saul has
conveniently forgotten the incident in 13:11-14 as well), he
instead blames it on someone who may have broken his oath (v.
38), never considering it possible that he is the one that has
sinned.  He makes it even worse by rashly making another oath
insisting that whoever broke his first oath shall die, and
thereby unwittingly imperiling Jonathan (v. 39-42).  Jonathan is
only spared by the intervention of the armies of Israel (v. 45,
contrast this with 11:13 which was only a week earlier), Saul
does not even admit his two oaths were stupid when his own son's
life is in danger.

     Another point to be made here is why do the Philistines all
of a sudden fear Israel after amassing such a large force and
making Israel run and hide?  I would guess what happened is when
Jonathan single handedly kills 20 Philistines they assume all of
Israel's warriors are like him and they get scared.  Also,
consider that Jonathan had metal arms and armor, which we know
from ch. 13 was atypical for Israelites.  But, if the Philistines
see Jonathan with metal arms and armor, then they may have just
assumed he was typical of the warriors of Israel so they wouldn't
have known that Israel was in fact poorly equipped for battle. 
Thus, they may have simply assumed that Jonathan was the standard
Israelite warrior and that if they are all like that, then the
Philistines are in serious trouble.  In any case, the Lord put
the fear in them somehow, and I would guess this is how.



Copyright © 2002 by S. Kurt Neumiller <kurtn@cybcon.com>.  All rights 
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