Jonathan Attacks the Philistines
v1 Saul was 30 years old when he became king. He was the king of Israel for 42 years. v2 Saul chose 3,000 men from Israel. 2,000 men stayed with him at Michmash. This place was in the mountains of Bethel. 1,000 men stayed with his son Jonathan. They stayed in the town of Gibeah. Gibeah was in the land that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. Saul sent the rest of the men home. v3 Some of the Philistine army camped at Geba. Jonathan attacked them. The rest of the Philistines heard about it. Saul said, "All the Israelites must hear about this." So Saul sent men out to every place in the land of Israel. They had to blow trumpets to call the men to war. v4 All the people in Israel heard the news. They heard that Saul had attacked the Philistines. They heard that the Philistines hated the Israelites now. So the people came to Saul at Gilgal.
Commentary
The Israelites came from 12 different tribes. They did not have an army. When people had attacked them in the past, all the men left their work. Then they went to fight. For example, this happened in chapter 11. Saul decided to train and pay a proper army. He chose the men that he wanted. He sent the rest of the men home. Jonathan was Saul’s oldest son (14:49).
Geba was about 4 miles north of Gibeah. Michmash was only 2 miles north of Geba. Small groups of Philistine soldiers camped in many places in the land of Israel. They watched the Israelites. Later the Philistines attacked the Israelites. But the Philistines could gather their main army quickly if the Israelites attacked them. Jonathan attacked the small camp of Philistines at Geba. The Philistines were angry. This started a major battle. The Israelites now needed more men to fight in this battle. A trumpet was an instrument that they blew into. In the Old Testament, the Israelites gathered when they heard the trumpet. This was how news traveled quickly around the country. This time the trumpet called people together for war. Saul was at Gilgal where the Israelites had made him king in 1 Samuel 11:14-15.
Saul Gives Burnt Offering to God
v5 The Philistines gathered to fight the Israelites. The Philistines had 3,000 chariots and 6,000 men who rode in the chariots. They had many thousands of soldiers. There were so many soldiers that no-one could count them. The Philistines camped at the town of Michmash which was east of Beth Aven. v6 The Israelites saw the Philistine army. The Israelites knew that they were in a difficult situation. Some of them went and hid in caves and bushes. They also hid among the rocks, in holes in the ground and in wells. v7 Some of the Israelites even crossed to the other side of the river Jordan. They went into the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul stayed at Gilgal. All the people with him were so afraid that they trembled. v8 Samuel had told Saul to wait for him. Saul waited for 7 days as Samuel had told him. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal. The men with Saul began to leave him. v9 So Saul said, "Bring the burnt offering and the friendship offerings to me." Saul offered the burnt offering to God. v10 Samuel arrived just as he finished. Saul went to greet Samuel.
v11 Samuel asked, "What have you done?" Saul replied, "The soldiers were leaving me. You said you would be here at a particular time. But you did not arrive at that time. The Philistines were gathering at Michmash. v12 I thought that they would come and attack me at Gilgal. But I had not asked God to help me. So I thought that I ought to offer the burnt offering."
v13 Samuel said, "You have behaved in a foolish way. You have not obeyed the command of the Lord your God. You should have obeyed the Lord. Then the Lord would have let you and your family rule over the Israelites forever. v14 But this will not happen because you did not obey the Lord. Instead, the Lord will find the kind of man that he wants. The Lord will make this man the ruler of his people, the Israelites."
Saul and his army left Michmash and went to Gilgal. So the main Philistine army came to Michmash. The Philistines had many chariots. The Philistine army was so large that no one could count all the soldiers. The Israelite soldiers saw this and became very frightened. Some of them hid. Some ran more than 15 miles to the river Jordan. They did not want the Philistines to kill them. In 1 Samuel 10:8, Samuel had told Saul to go to Gilgal and wait for him. Samuel said, "I will certainly come down to you there and give burnt sacrifices and friendship offerings. You must wait for 7 days. Then I will come and tell you what to do."
Before a battle, the priest gave sacrifices to God and prayed. He listened to God. And he told the people what God had said. God told them how to fight. He told them how to win the battle. The Israelites trusted God to help them. Saul waited for 7 days but Samuel did not arrive. Perhaps Samuel was testing Saul to see if Saul would trust God. Saul became frightened. He could have asked God to help. Only the priest should offer the burnt offering. Saul saw that his soldiers were leaving. So he went against Samuel’s instruction. Saul did not trust God’s word that Samuel the prophet had spoken. Saul did not obey God. Instead, Saul did what he thought was right. This is sin. Saul sinned in this way several times while he was king.
Verses 11-12 show that Saul had been afraid of the situation. That is why he acted. In verse 13 ‘foolish’ means guilty of wrong behavior. In 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel said that it is better to obey God than to sacrifice to him. The *Israelites wanted a king to lead them. They wanted to be like other nations. They wanted a king to fight their battles. God gave them what they wanted. But King Saul did not trust God. Usually, the present king’s son became the next king. And this continued for many years. The king’s son learned how to be king by watching his father. God did not want another king like Saul. God wanted his special people, the Israelites, to have a good king. In chapter 16, we read how God chose the next king.
v15 Samuel left Gilgal. He went to the town of Gibeah in the land of Benjamin. Saul counted the men who were with him. There were 600 men.
v16 Saul, his son Jonathan and the men who were with them were in the town of Gibeah in the land of Benjamin. The Philistines camped at Michmash. v17 They sent out three groups of men to make attacks. One group went towards Ophrah in the land of Shual. v18 The second group went towards the town of Beth Horon. The third group went to the border of the land. There they could see across the Valley of Zeboim towards the desert.
v19 There were no blacksmiths in the land of Israel. The Philistines had said, ‘If the Israelites have blacksmiths they will be able to make swords or spears.’ v20 The Israelites used ploughs, hoes, axes and sickles on their farmland. These tools got blunt. So they had to take them to the Philistines’ blacksmiths who made them sharp again. v21 The Israelites had to pay 8 grams of silver to have each plough and hoe made sharp again. They paid 4 grams of silver for each axe, sickle and ox-goad.
v22 When the battle started only Saul and Jonathan had a sword and spear. The other soldiers did not have any swords or spears.
Saul’s army was very small now. Saul and Jonathan joined together so that all the Israelites fought as one army. But the Philistine army divided into 3 groups. This was a common way for an army to attack. Each group went in a different direction. Ophrah was in the north. Beth Horon was in the west. The valley of Zeboim was in the southeast. But the Bible does not say how far they went.
Saul became king more than 3,000 years ago. At that time, people were learning how to make tools from iron. People used to make tools from wood and stone. Then they learned how to make metal called bronze. But iron was better because it was much stronger. And iron tools stayed sharp for a long time. A ‘blacksmith’ was a man who made iron tools. He also made blunt tools sharp again.
The tools in verses 20-21 were farm tools. A farmer used a hoe to get weeds out of the ground. A sickle was like a large curved knife. A farmer used it to cut down his grain. An ox-goad was a long stick with a sharp metal point. The ox pulled a plough. If the ox stopped, the farmer pushed the goad into the ox’s bottom. That made the ox start to walk again. The Philistines were skilled at making iron tools. They sold the tools to the people who lived near them, including the Israelites. But the Philistines did not teach anyone how to become blacksmiths. Therefore, everyone had to go to the Philistines when their tools became blunt. The Philistines charged a very high price to make the tools sharp again. No one had invented money yet, so people paid with pieces of silver.
The Philistines controlled the Israelites in this way. The Philistines knew that the Israelites could not make swords or spears. A spear is like a large arrow that a soldier throws. Only Saul and Jonathan had a sword and spear. The other soldiers probably had bows and arrows. The Philistines had a very large army. They had swords, spears, and chariots. And they knew that this was a disadvantage for the Israelites.
Jonathan Attacks the Philistines
v23 A group of Philistine soldiers went to the narrow road in the mountains at Michmash.
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