Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 13:2 - 13:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The war with the Philistines (1 Samuel 13-14) certainly falls, at least so far as the commencement is concerned, in the very earliest part of Saul's reign. This we must infer partly from the fact, that at the very time when Saul was seeking for his father's asses, there was a military post of the Philistines at Gibeah (1Sa 10:5), and therefore the Philistines had already occupied certain places in the land; and partly also from the fact, that according to this chapter Saul selected an army of 3000 men out of the whole nation, took up his post at Michmash with 2000 of them, placing the other thousand at Gibeah under his son Jonathan, and sent the rest of the people home (1Sa 13:2), because his first intention was simply to check the further advance of the Philistines. The dismission of the rest of the people to their own homes presupposes that the whole of the fighting men of the nation were assembled together. But as no other summoning together of the people has been mentioned before, except to the war upon the Ammonites at Jabesh (1Sa 11:6-7), where all Israel gathered together, and at the close of which Samuel had called the people and their king to Gilgal (1Sa 11:14), the assumption is a very probable one, that it was there at Gilgal, after the renewal of the monarchy, that Saul formed the resolution at once to make war upon the Philistines, and selected 3000 fighting men for the purpose out of the whole number that were collected together, and then dismissed the remainder to their homes. In all probability Saul did not consider that either he or the Israelites were sufficiently prepared as yet to undertake a war upon the Philistines generally, and therefore resolved, in the first place, only to attack the outpost of the Philistines, which was advanced as far as Gibeah, with a small number of picked soldiers. According to this simple view of affairs, the war here described took place at the very commencement of Saul's reign; and the chapter before us is closely connected with the preceding one.
1Sa 13:2
Saul posted himself at Michmash and on the mount of Bethel with his two thousand men. Michmash, the present Mukhmas, a village in ruins upon the northern ridge of the Wady Suweinit, according to the Onom. (s. v. Machmas), was only nine Roman miles to the north of Jerusalem, whereas it took Robinson three hours and a half to go from one to the other (Pal. ii. p. 117). Bethel (Beitin; see at Jos 7:2) is to the north-west of this, at a distance of two hours' journey, if you take the road past Deir-Diwan. The mountain (הָר) of Bethel cannot be precisely determined. Bethel itself was situated upon very high ground; and the ruins of Beitin are completely surrounded by heights (Rob. ii. p. 126; and v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 178-9). Jonathan stationed himself with his thousand men at (by) Gibeah of Benjamin, the native place and capital of Saul, which was situated upon Tell el Phul (see at Jos 18:28), about an hour and a half form Michmas.
1Sa 13:3-4
“And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba,” probably the military post mentioned in 1Sa 10:5, which had been advanced in the meantime as far as Geba. For Geba is not to be confounded with Gibeah, from which it is clearly distinguished in 1Sa 13:16 as compared with 1Sa 13:15, but is the modern Jeba, between the Wady Suweinit and Wady Fara, to the north-west of Ramah (er-Râm; see at Jos 18:24). “The Philistines heard this. And Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the whole land, and proclamation made: let the Hebrews hear it.” לֵאמֹר after בַּשֹּׁופָר תָּקַע points out the proclamation that was made after the alarm given by the shophar (see 2Sa 20:1; 1Ki 1:34, 1Ki 1:39, etc.). The object to “let them hear” may be easily supplied from the context, viz., Jonathan's feat of arms. Saul had this trumpeted in the whole land, not only as a joyful message for the Hebrews, but also as an indirect summons to the whole nation to rise and make war upon the Philistines. In the word שָׁמַע (hear), there is often involved the idea of observing, laying to heart that which is heard. If we understand יִשְׁמְעוּ in this sense here, and the next verse decidedly hints at it, there is no ground whatever for the objection which Thenius, who follows the lxx, has raised to הָעִבְרִים יִשְׁמְעוּ. He proposes this emendation, הָעִבְרִים יִשְׁמְעוּ, “let the Hebrews fall away,” according to the Alex. text ἠθετήκασιν οἱ δοῦλοι, without reflecting that the very expression οἱδοῦλοι 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 יִשְׁמְעוּ is confirmed by יִשְׁמְעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְכָל in 1Sa 13:4. “All Israel heard,” not the call to fall away, but the news, “Saul has smitten a garrison of the Philistines, and Israel has also made itself stinking with 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.” הִצָּעֵק, to permit to summon to war (as in Jdg 7:23-24). The words are incorrectly rendered by the Vulgate, “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 1Sa 13:13).
1Sa 13:5
The Philistines also did not delay to avenge the defeat at Geba. They collected an innumerable army: 30,000 chariots, 6000 horsemen, and people, i.e., foot-soldiers, without number (as the sand by the sea-shore; cf. Jdg 7:12; Jos 11:4, etc.). רֶכֶב by the side of פָּרָשִׁים 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. 2Sa 10:18; 1Ki 10:26; 2Ch 12:3), 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 (אל שְׁלשֶׁת instead of אל שְׁלֹשִׁים), 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 ל of the word יִשְׂרָאֵל was written twice, and consequently the second ל 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 Jos 7:2, Bethaven was to the east of Michmash; and קִדְמַת 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 2:14).
(Note: Consequently there is no ground whatever for altering the text according to the confused rendering of the lxx, ἐν Μαχμὰς ἐξ ἐναντὶας Βαιθωρὼν κατὰ νότου, 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.)
1Sa 13:6-7
When the Israelites saw that they had come into a strait (צַר־לֹו), for the people were oppressed (by the Philistines), they hid themselves in the caves, thorn-bushes, rocks (i.e., clefts of the rocks), fortresses (צְרִחִים: see at Jdg 9:46), 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, v. 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, pp. 68f., but must be the Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan. This is not only favoured by the expression יֵרְדוּ (the Philistines will come down from Michmash to Gilgal, 1Sa 13:12), but also by וַיַּעַל (Samuel went up from Gilgal to Gibeah, 1Sa 13:15), and by the general attitude of Saul and his army towards the 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 (1Sa 13:5); and Saul, after withdrawing from Gilgal, where he had gathered the Israelites together (1Sa 13:4, 1Sa 13:8, 1Sa 13:12), with Jonathan and the six hundred men who were with him when the muster took place, took up his position at Geba (1Sa 13:15, 1Sa 13:16), from which point Jonathan attacked the Philistine post in the pass of Michmash (1Sa 13:23, and 1Sa 14:1.): 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 Gibeah and Geba to commence the war with the army of the Philistines that was encamped at Michmash. If, on the other hand, he had gone northwards to Jiljilia from Michmash, where he 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.