Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 14:24 - 14:24
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Saul's precipitate haste. - 1Sa 14:24. 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) I have avenged myself upon mine enemies.” יֹאֶל, fut. apoc. of יֹאלֶה for יַאֲלֶה, from אָלָה, to swear, Hiphil to adjure or require an oath of a person. The people took the oath by saying “amen” 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 וגו נִקַּמְתִּי, “till I have avenged myself upon mine enemies.” It was a despotic measure which not only failed to accomplish its object (see 1Sa 14:30, 1Sa 14:31), but brought Saul into the unfortunate position of being unable to carry out the oath (see 1Sa 14:45). All the people kept the command. “They tasted no bread.” וְלֹא־טָעַם is not to be connected with וַנִקַּמְתִּי as an apodosis.
1Sa 14:25
“And all the land (i.e., all the people of the land who had gathered round Saul: vid., 1Sa 14:29) came into the woody country; there was honey upon the field.” יַעַר signifies here a woody district, in which forests alternated with tracts of arable land and meadows.
1Sa 14:26
When the people came into the wood and saw a stream of honey (or wild or wood bees), “no one put his hand to his mouth (sc., to eat of the honey), because they feared the oath.”
1Sa 14:27
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 תראנה is probably to be read תִּרְאֶנָה, the eyes became seeing, received their power of vision again. The Masoretes have substituted as the Keri תָּאֹרְנָה, from אֹור, to become bright, according to 1Sa 14:29; and this is probably the correct reading, as the letters might easily be transposed.
1Sa 14:28-30
When one of the people told him thereupon of his father's oath, in consequence of which the people were exhausted (הָעָם וַיָּעַף belongs to the man's words; and וַיָּעַף is the same as in Jdg 4:21), Jonathan condemned the prohibition. “My father has brought the land (i.e., the people of the land, as in 1Sa 14:25) into trouble (עָכַר, see at Gen 34:30): 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 great?” כִּי אַף, lit. to this (there comes) also that = not to mention how much more; and עַתָּה כִּי is an emphatic introduction of the apodosis, as in Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10, and other passages, and the apodosis itself is to be taken as a question.