Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 278. The Warrior Prince
Subjects in this Topic:
The Warrior Prince
1. Handsome and high-mettled, full of nerve and full of heart, Jonathan was the pride of the army and the darling of the common people. We think of him so frequently in connexion with his rare and beautiful friendship with David that we do not give the full emphasis which is deserved to the strength and courage which were also his. As warrior prince Jonathan takes rank among the bravest captains of Israel's iron age. Like Saul, he was fleet of foot, and of great physical strength, and, as became a Benjamite, a noted archer. In the familiar speech of the people, he may have been known, for his grace and agility, as the gazelle (so Ewald, rendering v. 19, “the gazelle is slain”). He comes upon the scene as the hero of a campaign against the Philistines, in which the bearing of Saul is little more than a foil to the bold initiative, the rapid movement, and the practical sense of his son. The Philistines, it would seem, had been in effective occupation of the Israelitish territory, and the force collected by Saul had not yet made any considerable impression, when a blow struck by Jonathan, to whom Saul had entrusted a third of his following, loudly sounded the note of rebellion.
The exact nature of Jonathan's deed at Geba is difficult to ascertain. The uncertainty arises from the ambiguity of לְצִי, an ambiguity which may be reproduced in English by saying that he destroyed a post, i.e., either a garrison, or a pillar erected in token of the Philistine supremacy (Gen_19:26), or an official of some kind. The last interpretation is supported by 1Ki_4:19 1 [Note: W. P. Paterson, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 753.]
2. The Philistines retaliated by pouring into the almost defenceless country a huge host, including both cavalry and chariots, which occupied Michmash, and proceeded to lay waste the country in three directions-north, west, and south. The unarmed country people were terrorized, and either hid themselves “in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places,” or else fled across Jordan to the high lands of Gilead. When Saul joined forces with Jonathan at Geba, his three thousand men had shrunk to six hundred.
The two armies came face to face at the passage of Michmash, and took up their positions on opposite sides of a deep ravine. The situation was an extremely critical one for Saul and the six hundred men who “followed trembling” after their leader. It required some heroism even to face the Philistine hosts with such a paltry and timorous band. Jonathan relieved the situation by a daring single-handed exploit which was remarkably successful, and turned the scales against the invaders. Accompanied by his armour-bearer, he hailed the Philistine garrison, and, having satisfied himself that their reply was a sign that the Omnipotent God was on his side (v. 12), he scaled the opposing rocky rampart and fell upon the astonished garrison. This deed was more than brave; it was audacious to the point of madness. Reason would have laughed it to scorn; military men would have called it insanity; and people who count odds would have written it down impossible. Yet it succeeded. Jonathan's faith was of the kind that clothes itself with omnipotence. “There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few,” he shouted. That was his battle-cry as he scaled the rugged steep, followed by his armour-bearer. And the army which had been thought so powerful, so dreadful, reeled and fell back before their strokes; and then, never suspecting that they were attacked by only two men, believing that the mist and darkness concealed a multitude of assailants, the host gave way to panic, rushing pell-mell, smiting one another down until they had all melted away in confusion and rout.
From his outlook at Gibeah, Saul beheld the wild confusion, and how the multitude swayed to and fro and melted away. Without delay he hurled himself with his soldiers on the flying foe, who fled, in headlong precipitancy, down the long valley, past Beth-haven, past the Upper and then the Lower Beth-horon, in order to gain the Philistine frontier by the valley of Aijalon. Every town through which the fugitives passed rose in their rear, and joined the pursuit, so that the flying host was greatly reduced, and thousands of warriors dyed, with their hearts' blood, the highways of the land, which they had so grievously oppressed. Thus did God deliver His people in answer to Jonathan's faith.
Very early, Mr. Gladstone gave marked evidence of that sovereign quality of Courage which became one of the most signal of all his traits. He used to say that he had known three men in his time possessing in a supreme degree the virtue of parliamentary courage-Peel, Lord John Russell, and Disraeli. To some other contemporaries for whom courage might be claimed, he stoutly denied it. Nobody ever dreamed of denying it to him, whether parliamentary courage or any other, in either its active or its passive shape, either in daring or in fortitude. He had even the courage to be prudent, just as he knew when it was prudent to be bold. He applied in public things the Spenserian line, “Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold,” but neither did he forget the iron door with its admonition, “Be not too bold.” The great Condé, when complimented on his courage, always said that he took good care never to call upon it unless the occasion were absolutely necessary. No more did Mr. Gladstone go out of his way to summon courage for its own sake, but only when spurred by duty; then he knew no faltering. Capable of much circumspection, yet soon he became known for a man of lion heart.1 [Note: Morley, Life of Gladstone, i. 188.]
3. The defeat of the Philistines would have been still more crushing had not Saul, in the excitement of victory, rashly laid a curse on the people if they should partake of food before the evening. Father and son had not met on that day; Saul only conjectured his son's absence from not finding him when he numbered the people. Jonathan was ignorant of his father's imprecation, and, putting forth the staff which (with his sling and bow) had been his only weapon, tasted the honey which overflowed from the wild hives as he dashed through the forest. The people in general were restrained by fear of the royal curse; but the moment that the day with its enforced fast was over they flew, like Mussulmans at sunset during the fast of Ramazan, upon the captured cattle, and devoured them even to the brutal neglect of the law forbidding the eating of flesh which contained blood. This violation of the sacred usage Saul endeavoured to control by erecting a large stone which served the purpose at once of a rude altar and of a rude table. It was in the dead of night, after this wild revel was over, that he proposed that the pursuit should be continued till dawn; and then, when the silence of the oracle of the high priest indicated that something had occurred to intercept the Divine favour, the lot was tried and Jonathan appeared as the culprit. Jephthah's dreadful sacrifice would have been repeated; but the people interposed on behalf of the hero of that great day, and Jonathan was saved.
Jonathan was a true man of God. He had set out that morning in his wonderful exploit in the true spirit of faith and full consecration to God. He was in far nearer fellowship with God than his father, and yet so far from approving of the religious order to fast which his father had given, he regards it with displeasure and distrust. Godly men will sometimes be found less outwardly religious than some other men and will greatly shock them by being so. The godly man has an unction from the Holy One to understand His will; he goes straight to the Lord's business; like our blessed Lord, he finishes the work given him to do, while the merely religious man is often so occupied with his forms, that, like the Pharisees, he neglects the structure for which forms are but the scaffolding; in paying his tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, he omits the weightier matters-justice, mercy, and truth.1 [Note: W. G. Blaikie.]