Jonathan’s Fight & Saul’s Oath

It may be. Before Jonathan climbed toward the enemy, he said, “it may be that the Lord will work for us” (14:6). Jonathan did not claim to know how the battle would end. God had not promised him a win that day. Sure about God. But Jonathan was sure about who God is: “nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.” Restrains means holds back. A small army cannot hold God back. So Jonathan went to see what God would do. A humble sign. Jonathan asked for a sign that left room for God to say no. If the Philistines said, “Wait until we come to you,” he would stay where he was (14:9). He was asking God, not telling God. Both hands on the rock. Verse 13 says he “climbed up on his hands and knees.” Both hands were on the rock, so he could not carry a shield. He climbed toward soldiers who had just shouted for him to come up. His safety was in God’s hands. A faithful friend. The armorbearer said, “Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart” (14:7). Then he climbed right up behind Jonathan. God uses friends like that, and you can be one. What we learn. Faith does not mean knowing how everything will turn out. Faith means trusting God and obeying Him when you cannot see the end.

Two halves of one sentence (14:6). Jonathan said, “it may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.” Humble about the plan. The Hebrew word ulay (say: oo-LIE) is a plain word for perhaps. God had given Jonathan no promise of victory, and Jonathan did not pretend to know the outcome. Certain about God. The second half is certain. Jonathan was completely sure of what God can do, even though he did not know what God would do, and he acted on what he knew. Faith is not being sure that everything will turn out the way we want. Faith is trusting who God is and obeying Him when we cannot see the end. Hebrews 11:1 calls faith “the evidence of things not seen.” A sign that allowed a no (14:9-10). Jonathan did not demand a wonder. He let the Philistines’ answer decide it, and he was ready to hear no: “then we will stand still in our place and not go up to them.” Daniel’s three friends had the same kind of faith. They told the king that God was able to deliver them, “But if not,” they still would not bow (Daniel 3:17-18). No shield (14:13). Jonathan went up “on his hands and knees.” He climbed one of the two sharp rocks named in verse 4, Bozez and Seneh. With both hands on the rock he could not carry a shield, and he reached the top with no defense and no way back. Meanwhile his father sat under a pomegranate tree with six hundred men and a priest in an ephod, the priest’s special vest (14:2-3). The armorbearer (14:7, 13). His answer was, “Do all that is in your heart… here I am with you, according to your heart.” Verse 13 shows him fighting beside Jonathan, not hiding behind him. One person’s trust in God often gives courage to another.

Jonathan said, “Maybe the Lord will help us.” He did not know how the fight would end. God had not promised him a win that day. But Jonathan knew what God is like. God can win with many people or just a few. So Jonathan trusted God and went. He climbed the rocks using his hands and feet. He could not hold a shield while he climbed. His helper climbed right behind him. Real faith trusts God even when we cannot see the plan. You can trust God like that too. He is strong, and He loves you.

Jonathan said maybe God would help them. He did not know the plan. He knew God is strong, so he climbed!

Father and son. Saul and Jonathan were father and son, but they trusted God in very different ways. Saul sat still. Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree at the edge of Gibeah. He had six hundred men. A priest named Ahijah stood next to him wearing the ephod, the priest’s special vest (14:2-3). Saul had everything a king could want, and he was sitting still. Jonathan moved. Jonathan was on a cliff with one man and the sign he had asked God for. Prayer cut short. When Saul saw that something was happening in the Philistine camp, he called for the ark of God so he could ask the Lord what to do (14:18). The priest began. But the noise from the enemy camp kept growing, and Saul said, “Withdraw your hand” (14:19). That meant, stop, there is no time for this now. A backup plan. Saul stopped asking God because the battle seemed to be going well without Him. He treated prayer like something to use only when he was stuck. Jonathan trusted God enough to move, but his father would not wait for Him. God’s victory. Even so, “the Lord saved Israel that day” (14:23). The victory belonged to God, not to Saul. What we learn. God wants us to talk with Him and listen to Him when things are going well, not only when we are in trouble. Jesus often went away to quiet places to pray, even on His busiest days.

Real faith and empty religion. Saul and Jonathan were father and son, and the difference between them is the difference between real faith and empty religion. Saul’s camp (14:2-3). Saul was at Migron, seated under a pomegranate tree with six hundred men. Beside him stood Ahijah the priest, wearing the ephod. Ahijah was a great-grandson of Eli, whose family was already under God’s judgment (1 Samuel 2:30-36). Jonathan, meanwhile, had only his armorbearer. He told no one, and he climbed. “Withdraw your hand” (14:18-19). Saul called for the ark, and the priest began to seek God. Then “the noise which was in the camp of the Philistines continued to increase; so Saul said to the priest, ‘Withdraw your hand.’” That meant: stop asking. Saul quit the moment the battle seemed to be going his way. He treated God like a backup plan, something to call on only if things went badly. Silence later (14:37). Later Saul did ask God for direction, and “He did not answer him that day.” Earlier he would not wait for God’s answer. Now he could not get one. God is patient and kind, but He is not a tool we pick up and put down. He wants a real relationship with us, where we seek Him in the good days as well as the hard ones. Quiet faith. Jonathan acted quietly. His father did not even know he had gone (14:1, 3), yet God used him to win a great victory. Saul’s public religious acts (the oath, the altar and the lots) brought misery, sin and almost the death of his son. Looking religious is not the same as trusting God. Jesus taught this in Matthew 6:5-6, when He told His followers to pray to the Father in secret, where the Father sees.

Saul and Jonathan were father and son. But they trusted God in very different ways. Saul sat under a tree with 600 men. A priest in a special vest was with him. Jonathan was out on the rocks with one friend. Saul asked the priest to bring the Ark of God. He started to ask God what to do. But the noise in the enemy camp grew louder. Saul said, “Stop. There’s not time to pray now!” He did not wait to hear from God. God wants us to talk with Him every day. He loves to hear from us in good times and hard times.

Saul had many men and a priest. But Saul would not wait for God. Jonathan trusted God, and God won the battle.

Meant to help. Saul’s oath was meant to help Israel win. A rule God never gave. Saul said, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies” (14:24). An oath is a very serious promise made in God’s name. It sounded like a king who wanted to honor God. But God never asked for this rule, and it did real harm. Weak and faint. The army went the whole day with no food. Verse 28 says plainly, “the people were faint.” They walked through a forest with honey dripping on the ground in front of them, and nobody would touch it (14:26). Led into sin. When the sun went down and the oath was over, they were so hungry that they grabbed animals and ate the meat with the blood still in it, which God had forbidden (14:32-33). Saul’s rule made his soldiers too weak to fight, and then it pushed them into a real sin. Jonathan said it. Jonathan said it out loud: “My father has troubled the land” (14:29). If the men had eaten, the victory would have been even bigger (14:30). What we learn. Saul kept doing big religious things instead of the simple thing God asked, and the people around him got hurt. You will see it again in the next lesson. God is not looking for showy promises. He wants a heart that trusts Him and obeys what He has already said.

An oath that hurt (14:24). Saul’s oath hurt his own army from the moment he spoke it. My vengeance, my enemies. Saul said, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.” Saul spoke of his vengeance and his enemies. Earlier Jonathan had said, “the Lord will work for us.” Saul had made the battle about himself. The cost shows up three times: the men were “distressed” (v. 24), “faint” (v. 28) and “very faint” (v. 31). Honey in the path (14:25-27). The army walked into a forest where honey was “dripping” on the ground. God had put food right in their path, and the oath kept them from it. Jonathan had not heard the charge, so he ate, and “his countenance brightened.” His face lit up as his strength came back. Eating with the blood (14:32-34). At nightfall the exhausted army rushed on the animals and ate them “with the blood,” breaking God’s command in Leviticus 17:10-14. Saul’s rule had set his men up to sin, and then he had to step in to correct them. In verse 35 he built his first altar. Rules people invent for God can pull them away from what God actually said. Jesus warned about this in Mark 7:8, where He said some people set aside God’s commandment to keep their own traditions. “Troubled the land” (14:29). Jonathan told the truth: “My father has troubled the land… How much better if the people had eaten freely today.” The Hebrew verb is akar (say: ah-KAR), to trouble or bring ruin. It is the same root as the Valley of Achor in Joshua 7, where Achan’s sin brought trouble on all Israel.

Saul made a rule that nobody could eat all day. He thought it would help them win. But God never asked for that rule. The soldiers had no food, and they grew weak. They walked right past honey lying on the ground. Nobody would touch it. When evening came, they were starving. They grabbed animals and ate them the wrong way. God had told them never to eat meat with blood in it. So Saul’s rule made them weak and led them into sin. Jonathan said, “My father has made trouble for the land!” God does not want showy rules. He wants hearts that trust and obey Him.

Saul made a rule that nobody could eat. The soldiers got weak and hungry. God never asked for that rule.

A sad night. Saul’s oath led to one of the saddest nights of his life. God was silent. Saul asked God whether to keep chasing the enemy, and verse 37 says, “He did not answer him that day.” Looking for someone to blame. Saul decided somebody must have sinned, and he went looking for that person. He never asked whether he might be the problem. Before the search even began, he said, “though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die” (14:39). The lot fell on Jonathan. When the lots were cast, Jonathan was taken. He told the truth in a few plain words: “I only tasted a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand” (14:43). He had never even heard his father’s oath. The army refused. Then the whole army spoke up at once: “Shall Jonathan die, who has accomplished this great deliverance in Israel? Certainly not!” (14:45). They would not let the king kill the man God had used to win the battle, and Jonathan lived. A bad promise. Saul thought keeping his word made him faithful. It did not. A promise made in anger is not holy just because you said it out loud. Refusing to take back a bad promise is not the same thing as being faithful to God. Sometimes the godly thing is to admit you were wrong and ask God to forgive you.

God’s silence (14:37). “But He did not answer him that day.” God’s silence was itself a message to Saul. Years later Saul would seek the Lord again and get no answer by dreams, by Urim or by prophets (1 Samuel 28:6). That was when he went to the medium at Endor. Blaming everyone else (14:38-42). Saul assumed that hidden sin was blocking God’s answer, and sin can do that (compare Joshua 7). But Saul never looked at himself. He set Israel on one side and “my son Jonathan and I” on the other (v. 40), yet his oath in verse 39 had already decided the outcome would fall on someone else: “though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.” He was ready to lose his son rather than admit his vow was wrong. The people’s appeal (14:45). The people called on the Lord to overrule an oath Saul had sworn in the Lord’s name: “As the Lord lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day.” Their reason was what God had plainly done through Jonathan. God’s work mattered more than the king’s rash promise. Rash vows. Keeping promises is good, but Saul’s sin was making this vow at all, and then treating it as more important than his son’s life and his army’s well-being. Jesus spoke to this kind of oath in Matthew 5:33-37: let your yes be yes and your no be no. In Mark 7:9-13 He condemned people who used a vow as an excuse to harm someone. Even the Law made a way for some vows to be canceled (Numbers 30). Keeping a bad promise is not faithfulness. It is pride dressed up as faithfulness. The humble thing is to confess the wrong to God and make it right (1 John 1:9).

Saul asked God a question, but God did not answer. Saul decided that somebody must have sinned. He never thought it might be his own fault. He said that even his son must die if he did it. Then they threw lots, and the lot pointed to Jonathan. Jonathan had only tasted a little honey. He had not even heard the rule! But Saul still would not take back his words. Then every soldier in the army spoke up. They said Jonathan had saved Israel with God’s help. They would not let the king hurt him. Admitting you were wrong is better than keeping a bad promise.

Saul said his own son had to die. But all the soldiers said no! They stood up for Jonathan, and he lived.