Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
4. AND THERE WERE BETWEEN THE ASCENTS, BY WHICH JONATHAN ENDEAVOURED TO GO OVER TO THE GARRISON OF THE PHILISTINES, CERTAIN CRAGS STANDING OUT ON EACH SIDE, etc. THE NAME OF THE ONE WAS BOSES, AND THE NAME OF THE OTHER SENE.—The Chaldee: the name of the one, shining, and the name of the other, trampling. The Philistines, says Josephus, pitched their camp on a steep rock, as it were inaccessible, and therefore lived there secure, fearing no one: for this reason Jonathan attacked them by this way. So Alexander the Great, when enemies abiding on a very high rock derided him and asked whether he could fly, sent three hundred noble youths round the back over the pathless rocks, and, the enemy not knowing it, seized the rock and slew them: “Behold,” said he, “I have shown that I can fly.” So Curtius.
Moreover, Boses in Hebrew is the same as growing moist, or flowering, or egg-laying, says Pagninus. Sene is the same as a bramble; which Bede explains mystically: “Because the ascent of the Saints is hindered no less by the world flourishing than by the world opposing and pricking, and, that he may faint either in body or in heart, he is beaten by the unwearied enemy.”
This is what the Saints say in Psalm 65, 19: “We have passed through fire and water, and thou hast brought us out into a refreshment.” For, as St. Bernard says in his sermon On St. Malachy: “He passed through fire and water, whom neither sad things could break nor soft things detain.”
6. AND JONATHAN SAID TO THE YOUNG MAN HIS ARMOURBEARER.—He said this impelled by God, who silently promised His help and victory, as is plain from the outcome, and the so wonderful and happy victory.
For IT IS NOT DIFFICULT FOR THE LORD TO SAVE EITHER BY MANY OR BY FEW.—In Hebrew it is matsor, that is, restriction, detention, or prohibition; as if to say: There is nothing that confines God, detains or restrains Him to few or many, that they may conquer. For, as St. Augustine says, sermon 119 On the Season: “God is omnipotent to do greater and lesser things; omnipotent to make heavenly and earthly things; omnipotent to make immortal and mortal things; omnipotent to make spiritual and corporal things; omnipotent to make visible and invisible things; great in great things, and not small in the smallest.”
Judas Machabeus imitated this example of Jonathan, when fighting with few against very many: “It is an easy matter,” he said, “for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and there is no difference in the sight of God to deliver with a great multitude, or with a small company,” 1 Machab. 3.
“Blessed art thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of thy servant David, and didst deliver the camp of the strangers into the hands of Jonathan the son of Saul, and of his armourbearer,” 1 Machab. 4, verse 30. The same said Asa king of Juda, fighting against a thousand thousand Ethiopians, 2 Paral. 14, 11.
7. IF THEY SPEAK THUS.—Jonathan takes this omen by the instinct and inspiration of God, as is plain from Jonathan’s so great boldness, rather divine than human, and from his so happy success; wherefore it was not superstitious, nor a tempting of God, but religious as well as bold, because he alone with his armourbearer climbed the steep stronghold of the enemy, attacked the enemy, put them to flight, and slew them. So Lyranus, Hugh, Abulensis, Dionysius, Cajetan, Serarius and others. See Sanchez, book 2 On Superstition, chap. 10, no. 10, who adds with Serarius and Abulensis that Jonathan had prefaced this omen with a prayer to God, in which he was encouraged by God to dare this. A like omen concerning Rebecca, to be taken as wife for Isaac, Eliezer received, Genesis 24.
Like the omen of Jonathan was the omen of the Pæonians, of which Herodotus thus writes at the beginning of book 5: “The Pæonians, who dwell on the Strymon, being admonished by a divine response to make war on the Perinthians; and if indeed they were challenged by the Perinthians encamped opposite, calling them by name, to attack them; but if not, to refrain from attacking. So they did, and conquered.”
12. COME UP TO US, AND WE WILL SHOW YOU A THING, which you seem to seek by climbing these steep rocks. It is a sarcasm, or hostile mockery, as if they said: Come up to us, and we will show you a way not to life and victory, which you seek, but to death, that is, we will slay you. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Salianus and others. Whence Josephus, book 6 of the Jewish Antiquities, chap. 7: “Come hither,” he says, “to pay the penalty of your boldness.”
LET US GO UP.—God fittingly gave this omen to Jonathan, because it is a sign of courage and victory to forestall and attack the enemy, though more powerful, and so to strike him with fear and put him to flight, as Jonathan did here. So Moses to Josue about to go against Amalec: “Choose out men,” he said, “and go out and fight against Amalec.” So Timotheus, about to fight with Judas Machabeus, commanded his men thus: “When Judas,” he said, “and his army shall come near the torrent of water, if he pass over to us first, we shall not be able to withstand him, because he will be able to do much against us; but if he be afraid to pass over, and pitch his camp on the other side of the river, let us pass over to them, and we shall prevail against him,” 1 Machab. 5, 40. So Achab, with a few attacking the vast camp of Benadad king of Syria, routed it, put it to flight, and overthrew it, 3 Kings 20, 13. So experienced leaders, to display their courage, are the first to attack the enemy, and so often strike him down and rout him.
13. AND JONATHAN CLIMBED UP CREEPING ON HIS HANDS AND FEET, —over the steep stones of the rock.
Mystically St. Gregory: “By hands,” he says, “works are wont to be signified. The pastor creeps on his hands, when he sets before sinners the way not by the wisdom of the word but by the example of his conduct.” And below: “Well is he said to climb creeping to the garrison of the Philistines, because that Doctor can attain to the destruction of vices who soothes sinners by a great show of humility and a great affection of charity.”
AND SOME FELL BEFORE JONATHAN,—as if to say, a panic fear being cast upon them by God, as will appear in verse 20; wherefore Vatablus, the Gloss and others read: so when they saw the face of Jonathan (as if struck by it), some fell before Jonathan. Which seems taken from the Septuagint, who render, and the Philistines seeing the face of Jonathan, and he smote among them. So then Jonathan was a type of Christ, who by His look alone struck and put to flight the buyers and sellers in the temple. For, as St. Jerome says on Matthew chap. 9: “The very brightness and majesty of the Godhead secretly shone in His human face.” And on chap. 21: “Something fiery and starlike radiated from His eyes.”
Wherefore what Josephus says appears fictitious, that Jonathan rushed on the Philistines while asleep; for thus he writes in book 6, chap. 7: “The son of Saul eagerly seizing this voice as an omen of victory, then indeed withdrew from the place where they had been seen, but approaching the rock from another side, unguarded by reason of its position, they crept up with great labour, the difficulty of the place being overcome, to the enemy; and attacking them as they slept, they slew twenty of them, and filled them with such stupor and consternation that, casting away their arms, they betook themselves to flight. And most of them, not recognising one another, because they were gathered from many nations, attacked each other as enemies; and as they did not think that only two Hebrews had penetrated into the camp, they fell by mutual slaughter, some falling into precipices, either rushing themselves or being pushed by others.”
14. IN HALF THE SPACE OF AN ACRE,—that is, in a very short space of ground Jonathan slew twenty, as if to say: He slew them united, not wandering and scattered: he says this to increase the miracle of God and the fortitude of Jonathan; since he slew not men divided, as the last Horatius did, who, after the two Horatii were slain, fleeing, killed the three Curiatii, already weary, in three different places, and so subjected the Albans to the Romans, as Livy testifies; but men united.
15. AND THERE WAS A MIRACLE IN THE CAMP,—A wonderful and unusual earthquake, and thence fear, terror and perturbation sent by God upon the Philistines, both those who were in the camp and those who had gone out of the camp to plunder in three companies, as in the preceding chapter, verse 17. “Miracle,” therefore, that is, a miraculous earthquake, and stupor of the enemy, as the Septuagint render it; and confusion, as the Chaldee; and fear, as Vatablus; and trembling, as others. For this is what the Hebrew charada signifies; for the Philistines were so astonished, fearful, blinded and perturbed that they took their allies to be enemies and turned their arms against them, and so slew one another with mutual slaughter, as is plain from verse 20. The Madianites did the same, when the three hundred Hebrews, the soldiers of Gedeon, sounded their trumpets and broke the flaming pitchers, Judges chap. 7, verse 22. For it was easy for God to disturb their imagination, so that they thought friends enemies: as we see this naturally happen in the melancholic and the maniacal, who, looking at all things through melancholy as through a black cloud, think everything black, foul, hostile and harmful.