Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Hence it appears that Saul was a pious man as well as a brave one, and that God favoured him, and gave him victories, so that he overcame all the enemies round about, as will be said in verse 47. Wherefore, granted that God in the preceding chapter, because Samuel was not waited for, deprived his posterity of the kingdom, yet after this He did not cast him away, but directed and helped him, until, committing the graver crime of disobedience, by not utterly and fully destroying the Amalecites, as God had commanded, he was cast away by God, and David was anointed in his place by Samuel as king, of which chapters 15 and 16.
25. THE PEOPLE CAME INTO THE FOREST, WHERE THERE WAS HONEY.—For wild bees make honey in the woods, as may be seen in Poland and Muscovy, where therefore men fight with the wild bears. For bears gape after honey, and so strive to break open the trees in which the combs are; but the bees, flying into the nostrils of the bears and pricking them with their stings, easily drive them off: for bears are weak in the head, at the nose.
Mystically St. Ambrose, sermon 36: “Nor, being placed in abstinence,” he says, “let us turn aside to the honeycomb. For the honeycomb is a certain pleasure of the world, or the vices, which, as it is written, Prov. chap. 5, for a time indeed make the throat fat; but the last things are bitterer than gall.”
AND NONE PUT HIS HAND TO HIS MOUTH, FOR THE PEOPLE FEARED THE OATH,—that is, the adjuration and execration of the king saying: “Cursed be the man that shall eat,” etc., verse 24. Mystically St. Gregory: “The honey,” he says, “flows, because the sweet fame of the saints runs sweetly and swiftly; but no one carries his hand to his mouth, because from the good work he does not receive the sweetness of praise. For to apply the hand with honey to the mouth is to receive gladly the praise of one’s own work. Let the honey run, then; and let no one apply his hand to his mouth, that the fame of the saints may flow sweetly, and not puff up those from whom it flows. Let it flow to satisfy others; but let it not be taken, lest it offer death.”
27. AND HIS EYES WERE ENLIGHTENED,—which, namely, before were dim, through want of food, labour and hunger, the optic spirits failing; but now, honey being taken and the spirits restored, they seemed to be enlightened, refreshed and revived, that he might be stronger and readier to pursue the enemy. Hence the sight of those who fast grows dim, and is restored when food is taken. So Angelomus, Cajetan, Vatablus and others. Otherwise Bede, who says that the eyes of Jonathan were enlightened as the eyes of Adam were opened, when he saw himself naked and acknowledged his fault, Genesis chap. 3.
28. NOW THE PEOPLE WERE FAINT.—In Hebrew and Chaldee, was weary; namely with the labour of pursuing, and with want of food, so that, their strength failing, they could scarcely pursue.
29. MY FATHER HATH TROUBLED THE LAND.—Jonathan said this in a youthful manner; and it would have been true, had not the delay of eating been an impediment to the immediate pursuit of the enemy. So Abulensis and Cajetan. Jonathan therefore did not sin by eating the honey, because he was ignorant of his father’s prohibition; he sinned, however, in publicly blaming his father’s prohibition, and for this the lot of guilt touched him, verse 41. For even if this ordinance of the father had been indiscreet, yet Jonathan ought not to blame it, but rather to excuse it, lest the people be stirred up against their king, and a tumult be raised: which in camps is wont to create the greatest danger.
31. AND THE PEOPLE WERE EXCEEDING WEARY,—both from fasting and from the continual labour of pursuing and slaying the Philistines.
32. AND THE PEOPLE ATE WITH THE BLOOD,—because through hunger they did not wait until the blood flowed from the slaughtered oxen; but forthwith cooked the flesh of the slain, sprinkled with blood; nay they did not so much eat as devour it raw or half raw, like wolves, through hunger and eagerness to eat. God had forbidden the eating of blood, for causes which I have recounted on Genesis chap. 9, verse 4, and passim in Leviticus; but the vehemence of hunger greatly lessened this sin of theirs. So Abulensis.
33. ROLL HERE TO ME NOW A GREAT STONE.—Saul commanded, says Abulensis, that a great stone should be raised, upon which all the animals should be slain, so that of every slaughtered beast the whole blood might flow out at once: whereas before they slaughtered on that level ground, where the blood could flow out only with difficulty and slowly and tardily, which they, through haste and hunger, could not wait for. So Cajetan.
35. AND SAUL BUILT AN ALTAR TO THE LORD,—both that this might be as a monument of the victory gained over the Philistines, as was the altar erected by Moses for the victory won over Amalec, Exodus chap. 17, verse 15; and that he might offer on it peace offerings, in thanksgiving for the victory received, and for propitiation: that is, that he might make God propitious to himself and his, to bring to a like happy end the more wars that remained.
AND THEN FIRST HE BEGAN TO BUILD AN ALTAR TO THE LORD.—You will say: Saul had already built an altar before, chap. 13, verse 9, when before the coming of Samuel he sacrificed on it, and was therefore reproved by Samuel. First, St. Jerome in the Traditions, Angelomus, the Gloss, Lyranus and Hugh answer that this was the first altar pleasing to God which Saul erected. For that of chap. 13 was displeasing to God, by the fault of disobedience. Secondly, Abulensis, Cajetan, Hugh, Lyranus and Sanchez answer that the altar of chap. 13, verse 9, was erected by another’s hand and by the work of the people, this properly by the command and work of Saul. For, as Lyranus rightly observes, that one in Galgal had long before been erected by the Gadites, Rubenites and Manassites in the time of Josue, chap. 22, verse 10.
36. LET US DRAW NEAR HITHER UNTO GOD,—that is, to the ark, verse 25 [sic], in which God sits, that we may consult Him whether we ought to rush upon the enemy’s camp this night. Tropologically St. Gregory: “To draw near to the Lord,” he says, “is to know His will by secret contemplation. And well is it called a drawing near, because we pass from outward things to inward, when we try to know in the divine will the issue of our work. For he who seeks hidden and inmost things and does not forsake outward ones, does not find what he knows not how to approach. When, therefore, counsel is sought by us about hidden matters, let us draw near to the Lord, that what is to be done may then at length be proposed, when it is known in the divine will. For many things seem to be good, and are not. Many things also must be done, but are done more profitably if they are reserved for a fitting time. Some things also some ought to do, and others ought not. These things, if any chosen man neglects to see them in the secret of meditation, he surely does not dispose in right order.”
37. AND SAUL CONSULTED THE LORD,—through Achias the High Priest, clothed with the Ephod, in which were the Urim and Thummim; who in Saul’s name asked God sitting upon the ark what should be done here. “Of old,” says St. Chrysostom, homily 14 to the People, “God was the leader of wars, and without His sentence they never would have dared to engage in battle, and war became to them a matter of piety: for they were conquered not through bodily weakness but through sin, if ever they were conquered: and they conquered, whenever they conquered, not by power and strength but by the goodwill from above.” Let our commanders of camps hear this and imitate it, if they wish to obtain victory. For this is properly given by God, as I have shown elsewhere.
AND HE ANSWERED HIM NOT THAT DAY,—God, being consulted, was silent, to show that He was angry. But with whom, and why? St. Chrysostom, in the homily 14 already cited, answers that God was offended with Saul, on account of the rashness with which he had decreed the law of fasting too rigid and foolish. But St. Gregory gives a more fitting reason: “For God,” he says, “is not seen in a like light of thought, who is always found in the clearness of virtue.” He adds then another cause: that Saul “so wished to destroy the Philistines that none of them could afterwards stir up wars. Great indeed is this day of the mind, in which eternal things are so sought that no temporal enemy is left from slaughter; but because it is granted to none to conquer temporally in such a way that he need not fight at every time, it is justly said: The Lord answered him not that day.”
Abulensis, Cajetan, Serarius and others think that God was silent to indicate that the fast decreed by Saul had not been kept by Jonathan. For granted that Jonathan was ignorant of his father’s ordinance, and therefore did not violate it formally, but only materially, yet many of the people did not know this, who might have been scandalized: therefore God willed by this silence that it be inquired into and Jonathan be betrayed, that he himself, by making known his ignorance of the law, might excuse himself: lest God, or Saul, seem to be a respecter of persons, says Abulensis. Cajetan adds that God willed to humble Jonathan, not on account of the deed, that is, the violated fast, but on account of the defence of his deed, which was irrelevant to the deed, in which he blamed his father’s indiscretion in decreeing the law of fasting, with this public mark, that henceforth he might be more modest and cautious in speaking of royal edicts.