Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
AND JONATHAN AND SAUL WERE TAKEN (by the lot of which follows) (as being in fault, and as having given God cause to be silent and not to answer): BUT THE PEOPLE WENT OUT,—free and clear of fault, as if to say: The lot did not touch the people; but passed them over as innocent: but it touched Saul and Jonathan, and at last Jonathan: because in fact, although Jonathan alone was at last taken and directly marked, yet indirectly Saul also was marked and chastised in his most beloved Jonathan; and tacitly admonished to issue henceforth milder, more useful and easier-to-be-observed edicts; and not to lord it imperiously over his own, but to counsel modestly as a father: otherwise he would have to be punished and chastised in these very persons, his sons as it were.
42. AND SAUL SAID: CAST LOTS BETWEEN ME AND JONATHAN.—Some think that these lots, being divinatory, were superstitious and unlawful, because their divination was expected from the demon. Whence St. Chrysostom, homily 14 to the People, says that the demon instigated Saul to take these lots, that he might add sin to sin, and fulfil worse an oath ill conceived; and might in fact perpetrate the parricide of Jonathan which he had resolved in mind. But others judge more mildly and better, namely that Saul sought these lots from God: for a little before, verse 41, he invoked God to direct the lot, and by it to make the culprit manifest. Wherefore God seems to have moved him to take these lots, and to have directed them, that they might point out Jonathan as guilty. For on this account God did not answer Saul, consulting God through the High Priest, that occasion might be given for the lots, that by them Jonathan might be taken. So Abulensis, Serarius and others. Hear St. Ambrose, in the sermon 36 already cited: “Finally, neither is an end put to the war, nor is a prophetic answer given to the king. Whence we understand that Saul overcame his enemies not so much by the valour of his soldiers as by abstinence. Finally, the fault of one brings cowardice upon all, and by the offence of one weakness is begotten in all. For valour fails in the army, as the fast fails in its observance. Which sin when Saul recognised from the very offence of the Divinity, he at once said that Jonathan was not to be spared, but that the sin committed was to be expiated by the shedding of his blood.”
AND JONATHAN WAS TAKEN,—for the causes which I recounted above. To which add, that although Jonathan did not know his father’s law, he could yet in some way have known it; for when he saw that so many whom he had with him, though greatly hungry and weary, had tasted nothing at all of the honey that lay in their way, he could easily have suspected that some cause lay beneath, which by asking he would most easily have understood, verses 27 and 28. For the very order of the text indicates that the people had gone before him. So Serarius. Add that in Jonathan here God willed to show how subjects ought to reverence the commands of Superiors, though rather rigid and severe, and not to speak against them, as Jonathan had spoken against, but to submit to them humbly and courageously, and bravely to take them up and carry them out. For if Saul sinned in anything by rashness, it was for Jonathan not to expose him before the people, but to inform Samuel, that he might privately admonish and instruct him; as in Religious Orders it is for Provincials and Visitors to admonish the Rectors, if they sin in anything toward their subjects by too great austerity or leniency; while it is for subjects to be silent and obey, and to say with the Psalmist: “For thy sake we are killed all the day long.”
Again, God willed to show how much the execrations of Saul, that is of Superiors, are to be dreaded, and as Theodoret says, their “anathemas,” though imposed for a lighter cause. So Theodoret, Procopius and others.
43. AND BEHOLD I MUST DIE.—In Hebrew, I shall die, that is, I shall be slain by my father; in Chaldee, behold I am bound to death, as if to say: I tasted a very little honey; am I therefore guilty of death? Shall I be slain for a drop of honey? By this piteous voice and lamentation Jonathan moved the people to compassion, that they might rescue him from death. Josephus, book 6 of the Antiquities, chap. 7, explains otherwise the mind and words of Jonathan, namely that Jonathan said this out of constancy and contempt of death: “Saul,” he says, “swears that he will kill him; making his oath of more account than kindred, or nature, or affection. He, not terrified by the threats of death, showed himself of great and generous spirit: I make no entreaty, father, I say; for I gladly bear this death, which frees thee from thy scruple; since it has been my lot first to see so magnificent a victory. For it will be my greatest consolation that the insolence of the Palestines has been subdued by the Hebrews. At these words the whole multitude was moved to grief and pity, and they swear that they will not suffer Jonathan, the author of the victory, to be put to death: and so they rescue him from his father’s curses, and offer prayers to God for the young man, that He may make him free from sin.” But Josephus is wont to adorn and embellish the deeds and sayings of his Hebrews, to display them in pomp to Vespasian and the Romans.
44. THOU SHALT SURELY DIE, JONATHAN.—St. Chrysostom, in the homily 14 cited, accuses Saul, as a parricide; Abulensis, Serarius and others excuse him, as a religious imitator of Abraham, who devoted his son to death to establish justice and military discipline; as Titus Manlius among the Romans killed his son who fought without his order: “Whence from this Manlius,” says Gellius, book 9, chap. 13, “harsh and unsparing commands were called Manlian: because in the war afterwards against the Latins, when he was Consul, he struck his own son with the axe, who, sent by him to scout and forbidden to fight, killed the enemy by whom he had been challenged.” But Saul was more religious than Manlius, for he resolved to immolate his guilty son as a victim for an offended God. Hear St. Ambrose, sermon 36: “See how great was the observance of religion in King Saul, who desired to appease an offended God even by a parricide, and how great is the guilt of a broken fast, which is punished only by the shedding of blood. If Jonathan, ignorant of the fast enjoined by his father, is condemned to death because he broke it, he who knowingly breaks the fast enjoined by Christ, what does he deserve? Therefore, brethren, let us keep the fast appointed for us with all observance, that we may overcome our enemies, spiritual and carnal.”
45. AND THE PEOPLE SAID TO SAUL: SHALL JONATHAN THEN DIE, WHO HATH WROUGHT THIS GREAT SALVATION IN ISRAEL?—Rightly did the people rescue Jonathan from his father’s anger and decree of death, for the causes recounted above.
For Jonathan was the strength, as well as the love, of the people.
FOR HE HATH WROUGHT WITH GOD THIS DAY,—that is, because by the wonderful help of God he has today wrought so great a slaughter of the enemy. The Septuagint and Roman text, for im, that is with, reading with another pointing am, that is people, render, the people of God made this day. Instead of which the Complutensian, corruptly reading hesed, that is mercy, render, because he wrought the mercy of God on this day. But the Chaldee turns another way: because it is manifest before the Lord, he says, that he did it today in ignorance.
47. AND SAUL, HAVING CONFIRMED HIS KINGDOM OVER ISRAEL, FOUGHT AGAINST ALL HIS ENEMIES ROUND ABOUT, etc., AND WHITHERSOEVER HE TURNED HIMSELF, HE OVERCAME,—See here the fortitude of Saul, and the prosperity given him by God. Whence it is plain that he had not yet altogether fallen from God’s favour and grace, although God had already taken away the kingdom from his posterity.
49. NOW THE SONS OF SAUL WERE JONATHAN, AND JESSUI, Saul chose Abner his cousin for the chief AND MELCHISUA.—Jessui, chap. 31, 2, and 1 Paral. chap. 8, 33, is called Aminadab (by Josephus, Jesus), where also a fourth son of his is added, Esbaal, who by another name was called Isboseth, 2 Kings 2, 8. Perhaps he is here omitted because he survived Saul, while the other three fell with Saul, chap. 31.
50. AND THE NAME OF SAUL’S WIFE WAS ACHINOAM.—She was the chief wife and queen. Besides her Saul had a concubine, that is, a secondary wife, named Respha, by whom he begot Armoni and Miphiboseth, 2 Kings 21.
ABNER THE SON OF NER, SAUL’S UNCLE’S SON.—He was therefore of the soldiery. Moreover Cis and Ner, being brothers, had the same father, named Abiel, as is plain of Ner in this place, and of Cis in chap. 9.
52. FOR WHOMSOEVER SAUL SAW TO BE A VALIANT MAN AND FIT FOR WAR, HE TOOK HIM TO HIM.—Great leaders of camps do the same. Tropologically, let the Bishop and Prelate do the same. Whence St. Gregory: “Let the teacher choose,” he says, “soldiers of Christ, let him choose the strong, that while they bravely tame the flesh, they may powerfully overcome unclean spirits. Let him choose, then, those fit for battle, that while amid the gifts of fortitude they are not proud, the glory of triumph may be exalted in heavenly things.”