Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
16. AND THE LORD REQUIRED IT AT THE HAND OF THE ENEMIES OF DAVID.—The author of the book here interrupts the sequence of the history and of the pact, to signify that it so came about afterwards in fact, as Jonathan had imprecated: namely that God “required,” that is, exacted vengeance on Saul and the other enemies of David, who had unjustly persecuted and afflicted him. So Angelomus, who also offers another sense, namely this: “God required,” that is, exacted an account from those who would not make a covenant with David, as Jonathan had made, seeing that they saw the Lord stand and fight with David.
The Septuagint, the Chaldee and Vatablus, from the Hebrew, render it fittingly thus, and let the Lord require it at the hand of David’s enemies; and so expound it that these words are as it were the matter of the covenant which Jonathan made with David, as though to say: Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying: let the Lord require, that is, chastise and avenge, David’s enemies who unjustly vex and pursue him, and consequently chastise and punish me and mine, if I break faith, and from a friend become his enemy.
19. FOR THY SEAT WILL BE LOOKED FOR,—that is, the place of thy sitting at the table; as though to say: Saul will ask why the place of thy seat is empty, that is, why thou art absent from the table contrary to custom. For David was often wont, especially on feast days or notable days, such as the Kalends were, to sit with him at table, as the king’s son-in-law, in the third place, say the Septuagint and Josephus. For at table Saul sat first, Jonathan his son sat second on the right, David the son-in-law third; but Abner, Saul’s cousin and the commander of the army, sat second on the left, opposite Jonathan.
UNTIL THE DAY AFTER,—for on the first day of the Kalends Saul made a solemn feast of the peace-offerings he had sacrificed to God; but on the second day he consumed the remains according to the law, Leviticus 7. Wherefore until the third day David’s place at Saul’s table was to be empty, and Saul was to ask Jonathan the cause of David’s absence.
THOU SHALT THEREFORE GO DOWN QUICKLY, AND COME TO THE PLACE WHERE THOU MUST BE HIDDEN ON THE DAY WHEN IT IS LAWFUL TO WORK,—as though to say: On the first day after the Kalends thou shalt come to Ezel, to lie hid there; for on the very day of the Kalends it is not lawful to “work,” and consequently to set out and make a long journey. For although the Kalends or Neomenia was not properly a feast ordained by the law, so that working and travelling were forbidden on it, yet the people from devotion and custom kept the Neomenia as a feast, and on that day ceased from work and gave themselves to sacrifices and banquets. So Abulensis, who cites St. Augustine saying: “The Jewish women would do better to spin on the Neomenias than to dance shamelessly on them.” Perhaps also Jonathan is not speaking of the Kalends but of the Sabbath, which then fell, on which it was not lawful to work.
to pierce the mark with an arrow. So the Septuagint, the Chaldee, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion and others.
22. THE LORD HATH SENT THEE AWAY,—free, namely; God has freed thee from Saul’s hand, and has made it so that, knowing through me his hatred against thee, thou mightest flee free and depart.
23. AND AS FOR THE WORD WHICH THOU AND I HAVE SPOKEN, THE LORD BE BETWEEN THEE AND ME;—as witness, namely; as though to say: We two alone have made this covenant; wherefore it has no witness but God, who alone is sufficient for all, to make us ever mindful of this covenant made before him, and to compel us to keep it exactly.
25. AND WHEN THE KING SAT ON HIS SEAT.—Hence Saul seems to have sat at table, not reclined; wherefore the custom of reclining at table among the Hebrews seems to have been introduced later.
JONATHAN ROSE,—that is, rose up to Abner as he came, out of honour, says Vatablus. The Chaldee renders it, Jonathan stood; the Septuagint, Jonathan went before him; for since Saul’s seat adjoined the wall, Jonathan had first to pass to his own place before Saul with his sitting closed the way to it against him. Or “Jonathan rose,” namely to go to his own place at the table and occupy it by sitting.
26. NOR PURIFIED.—Hence it appears that this banquet of King Saul at the Kalends was prepared from peace-offerings, that is, offered to God for the peace, prosperity and happiness of the whole month; namely that God might make this month fortunate and salutary to himself and his kingdom. For the unclean could eat common food and sit at the king’s table: for they were not kept from the company of men, but from sacred things, such as entering the temple. Saul therefore thought that David had contracted legal uncleanness from the slaying of some Philistine, or some like thing, and had not yet purified himself from it, and therefore kept away from the king’s table, at which flesh offered to God was served, which the unclean could not eat.
27. WHY COMETH NOT THE SON OF ISAI?—Behold here the gall of Saul showing itself: for he does not call David by his name, but contemptuously calls him the son of Isai, a man of the common people.
28. HE EARNESTLY ASKED LEAVE OF ME TO GO TO BETHLEHEM.—Jonathan lies, but dutifully, thinking it lawful for him to do so to excuse David his friend.
30. THOU SON OF A WOMAN THAT WILLINGLY RUNS AFTER A MAN,—that is, son of a harlot: for such a one seeks out men and entices them to crime. So too the Septuagint: Son, they say, of girls who come of their own accord; whence they seem to have read naaroth, that is, “of girls”; now they read naavath. Hence with Pagninus they render it, Son of perverse rebellion, for that is what it signifies; for which our version, with the Septuagint, with other points, reads moredoth, that is, of women who go down to men and thrust themselves on them of their own accord: for yarad signifies to go down. Or our version reads mardot, that is, of women who rule, who by their allurement and beauty rule over men, from the root rada, to rule. The sense therefore is, as though Saul said: Thou seemest to me, O Jonathan, not to be my son, but the son of an adulterous mother, because thou dost not obey nor favour me, but lovest David more than me, as if he or some kinsman of his were thy father, and not I, and as if thy mother had conceived and borne thee not of me but of David; and therefore had engendered in thee love not of me but of David. Whence it follows:
TO THE CONFUSION OF THY MOTHER,—as though to say: By this very fact that thou lovest David so much, thou confoundest thyself and thy mother; for thou showest that she conceived thee not of me but of some friend of David.
31. HE IS THE CHILD OF DEATH,—that is, he is guilty of death, verse 31, he is worthy of death, and therefore appointed to death by me.
Allegorically Angelomus says: “David, hidden in the field, is Christ concealed. ‘He was in the world,’ says John, ‘and the world knew him not.’ He sat beside the stone, because he was written of on the tables of the law. Saul, hating him and sitting at the banquet, judged him a child of death; and the Jewish people, feasting at the Pasch, plotted the death of Christ.”
41. OUT OF THE PLACE (of the stone Ezel) THAT LOOKED TOWARDS THE SOUTH.—In Hebrew negeb, that is, towards the South, or the Auster. The Septuagint, however, kept the word ergab as a proper name, but that was corrupted by copyists, so that for negeb one reads Ergab or Argag, or Argaph, or Annegab. Hear St. Jerome in the Places of the Hebrews: “Ergab, to which place Jonathan the son of Saul directed his dart, practising with military javelins. For which Aquila and Symmachus interpreted a stone, although Symmachus in another place for this has said a circuit.”
St. Jerome calls a “dart” a weapon or javelin made like a spit; so does Virgil, Aeneid book 7, saying:
And they fight with the round point and the Sabine dart.
FALLING ON HIS FACE TO THE GROUND, HE ADORED THREE TIMES,—that is, three times he prostrated himself on the ground, and so showed reverence to Jonathan.
42. ALL THAT WE HAVE SWORN IN THE NAME OF THE LORD,—namely, let it be firm and sure; or, let us always be mindful of it. It is an ellipsis and reticence wonderfully fitting to those who grieve: for these from sorrow leave much unsaid; for sorrow stops their mouth and throat, so that they break their words and cut off or leave half-said their meaning. Such is that of Christ weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem: “If thou also hadst known,” Luke 19,