1 Samuel 13:1 Commentary and Bible Study

There are several chapters here which are full of tremendous contrasts, and which help us to understand the purpose of this book. Two people are set before us: Saul and Jonathan. Saul: he is tall, handsome, endowed with great charm, admired by everyone, and just the person the world would select for a leader. But he is shown in these chapters to be a living, walking, talking disaster. Jonathan? He is Saul’s completely unsung, subordinate son. Nobody has said anything about him, but he is a man of faith, and vision, and well aware what the Lord’s servant ought to do, and he wins the victory. 1 Samuel is a book of contrasts, not a history book. It is a book which is inviting you to look at Saul, the man who does it according to the flesh, and to compare him with a completely unsung hero of faith, who really knows where he stands and is a man of prayer. ‘Saul, reigned one year.’ The Hebrew is very curious. People suggest there is something missing. I am very reluctant to think there is anything missing. It really says, he was one year old, or words to that effect, and sometimes the translators are very puzzled by this, and they say, maybe it should read ‘he was thirty and one years old’, and something has slipped out. But the King James Version translators – they are not alone in this – have decided that it means that the first anniversary of Saul's reign had passed, and he was into his second year, so they translate it along those lines. In other words, what is recorded in the rest of the chapter took place in the second year of his reign. So it is right at the beginning of his reign. But it is put in a way that we are not used to.‘Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.’ Two thousand men, plus one thousand men! That is not enough. What was the purpose of them? The significance of this is that he had disbanded the army after the Ammonite troubles and sent them all home, but he didn't at once form a large standing army. You either disband altogether, which had previously been the way of Israel, or you begin to organise an army which is going to do something about the Philistines, because that's what he was appointed to do. Saul is captain of the children of God, meaning the deliver. Are three thousand men really going to combat all the Philistine incursions happening all along the borders constantly? What we learning from this is that Saul has not the slightest intention of carrying out his duties as captain of Israel, captain of God's people. He doesn't seem to be in any hurry, and that seems to be what we learn from this very small standing army. It is a totally inadequate provision. It is just a slight pass at doing something, and he gives a thousand to his son Jonathan. Jonathan, Saul's son, was old enough to be leading a thousand men. He was at the very least in his twenties, so we can guess at the age of Saul at the beginning of his reign.