The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Jonathan Eats the Honey
1 Samuel 14:24–36 — Jonathan Eats the Honey. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
24Now the men of Israel were in distress that day, for Saul had placed the troops under an oath, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food before evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies.” So none of the troops tasted any food.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’îš- yiś·rā·’êl nig·gaś ha·hū bay·yō·wm šā·’ūl ’eṯ- hā·‘ām way·yō·’el lê·mōr ’ā·rūr hā·’îš ’ă·šer- yō·ḵal le·ḥem ‘aḏ- hā·‘e·reḇ wə·niq·qam·tî mê·’ō·yə·ḇay wə·lō kāl- hā·‘ām ṭā·‘am lā·ḥem
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-man-of Israel was-hard-driven on-that day; and-Saul laid-an-oath-upon the-people saying, “Cursed the-man who eats bread until the-evening, and-I-have-avenged-myself of-my-enemies.” And-not tasted all the-people bread.
Where the English smooths the original
This command of Saul did not proceed from a proper attitude towards the Lord, but was an act of false zeal, in which Saul had more regard to himself and his own kingly power than to the cause of the kingdom of Jehovah
Saul rashly exacted from them an oath, which led to three evil results.
Such was his hypocrisy and arrogancy, that he thought to attribute to his policy that which God had given by the hand of Jonathan.The Geneva annotators read Saul's motive at its worst; Poole and Benson, quoted later in this unit, allow that “Saul's intention was good.” The brief preserves both readings, and this synthesis does not adjudicate between them.
25Then all the troops entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵāl hā·’ā·reṣ bā·’ū ḇay·yā·‘ar way·hî ḏə·ḇaš ‘al- pə·nê haś·śā·ḏeh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-all the-land came into-the-woodland; and-there-was honey upon the-face-of the-field.
Where the English smooths the original
The wild bees, as has been often seen in the American forests, fill the hollow trees with honey, till the combs, breaking with the weight, let the honey run down upon the ground.
signifies here a woody district, in which forests alternated with tracts of arable land and meadows.
All they of the land, Heb. all the land , i.e. the people of the land; as it is explained below, 1 Samuel 14:29 ; and so the word is taken Genesis 41:57 . All the Israelites who were with Saul.
26And when they entered the forest and saw the flowing honey, not one of them put his hand to his mouth, because they feared the oath.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hā·‘ām way·yā·ḇō ’el- hay·ya·‘ar wə·hin·nêh hê·leḵ də·ḇāš wə·’ên- maś·śîḡ yā·ḏōw ’el- pîw kî- hā·‘ām ’eṯ- yā·rê haš·šə·ḇu·‘āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-came the-people into the-woodland, and-behold a-flowing of-honey; and-there-was-none reaching his-hand to his-mouth, for feared the-people the-oath.
Where the English smooths the original
27Jonathan, however, had not heard that his father had bound the people with the oath. So he reached out the end of the staff in his hand, dipped it into the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·yō·w·nā·ṯān lō- šā·ma‘ ’ā·ḇîw ’eṯ- hā·‘ām bə·haš·bî·a‘ way·yiš·laḥ ’eṯ- qə·ṣêh ham·maṭ·ṭeh ’ă·šer bə·yā·ḏōw way·yiṭ·bōl ’ō·w·ṯāh bə·ya‘·raṯ had·də·ḇāš way·yā·šeḇ yā·ḏōw ’el- pîw ‘ê·nāw wat·tå̄·rō·nå̄h
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Jonathan had-not heard when-his-father made-the-people-swear; and-he-stretched-out the-end of-the-staff that was-in-his-hand and-dipped it in-the-wood-of-honey, and-returned his-hand to his-mouth; and-his-eyes brightened.
Where the English smooths the original
But this is a correction made by the Jews ( kri ), and the written text ( c'tib ) has "his eyes saw," which is more forcible and poetic.Pulpit here rejects the reading the AV and most English versions follow; K&D, quoted alongside, defends the Masoretic Qere. This synthesis reports the split rather than settling it.
his lost strength, which is reflected in the eye, having been brought back by this invigorating taste.
The opposite idea is conveyed by the Heb. words for fainting , which are derived from roots meaning ‘to be shrouded in darkness.
28Then one of the soldiers told him, “Your father bound the troops with a solemn oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’ That is why the people are faint.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·ya·‘an ’îš mê·hā·‘ām way·yō·mer ’ā·ḇî·ḵā ’eṯ- hā·‘ām lê·mōr haš·bê·a‘ hiš·bî·a‘ ’ā·rūr hā·’îš ’ă·šer- yō·ḵal le·ḥem hay·yō·wm hā·‘ām way·yā·‘ap̄
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-answered a-man from-the-people and-said: “Adjuring, thy-father adjured the-people saying, ‘Cursed the-man who eats bread this-day.’” And-the-people is-weary.
Where the English smooths the original
at the close of the verse, should be rendered, and the people are faint; they were part of the speech of the soldier who was telling Jonathan of his father’s rash oath.
the words are part of the man's complaint.
There is great diversity of opinion whether this be part or not of the speech of the man who informed Jonathan of the oath forced on the people by Saul.Pulpit dissents from Barnes, Ellicott, Cambridge and K&D on who is speaking this clause. The brief preserves the minority reading; both are printed here so the reader can weigh them.
29“My father has brought trouble to the land,” Jonathan replied. “Just look at how my eyes have brightened because I tasted a little of this honey.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·ḇî ’eṯ- ‘ā·ḵar hā·’ā·reṣ yō·w·nā·ṯān way·yō·mer rə·’ū- nā kî- ‘ê·nay ’ō·rū kî ṭā·‘am·tî mə·‘aṭ haz·zeh də·ḇaš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said Jonathan: “My-father has-troubled the-land. See, I-pray, that brightened are-my-eyes because I-tasted a-little of-this honey.
Where the English smooths the original
The same word as was applied to Achan Joshua 7:25 , and gave its name to the valley of Achor. This additional reference to Joshua is remarkable
The zeal of defending himself makes him run into the other extreme of accusing his father, and that before the people, whom by this means he might have stirred up to a sedition.
This was not wisely said by Jonathan; how much soever his father was to be blamed, it did not become him as a son thus to reflect upon himGill and Poole both judge Jonathan's speech imprudent even while judging Saul's oath wrong. The brief carries no voice defending the speech, and this synthesis does not manufacture one.
30How much better it would have been if the troops had eaten freely today from the plunder they took from their enemies! Would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been much greater?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ap̄ kî lū hā·‘ām ’ā·ḵōl ’ā·ḵal hay·yō·wm miš·šə·lal mā·ṣā kî ’ō·yə·ḇāw ’ă·šer ‘at·tāh lō- mak·kāh bap·pə·liš·tîm rā·ḇə·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“How-much-more if-only had-surely-eaten the-people today from-the-spoil of-its-enemies that it-found — for now not-great has-been the-blow among-the-Philistines!”
Where the English smooths the original
Thus men, by their rashness, hinder what they most desire.
This clause is really an indicative: "For now the slaughter of the Philistines is not very great.
How much more if the people had eaten to-day of the booty of its enemies, would not the overthrow among the Philistines truly have then become great?
31That day, after the Israelites had struck down the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon, the people were very faint.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ha·hū bay·yō·wm way·yak·kū bap·pə·liš·tîm mim·miḵ·māś ’ay·yā·lō·nāh hā·‘ām mə·’ōḏ way·yā·‘ap̄
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-struck among-the-Philistines on-that day from-Michmash to-Aijalon-ward; and-the-people was-weary exceedingly.
Where the English smooths the original
The battle and pursuit had then extended some twenty miles of country.
It lies upon the side of a hill to the south of a fine valley which opens from between the two Bethhorons right down to the western plain of the Philistines
because Saul had forbidden them to eat before the evening
32So they rushed greedily to the plunder, taking sheep, cattle, and calves. They slaughtered them on the ground and ate meat with the blood still in it.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·ya·ʿaś hā·‘ām ’el- šå̄·lå̄l way·yiq·ḥū ṣōn ū·ḇā·qār ū·ḇə·nê ḇā·qār way·yiš·ḥă·ṭū- ’ā·rə·ṣāh way·yō·ḵal hā·‘ām ‘al- had·dām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-people pounced upon the-spoil, and-took sheep and-oxen and-sons-of-oxen, and-slaughtered earthward; and-ate the-people upon the-blood.
Where the English smooths the original
Thus they who made conscience of obeying the king’s commandment, for fear of the curse, made no scruple of transgressing God’s command.
The moment that the day, with its enforced fast, was over, they flew, like Mussulmans at sunset during the fast of Ramazan, upon the captured cattleEllicott is quoting A. P. Stanley, and the comparison to Ramadan is a Victorian traveller's analogy, not a claim about the text. It is reproduced because it captures the physical fact the Hebrew verb describes.
the fasting people flew upon the spoil to satisfy their hunger, and in doing so transgressed the primeval prohibition ( Genesis 9:4 ), which was re-enacted in the Mosaic law ( Leviticus 17:10-14 ), and observed in the early days of the Christian Church
They were painfully conscientious in keeping the king's order for fear of the curse, but had no scruple in transgressing God's command.
33Then someone reported to Saul: “Look, the troops are sinning against the LORD by eating meat with the blood still in it.” “You have broken faith,” said Saul. “Roll a large stone over here at once.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yag·gî·ḏū lə·šā·’ūl lê·mōr hin·nêh hā·‘ām ḥō·ṭim Yah·weh le·’ĕ·ḵōl ‘al- had·dām bə·ḡaḏ·tem way·yō·mer gōl·lū- gə·ḏō·w·lāh ’e·ḇen ’ê·lay hay·yō·wm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-they-told to-Saul saying, “Behold, the-people are-sinning against-YHWH by-eating upon the-blood.” And-he-said, “You-have-dealt-treacherously! Roll to-me this-day a-great stone.”
Where the English smooths the original
shows us what a strange complex character was Saul’s: now superstitiously watchful lest the letter of the Law should be broken; now recklessly careless whether or not the most solemn commands of God were executed.
He sees their fault, but not his own, in giving the occasion of it.
i.e. faithlessly, to the covenant between Israel and Jehovah.
34Then he said, “Go among the troops and tell them, ‘Each man must bring me his ox or his sheep, slaughter them in this place, and then eat. Do not sin against the LORD by eating meat with the blood still in it.’” So that night everyone brought his ox and slaughtered it there.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šā·’ūl way·yō·mer pu·ṣū ḇā·‘ām wa·’ă·mar·tem lā·hem ’îš hag·gî·šū ’ê·lay šō·w·rōw wə·’îš śə·yê·hū ū·šə·ḥaṭ·tem bā·zeh wa·’ă·ḵal·tem wə·lō- ṯe·ḥeṭ·’ū Yah·weh le·’ĕ·ḵōl ’el- had·dām hal·lay·lāh ḵāl hā·‘ām ’îš way·yag·gi·šū šō·w·rōw ḇə·yā·ḏōw way·yiš·ḥă·ṭū- šām
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Saul said, “Scatter yourselves among the-people and-say to-them, ‘Bring-near to-me each-man his-ox and-each-man his-sheep, and-slaughter in-this and-eat; and-do-not sin against-YHWH by-eating to the-blood.’” And-brought-near all the-people, each-man his-ox in-his-hand, that-night, and-slaughtered there.
Where the English smooths the original
To prevent this violation of the law, Saul ordered a large stone to be rolled, and those that slaughtered the oxen to cut their throats on that stone.
so that the blood could run off properly upon the ground, and the flesh be separated from the blood.
are divided about these creatures slain, whether for sacrifices or common foodGill is reporting a rabbinic dispute (b. Zebachim 120a) about whether these animals were sacrifices or ordinary food, and he decides for ordinary food. The dispute bears directly on how v. 35's altar should be read.
35Then Saul built an altar to the LORD; it was the first time he had built an altar to the LORD.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šā·’ūl way·yi·ḇen miz·bê·aḥ Yah·weh ’ō·ṯōw hê·ḥêl liḇ·nō·wṯ miz·bê·aḥ Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-built Saul an-altar to-YHWH; it he-began to-build as-an-altar to-YHWH.
Where the English smooths the original
Saul was turning aside from God, and now he begins to build altars, being then most zealous, as many are, for the form of godliness when he was denying the power of it.Henry's note in this brief is a single block comment on 14:24-35 rather than verse-by-verse exposition, and it is quoted here at the verse it bears on most directly.
So this is quoted as another evidence of his neglect of God and his worship.
This altar was probably not intended to serve as a place of sacrifice, but simply to be a memorial of the presence of God
The great Jewish commentators are divided as to the precise meaning of the old Hebrew language of this verse.
36And Saul said, “Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until dawn, leaving no man alive!” “Do what seems good to you,” the troops replied. But the priest said, “We must consult God here.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šā·’ūl way·yō·mer nê·rə·ḏāh ’a·ḥă·rê p̄ə·liš·tîm lay·lāh wə·nā·ḇō·zāh ḇā·hem ‘aḏ- ’ō·wr hab·bō·qer naš·’êr bā·hem wə·lō- ’îš ʿă·śē·hs kāl- haṭ·ṭō·wḇ bə·‘ê·ne·ḵā way·yō·mə·rū hak·kō·hên way·yō·mer niq·rə·ḇāh ’el- hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm hă·lōm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Saul said, “Let-us-go-down after the-Philistines by-night and-plunder among-them until the-light of-the-morning, and-let-us-not leave among-them a-man.” And-they-said, “All that-is-good in-thine-eyes, do.” And-the-priest said, “Let-us-draw-near here to-God.”
Where the English smooths the original
Only one man in that army flushed with victory dared, with the bravery which alone proceeds from righteousness, to withstand the imperious sovereign.Ellicott names the high priest Ahijah and reconstructs his motive — that no command to exterminate these Philistines had been given. The reconstruction is Ellicott's inference; the verse itself records only the proposal to draw near.
Ahijah, with equal courage and faithfulness, worthy of his office as "the priest," when every one else yielded to Saul's humor, proposed that they should draw near to God to inquire of Him.
Perhaps he felt that Saul’s neglect to wait for God’s answer in the morning ( 1 Samuel 14:19 ) had already borne evil fruit.
let us draw near hither, and inquire by the word of the LordGill is quoting the Targum's expansion of the priest's words, not the Hebrew text, which says only “let us draw near here to God.”
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens on a verb of driving: Israel נִגַּשׂ (nig·gaś, H5065), the taskmaster's root, and K&D renders it “pressed (i.e., fatigued) … through the military service and fighting.” Pulpit observes that the same term named sheer terror in 1 Samuel 13:6. Then comes the oath. Cambridge itemises its yield with a coroner's precision — it “led to three evil results,” hindering the pursuit, trapping Jonathan in involuntary trespass, and occasioning the people's sin at v. 32. K&D locates the fault not in severity but in direction: the oath “did not proceed from a proper attitude towards the Lord,” as the Hebrew itself shows in the reflexive Nifal וְנִקַּמְתִּי, “till I have avenged myself.” Geneva is harsher still, charging Saul with meaning “to attribute to his policy that which God had given by the hand of Jonathan.” Benson and Poole, in fairness, both allow that “Saul's intention was good” and fault only the rigour and the sanction; Poole's measured verdict is that the penalty was “a punishment far exceeding the fault.” ⚙ The narrator then does something crueller than argument: he walks the starving army into a wood where the ground itself is running with honey. Ellicott explains the natural fact — combs breaking under their weight in hollow trees — and Poole and Pulpit both note that this is the covenant's own signature, the land flowing with milk and honey (Deuteronomy 32:13; Psalm 81:16). Gill states the outcome plainly: they “took not any of the honey and ate it, though it was so near at hand.” The men fear the oath (יָרֵא, H3372) exactly where Scripture elsewhere asks them to fear the LORD.
Jonathan “had not שָׁמַע” — the hearing-verb that carries obedience inside it. Poole supplies the reason: he was “absent, and in pursuit of the Philistines.” What follows is the unit's textual crux and its central image at once. The staff-tip goes into what Pulpit renders literally as “the honey wood,” and then the consonants וַתָּרֹאנָה divide the witnesses: the written text reads “his eyes saw” (râʼâh, H7200), the Masoretic correction reads “became bright” (ʼôwr, H215). K&D takes the correction, explaining the physiology as the ancients read it — “his lost strength, which is reflected in the eye, having been brought back by this invigorating taste.” Pulpit takes the written text and says why: “his eyes saw, which is more forcible and poetic.” Cambridge lights the other side of the same idiom, noting that the Hebrew words for fainting come “from roots meaning ‘to be shrouded in darkness,’” and sends the reader to Psalm 13:3. Ellicott adds the Talmud's practical footnote from Yoma 83, prescribing honey for hunger-dimmed sight on the strength of this verse. ⚙ Then Jonathan names his father with the Achan word. עָכַר (ʻâkar, H5916) means to roil water into mud; Barnes calls the link to Joshua 7:25 and the valley of Achor “remarkable,” and Cambridge and Pulpit concur, K&D adding Genesis 34:30. It is not a light charge — in the Joshua precedent, the troubler of Israel was stoned. Poole and Gill both flinch at the speech: Gill judges “it did not become him as a son thus to reflect upon him,” and Poole warns it “might have stirred up to a sedition.” Benson draws the moral that the whole unit is arranged to prove: “Thus men, by their rashness, hinder what they most desire.”
The narrator measures the diminished victory in geography. Ellicott: “The battle and pursuit had then extended some twenty miles of country.” Barnes locates Aijalon on the very road the Philistines would take home; Gill, citing Bunting, gives twelve miles, and Poole and Gill differ over which Aijalon is meant — an honest disagreement the brief preserves. Twice more the rare root עָיֵף (ʻâyêph, H5888) is used of Israel, the word Pulpit and K&D both trace to Judges 4:21 and Sisera's killing exhaustion. Then the oath's term expires and the army becomes what Gill calls a bird of prey: “Like a swift and ravenous bird, as the eagle.” Ellicott quotes Stanley's arresting comparison — the moment the enforced fast ended “they flew, like Mussulmans at sunset during the fast of Ramazan, upon the captured cattle.” Cambridge names the precise transgression, “the primeval prohibition (Genesis 9:4), which was re-enacted in the Mosaic law (Leviticus 17:10–14), and observed in the early days of the Christian Church (Acts 15:20)”; Pulpit adds a second breach, Leviticus 22:28. Benson's sentence is the unit in miniature: “they who made conscience of obeying the king's commandment, for fear of the curse, made no scruple of transgressing God's command.” ⚙ Saul's response is genuinely corrective and genuinely late. He charges them with בְּגַדְתֶּם (bâgad, H898) — Pulpit, “dealt treacherously, i.e. faithlessly, to the covenant between Israel and Jehovah”; K&D, “Ye act faithlessly towards Jehovah.” Benson and Poole both note the blind spot in the same breath: “He sees their fault, but not his own, in giving the occasion of it.” Ellicott finds the whole man in the gesture — “now superstitiously watchful lest the letter of the Law should be broken; now recklessly careless whether or not the most solemn commands of God were executed.” And then the altar, and a verb the commentators cannot agree on: הֵחֵל (châlal, H2490, Hifil, “he began”). Barnes thinks he began and did not finish, “in his haste to pursue the Philistines that night”; Cambridge and Pulpit prefer that he began the royal custom of altar-building; Ellicott lays out Abarbanel's and the Midrash's competing readings; K&D suspects the altar was a memorial rather than a place of sacrifice. Henry, whose one comment covers all of vv. 24–35, supplies the verdict most of them imply.
Saul proposes a night pursuit to the light of morning, leaving not a man. The army's answer — “do all that is הַטּוֹב בְּעֵינֶיךָ, good in thine eyes” — closes the unit's eye-motif in the worst possible register: the eyes that were brightened in v. 27 by a son's taste are now a king's unchecked judgement. Ellicott's sentence on what happens next deserves to be read slowly: “Only one man in that army flushed with victory dared, with the bravery which alone proceeds from righteousness, to withstand the imperious sovereign.” Barnes names the priest and the pattern, comparing 1 Kings 22:7 — Ahijah “with equal courage and faithfulness, worthy of his office as ‘the priest,’ when every one else yielded to Saul's humor, proposed that they should draw near to God to inquire of Him.” Cambridge and Poole both suspect the priest has the morning in mind, when Saul broke off the consultation at v. 19: “Perhaps he felt that Saul's neglect to wait for God's answer in the morning had already borne evil fruit.” ⚙ The cohortative נִקְרְבָה (qârab, H7126) is the cultic verb of approach, and it is the first thing in thirteen verses that anyone proposes doing toward God rather than about him. The unit began with a man swearing by a curse to avenge himself; it ends with a priest saying, let us come near and ask. That the next verse records no answer is the narrator's judgement, not this synthesis's.
⚙ Read under Sola Scriptura and offered to be tested: this unit is about which word a people will actually fear. Twice the narrator tells us what Israel feared — the oath (v. 26) — and twice he shows us what they did not fear, the standing prohibition on blood that predates Sinai (Genesis 9:4) and stands written in the law (Leviticus 17:10–14; 19:26). Benson, Poole and JFB each make this observation independently and in almost identical words — JFB: they “were painfully conscientious in keeping the king's order for fear of the curse, but had no scruple in transgressing God's command” — while Barnes and Cambridge establish the antiquity and reach of the law they broke. The mechanism is worth naming precisely: Saul's oath was not too religious, it was religious in the wrong direction — וְנִקַּמְתִּי, “till I have avenged myself” — and a sanction aimed at the king's honour first starved the army, then drove it into a real transgression of God's own word. A command that cannot be kept without breaking a better one has already failed, however solemnly it was sworn. Over against it the text sets a smaller thing: a son who had not heard, a staff-tip, a little honey, and eyes that opened. ⚙ The synthesis offered here, and open to correction, is that the unit is arranged as a contrast between imposed severity that darkens and given provision that enlightens — the land's own honey lying free on the face of the field while a curse forbids it. What rescues the passage from being merely a lesson in prudence is where it lands: not on Jonathan's vindication, which the narrator withholds until v. 45, but on a priest saying let us draw near. The line offered as this unit's pullquote below is ⚙ commentary, not Scripture, and must not be quoted as though it were a verse.
The king's curse made the people faint; the honey the land itself gave made one man see.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The verb the oath negates for the whole army in v. 24, that Jonathan uses of himself in v. 29, and that becomes his confession before the lot in 1 Samuel 14:43, is טָעַם (ṭâʻam, H2938) — rare, standing in only ten verses in the canon. Psalm 34:8 puts that same rare verb in the imperative and makes God its object: taste and see that the LORD is good. ⚙ The pairing of tasting with seeing is not imported: it is exactly what 1 Samuel 14:27–29 reports, a taste followed by eyes that brightened, and Cambridge independently links the brightened eye to Psalm 13:3. The Verifier records the shared lexeme; the thematic rhyme is this synthesis's reading, offered as such. Job 12:11 and Job 34:3 use the same verb of the palate testing words, and 2 Samuel 19:35 of Barzillai's failing taste.
Psalm 34:8 · 1 Samuel 14:43 · Job 12:11
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2938 ṭâʻam, rare — in 10 verses canon-wide (Psalm 34:8 score 0.20; 1 Samuel 14:43 score 0.38, which also shares H1706 dᵉbash and H7586 Shâʼûwl; Job 12:11 score 0.20). A rare shared lexeme, not a quotation of one text by another
Twice in this unit (vv. 28, 31) Israel is described with עָיֵף (ʻâyêph, H5888), “to languish” — a root standing in only five verses. Both Pulpit and K&D send the reader to Judges 4:21 for the identical form: it is the word for Sisera, so spent that he sleeps through the peg. 2 Samuel 21:15 uses it of David himself, grown faint in battle against the Philistines — the same enemy, the same exhaustion, a later king. Jeremiah 4:31 uses it of Zion gasping in labour. ⚙ The narrator's word choice matters: at the very hour of Israel's victory over Philistia he describes the victors with the vocabulary of the defeated and the dying.
Judges 4:21 · 2 Samuel 21:15 · Jeremiah 4:31
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H5888 ʻâyêph, rare — in 5 verses canon-wide (Judges 4:21 score 0.40; 2 Samuel 21:15 score 0.42, also sharing H6430 Pᵉlishtîy; Jeremiah 4:31 score 0.40). K&D and Pulpit independently name Judges 4:21 for this form. No quotation is claimed in either direction
Jonah 3:7 carries the same rare verb טָעַם in the same construction Saul uses: a royal decree that no living thing — man, herd or flock — shall taste anything. ⚙ The parallel is structural and the contrast is the point. The king of Nineveh's enforced fast is directed to God and it works; Saul's is directed to his own vengeance (and I have avenged myself, v. 24) and it hinders the very pursuit it was sworn to speed. 2 Samuel 3:35 shows David refusing food under oath until sunset in mourning — the third royal fast in the canon built on this verb, and the only one the narrator does not fault. This synthesis claims no literary dependence among the three, only that the Hebrew places them in one small verbal family.
Jonah 3:7 · 2 Samuel 3:35
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2938 ṭâʻam (in 10 vv) at Jonah 3:7 (score 0.21, also H6629 tsôʼn) and 2 Samuel 3:35 (score 0.22, also H3899 lechem and H7650 shâbaʻ). Tiered structural rather than verbal because the shared motif — a royal fast decree — is what the link rests on; no text quotes another
“My father has עָכַר the land” (v. 29) uses the root (ʻâkar, H5916) that the lexicon glosses “properly, to roil water.” Barnes: “The same word as was applied to Achan Joshua 7:25, and gave its name to the valley of Achor. This additional reference to Joshua is remarkable.” Cambridge states the same identification in one line; Pulpit cites both Joshua 7:25 and Genesis 34:30; K&D directs the reader to Genesis 34:30, where Jacob uses it of Simeon and Levi. ⚙ The charge is heavier than English shows. In Joshua, the troubler of Israel is the reason Israel cannot stand before its enemies, and he is executed. Jonathan is saying, in one word and before the ranks, that the reason this victory stalled is the man at its head — which is why Poole reads the speech as verging on sedition.
Joshua 7:25 · Genesis 34:30
basis: Verifier (pair check run for this badge, since the pair was not in the candidate list): shared Hebrew lexeme H5916 ʻâkar (in 13 vv), plus H2088 zeh (in 1060 vv, too common to carry weight). Independently attested in the brief: Barnes, Cambridge and Pulpit each identify this as the Achan word of Joshua 7:25, and K&D and Pulpit add Genesis 34:30. Kept structural rather than verbal: 13 verses is uncommon but not rare enough to claim quotation, and no text cites the other
The people “ate upon the blood” (עַל־הַדָּם, v. 32; the preposition shifts to אֶל in v. 34, a variation K&D notes). The brief's commentators converge without prompting: Barnes — “the prohibition was older than the Law of Moses Genesis 9:4. Compare Acts 15:20, Acts 15:29”; Cambridge — “the primeval prohibition (Genesis 9:4), which was re-enacted in the Mosaic law (Leviticus 17:10–14), and observed in the early days of the Christian Church (Acts 15:20)”; Ellicott cites Leviticus 17:10–14 and 19:26; K&D cites Leviticus 19:26; Pulpit adds the breach of Leviticus 22:28. ⚙ Saul's stone (v. 33) is a field-expedient for the drainage the law requires, and Ellicott is right that it shows the king determined the Law “should be kept and honoured, even under circumstances of the direst necessity.” The Acts link is cross-Testament and cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers — Greek and Hebrew lexemes are not commensurable — so it is recorded here as a shared legal tradition explicitly attested by Barnes and Cambridge, not as a verbal link.
Genesis 9:4 · Leviticus 17:10-14 · Acts 15:20
basis: Cross-Testament and therefore never verbal: shared Strong's numbers cannot bridge Hebrew and Greek. Basis is the legal tradition itself, attested in the brief by Barnes (Genesis 9:4; Acts 15:20, 29), Cambridge (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10-14; Acts 15:20), Ellicott (Leviticus 17:10-14; 19:26) and K&D (Leviticus 19:26). Within the Hebrew side, H1818 dâm is shared with Hosea 4:2 (score 0.18, also H422 ʼâlâh)
Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge and Pulpit all correct the English at v. 26 to “Behold, a stream of honey,” and Gill records the old Latin attempts ambulatio mellis and itio mellis — the walking of honey. The noun הֵלֶךְ (hêlek, H1982) is one of the rarest in the canon: two verses. The other is 2 Samuel 12:4, where it is Nathan's traveller who arrives at the rich man's house and is fed at the poor man's cost. ⚙ The senses genuinely diverge — a flowing in one, a wayfarer in the other — so nothing verbal should be claimed, and this synthesis claims nothing beyond the arresting coincidence that Hebrew's word for a thing on a journey is used once of honey travelling over the ground toward a starving army, and once of a guest whose meal costs another man everything he had.
2 Samuel 12:4
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1982 hêlek — in 2 verses canon-wide (2 Samuel 12:4, score 0.51, also sharing H6629 tsôʼn and H1241 bâqâr). Deliberately downgraded from verbal despite the extreme rarity, because the two occurrences carry different senses of the root and no quotation or allusion is being claimed
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The hinge of the unit's sin is that flesh was eaten with the blood still in it, against a prohibition Barnes and Cambridge both trace behind Sinai to Genesis 9:4 and forward past Pentecost to Acts 15:20. The reason the law gives is that the life is in the blood and the blood is given upon the altar to make atonement (Leviticus 17:11) — which is why Saul's stone, raised so the blood could drain to the ground, is an instinct in the right direction even from a king who has just mishandled everything else. ⚙ The apostolic reading of that prohibition is that the blood was reserved: it belonged to the altar, never to the table, until the one whose blood is the atonement himself set it on the table. The reservation of blood to God, and its fulfilment in Christ's once-for-all offering, is the ancient and widely-held Christian reading of Leviticus 17; Hebrews 9:22 states the principle the law was protecting. What is ⚙ and newer here is only the juxtaposition with this narrative: an army so famished by a human oath that it seizes the life it was forbidden to take, set beside the Supper where the life is given rather than seized.
Leviticus 17:11 · Hebrews 9:22 · Acts 15:20
⚙ A figural reading offered as this tool's own, and marked novel: the shape of 1 Samuel 14:24–29 is a king's curse pronounced over a people, an innocent son who never heard it standing inside its terms, and a taste that gave light. Jonathan is not a type of Christ in any ancient commentator quoted in this brief, and no voice here draws the line — the honest report is that the figure is this synthesis's. Held at arm's length, the comparison is chiefly a study in contrast. Saul's curse fell on his son by accident and had to be broken by the people's ransom (1 Samuel 14:45); the curse of the law fell on the Son by design, and he did not evade it: Christ “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,” in Paul's citation of Deuteronomy 21:23 (Galatians 3:13). Saul's oath left the army faint and darkened; the Son's bearing of the curse is what gives the light Jonathan's honey only figured. The point of resemblance is real — one man tasting what the whole company could not — and the point of difference is larger, and is the gospel.
Galatians 3:13 · Deuteronomy 21:23 · 1 Samuel 14:45
The unit's last word belongs to the priest, and it is a cohortative of cultic approach: נִקְרְבָה (qârab, H7126), “let us draw near.” Ellicott sets the scene — “Only one man in that army flushed with victory dared, with the bravery which alone proceeds from righteousness, to withstand the imperious sovereign” — and Barnes commends Ahijah for proposing, against the king's momentum, “that they should draw near to God to inquire of Him,” comparing 1 Kings 22:7. ⚙ That a priest must interpose before a king may act, and that the approach depends on the priest's standing rather than the army's, is the Old Testament pattern the letter to the Hebrews takes up when it turns the same summons into an invitation the whole congregation may accept: let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:22), because a greater priest has gone in. The verbal link cannot be pressed — the Greek of Hebrews shares no Strong's number with this Hebrew cohortative — and no commentator in this brief makes it. It is offered as a structural reading, and marked novel. Its edge is the narrative's own: here the priest says let us draw near, and the next verse reports that God did not answer.
Hebrews 10:22 · Hebrews 4:16 · 1 Kings 22:7
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. Text. Two Kethib/Qere splits fall inside these thirteen verses and both are material. At 14:27 the written consonants of וַתָּרֹאנָה yield “his eyes saw” (râʼâh, H7200 — the reading the brief's interlinear parse carries); the Masoretic Qere yields “became bright” (ʼôwr, H215), which is what the English versions print. K&D judges the Qere “probably the correct reading, as the letters might easily be transposed”; Pulpit judges the Kethib “more forcible and poetic” and reports that most modern commentators agree. This synthesis prints both and settles neither. At 14:32 the Kethib וַיַּעַשׂ (“did/made,” H6213 — again what the interlinear carries) is judged by K&D “no doubt merely an error in writing for ויּעט,” to pounce, on the strength of 1 Samuel 15:19; Pulpit reports the same correction and notes the versions render “greedily desired” or “turned themselves unto.” Versions. Ellicott and Cambridge both record a substantial Septuagint plus between vv. 23 and 24 (ten thousand men with Saul; the battle spread in mount Ephraim; “Saul did very foolishly on that day”), and Cambridge notes that the LXX rendering “city” at that point mistranslates the Hebrew for wood. Cambridge also reports that the LXX reads “here” rather than “this day” at 14:33. None of this material stands in the Hebrew text translated by BSB. Unresolved. Who speaks “and the people are faint” at 14:28 — the soldier (Ellicott, Barnes, Cambridge, K&D, and BSB) or the historian (Pulpit) — is genuinely open. So is the sense of הֵחֵל at 14:35: Barnes and Gill's Jewish authorities read that Saul began an altar he never finished; Cambridge, Pulpit, the LXX and Vulgate read that he began the practice of building altars; Ellicott sets out Abarbanel against the Midrash; K&D suspects a memorial rather than a place of sacrifice. The identification of Aijalon is also disputed in the brief — Poole offers Dan or Judah, Gill argues for Judah and cites Bunting at twelve miles from Michmash, Barnes and Ellicott estimate fifteen to twenty. Sources. Matthew Henry's comment in this brief is a single block note on 14:24–35 rather than verse-by-verse exposition; it is quoted once, at the verse it bears on most directly. JFB's note on 14:31–34 is likewise repeated by the source across several verses and is quoted once. Where a commentator's rendering has been used it is named; where the reading is this tool's own it is marked ⚙ and tiered or attested accordingly. Scope. The unit ends at 14:36. The oath's consequences — the lot, Jonathan's confession with the same rare verb ṭâʻam, and the people's ransom of him — fall at 14:37–45, outside these verses, and are referenced here only where a thread or a christ entry names them explicitly.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)