The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Saul Seeks to Kill Jonathan
1 Samuel 20:30–42 — Saul Seeks to Kill Jonathan. 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.
30Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šā·’ūl ’ap̄ way·yi·ḥar- bî·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yō·mer lōw ben- na·‘ă·waṯ ham·mar·dūṯ hă·lō·w yā·ḏa‘·tî kî- ’at·tāh ḇō·ḥêr lə·ḇen- yi·šay lə·ḇā·šə·tə·ḵā ū·lə·ḇō·šeṯ ’im·me·ḵā ‘er·waṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-burned the-nose of-Saul against-Jonathan, and-he-said to-him: “Son of-perversity of-rebellion! Do-not I-know that choosing thou-art the-son-of-Jesse, to-thy-shame and-to-the-shame of-the-nakedness of-thy-mother?”
Where the English smooths the original
31For as long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Now send for him and bring him to me, for he must surely die!”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî ḵāl hay·yā·mîm ’ă·šer ben- yi·šay ḥay ‘al- hā·’ă·ḏā·māh lō ’at·tāh ū·mal·ḵū·ṯe·ḵā ṯik·kō·wn wə·‘at·tāh šə·laḥ wə·qaḥ ’ō·ṯōw ’ê·lay kî ḇen- hū mā·weṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“For all the-days that the-son-of-Jesse is-alive upon the-ground, not thou and-thy-kingdom shall-be-established. And-now: send, and-take him to-me, for a-son-of-death he.”
Where the English smooths the original
32“Why must he be put to death?” Jonathan replied. “What has he done?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lām·māh yū·maṯ yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān ’eṯ- šā·’ūl way·ya·‘an ’ā·ḇîw way·yō·mer ’ê·lāw meh ‘ā·śāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-answered Jonathan Saul his-father, and-said to-him: “Why shall-he-be-put-to-death? What has-he-done?”
Where the English smooths the original
33Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan to kill him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to kill David.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šā·’ūl ’eṯ- way·yā·ṭel ha·ḥă·nîṯ ‘ā·lāw lə·hak·kō·ṯōw yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yê·ḏa‘ kî- hî mê·‘im ’ā·ḇîw ḵā·lāh lə·hā·mîṯ ’eṯ- dā·wiḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-hurled Saul the-spear against-him, to-strike-him. And-knew Jonathan that determined it-was from-his-father, to-put-to-death David.
Where the English smooths the original
34Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger and did not eat any food that second day of the month, for he was grieved by his father’s shameful treatment of David.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yā·qām mê·‘im haš·šul·ḥān bā·ḥo·rî- ’āp̄ wə·lō- ’ā·ḵal le·ḥem haš·šê·nî bə·yō·wm- ha·ḥō·ḏeš kî ne‘·ṣaḇ kî ’ā·ḇîw hiḵ·li·mōw ’el- dā·wiḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-rose Jonathan from-the-table in-burning-of-nose, and-not did-he-eat on-the-day of-the-new-moon, the-second, bread; for he-was-pained concerning David, because had-shamed-him his-father.
Where the English smooths the original
35In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for the appointment with David, and a small boy was with him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî ḇab·bō·qer yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yê·ṣê haś·śā·ḏeh lə·mō·w·‘êḏ dā·wiḏ qā·ṭōn wə·na·‘ar ‘im·mōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was in-the-morning, and-went-out Jonathan to-the-field, to-the-appointment of-David, and-a-lad small with-him.
Where the English smooths the original
36He said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” And as the boy ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yō·mer lə·na·‘ă·rōw ruṣ mə·ṣā nā ’eṯ- ha·ḥiṣ·ṣîm ’ă·šer ’ā·nō·ḵî mō·w·reh han·na·‘ar rāṣ wə·hū- yā·rāh ha·ḥê·ṣî lə·ha·‘ă·ḇi·rōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-said to-his-lad: “Run, find now the-arrows which I am-shooting.” The-lad ran, and-he shot the-arrow to-make-it-pass-beyond-him.
Where the English smooths the original
37When the boy reached the place where Jonathan’s arrow had fallen, Jonathan called to him, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
han·na·‘ar way·yā·ḇō ‘aḏ- mə·qō·wm yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān ha·ḥê·ṣî ’ă·šer yā·rāh yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yiq·rā ’a·ḥă·rê han·na·‘ar way·yō·mer hă·lō·w ha·ḥê·ṣî mim·mə·ḵā wā·hā·lə·’āh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-lad came unto the-place of-the-arrow which Jonathan had-shot, and-called Jonathan after the-lad and-said: “Is-not the-arrow from-thee and-beyond?”
Where the English smooths the original
38Then Jonathan cried out, “Hurry! Make haste! Do not delay!” So the boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yiq·rā ’a·ḥă·rê han·na·‘ar mə·hê·rāh ḥū·šāh ’al- ta·‘ă·mōḏ yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān ’eṯ- ha·ḥē·ṣī na·‘ar way·laq·qêṭ way·yā·ḇō ’el- ’ă·ḏō·nāw
39But the boy did not know anything; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·han·na·‘ar lō- yā·ḏa‘ mə·’ū·māh ’aḵ yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān wə·ḏā·wiḏ yā·ḏə·‘ū ’eṯ- had·dā·ḇār
40Then Jonathan gave his equipment to the boy and said, “Go, take it back to the city.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān ’eṯ- way·yit·tên kê·lāw ’el- han·na·‘ar ’ă·šer- lōw way·yō·mer lōw lêḵ hā·ḇê hā·‘îr
41When the young man had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone, fell facedown, and bowed three times. Then he and Jonathan kissed each other and wept together—though David wept more.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
han·na·‘ar bā wə·ḏā·wiḏ qām han·ne·ḡeḇ mê·’ê·ṣel way·yip·pōl lə·’ap·pāw ’ar·ṣāh way·yiš·ta·ḥū šā·lōš pə·‘ā·mîm way·yiš·šə·qū ’îš ’eṯ- rê·‘ê·hū way·yiḇ·kū ’îš ’eṯ- rê·‘ê·hū ‘aḏ- dā·wiḏ hiḡ·dîl
42And Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for the two of us have sworn in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘May the LORD be a witness between you and me, and between your descendants and mine forever.’” Then David got up and departed, and Jonathan went back into the city.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yə·hō·w·nā·ṯān way·yō·mer lə·ḏā·wiḏ lêḵ lə·šā·lō·wm ’ă·šer šə·nê·nū ’ă·naḥ·nū niš·ba‘·nū bə·šêm Yah·weh lê·mōr Yah·weh yih·yeh bê·nî ū·ḇê·ne·ḵā ū·ḇên zar·‘ă·ḵā ū·ḇên zar·‘î ‘aḏ- ‘ō·w·lām way·yā·qām way·yê·laḵ wî·hō·w·nā·ṯān bā hā·‘îr
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 with a body part. וַיִּחַר־אַף (chârâh H2734 on ʼaph H639) says that the nose of Saul grew hot, and the whole movement is governed by that flare. What comes out of it is a curse aimed at parentage. Whether Saul insults his own wife is disputed in the sources and the brief keeps both readings on the table: K&D parses נעות as "a participle, Niph. fem. from עוה" and takes it as "an insult offered to the mother, and therefore so much the greater to the son"; Ellicott, following Clericus, Lange and Payne Smith, argues the word is "probably an abstract noun," giving "Thou son of perversity of rebellion," and Pulpit, Gill and Cambridge agree. Barnes supplies the cultural frame either way: "The greatest insult and most stinging reproach that can be cast upon an Oriental is to reproach his parents or ancestors." JFB adds the psychological reason it lands: a filial instinct finds a slandered parent "a more inexpiable offense" than any personal reproach.
Then Saul states his politics in one sentence. So long as the son of Jesse breathes above the אֲדָמָה, the dirt, neither Jonathan nor his מַלְכוּת will be תִכּוֹן, made to stand (kûwn H3559). Benson notes the futility with precision: Samuel had already declared the kingdom would not continue with Saul's house, "yet he seems to have had hopes that he should be able to prevent this declaration from being verified by his policy." Poole is blunter: Saul "grossly mistakes the cause of Jonathan's loss of the kingdom, which was not David's art, but Saul's sin." The sentence Saul passes, בֶן־מָוֶת, is idiom, not verdict: Cambridge, "Lit. 'he is a son of death'"; Pulpit, son "being constantly used in Hebrew to express qualities, or, as here, the fate to which a man is destined."
Jonathan's reply is three Hebrew words long and it is a legal demand: lammah yumat, meh ʻasah. The Hophal יוּמַת is the courtroom stem. Geneva reduces the case to a line: "it was too great tyranny to put one to death and not to give a reason why." Gill observes that Jonathan let the charges against himself pass unanswered and spoke only for his friend. The answer he gets is a weapon. Cambridge and Pulpit both argue that וַיָּטֶל means Saul "brandished" rather than threw, as at 1 Samuel 18:11; JFB calls the act "a sad proof of the maniacal frenzy into which the unhappy monarch was transported." Whichever it was, the result is a noun: כָלָה, which K&D takes as "a substantive in the sense of unalterable resolution." The deliberating is over.
Jonathan rises from the table בָּחֳרִי־אָף, in burning of nostril, and the rare noun chŏrîy (H2750, six verses in the whole Bible) places his anger in company with Moses leaving Pharaoh and with the wrath of God in Lamentations. He eats no לֶחֶם. Gill notes the double reason: grief, and that "being a mourner on the above accounts, he might not eat of the sacrifices." The verb for his grief, נֶעְצַב (ʻâtsab H6087), means properly to be carved or cut. Cambridge, quoting the Speaker's Commentary, reads the moral grain of it: "He did not resent the injury and insult offered to himself so much as the wrong done to his friend." Ellicott adds the public dimension, the spear lifted "before the assembled great ones of Israel," an act "not likely soon to be forgotten by the spectators."
The next morning the covenant meeting happens outside the king's house. The Hebrew word is מוֹעֵד, the noun of Israel's appointed feasts and of the tent of meeting; Cambridge and Pulpit press for "to the place appointed" over "at the time appointed," while K&D allows "according to the appointment (agreement) with David." Jonathan brings a נַעַר קָטֹן, and Cambridge names why the detail is there: a small boy "would not suspect the real purpose of Jonathan's shooting: a vivid touch of reality in the narrative."
The signal itself is grammar. לְהַעֲבִרוֹ is a Hifil purpose clause, to cause it to pass over him; K&D: the arrow flew "farther than the boy had run." JFB states the mechanism, "The direction given aloud to the attendant was the signal preconcerted with David. It implied danger." Gill makes explicit who the shout was for: "not so much that the lad might hear him, but that David, who lay hid near the place, might hear him." Then the narrator turns and tells us the one fact that makes the whole apparatus work, and it is a fact about ignorance: the נַעַר knew not מְאוּמָה, not a speck. K&D: "the boy knew nothing of what had been arranged between Jonathan and David." An honest note on the text is owed here: Ellicott concedes the difficulty that three arrows were agreed in v. 20 and one is described, and follows Keil in taking the singular "in an indefinite general way"; Cambridge says simply that "the narrator does not think it necessary to repeat full details thrice."
Jonathan sends away his כֵּלִים, his implements, which the older English rendered "artillery." Ellicott concedes the word "would scarcely now be used in this sense"; Cambridge traces it from Latin ars through late Latin artillaria, noting it "was used of missile weapons long before the invention of gunpowder"; JFB observes that the archery company of London still carries the name. K&D gives the motive: the boy is sent off "that he might be able to converse with David for a few seconds after his departure, and take leave of him unobserved."
Then the king's anointed comes out of a hole in the ground and puts his אַפַּיִם, his two nostrils, on the dirt. The unit began with Saul's nose hot with rage; it arrives at David's nose in the dust. Barnes reads the threefold bow as a token "of his unshaken loyalty to Jonathan as the son of his king, as well as his friend; and in acknowledgment of Jonathan's power to kill him if he saw fit," comparing Genesis 33:3. The text of the hiding place is genuinely uncertain and the brief does not hide it: Cambridge calls מֵאֵצֶל הַנֶּגֶב "anomalous" and prefers the Septuagint's "from beside the heap of stones"; Ellicott lists the Chaldee, Vatican and Alexandrian readings and says the text is "very doubtful"; K&D defends the Masoretic phrase and notes that only Aquila and Jerome rendered it correctly.
The last clause of v. 41 is a single Hifil verb, הִגְדִּיל, he made great, with no object. Ellicott: "The expression is a strange one," meaning either that David wept more than Jonathan or that "David broke down," "was completely mastered by his grief." Poole supplies the reason, that David was driven "not only from his dear friend Jonathan, but also from his wife, and all his relations, and from the commonwealth of israel, and from the service of God." Benson observes the asymmetry from the other side: Jonathan "seems evidently to have done great violence to his feelings," restraining his own grief "as not to sink his friend too much, but to send him away with a calm confidence in God."
Jonathan's parting words break off mid-sentence. K&D: "The clause contains an aposiopesis, which may be accounted for from Jonathan's deep emotion, and in which the apodosis may be gathered from the sense." Cambridge reads it the same way: "That which we have sworn, &c." and then, remember. What is sworn is עַד־עוֹלָם, and it binds זֶרַע to זֶרַע. Benson notes what the reader cannot yet know, that the two friends "never met again on earth, except once, and that was by stealth in a wood." Barnes notes what Jonathan does instead: he "went into the city," which shows that "Jonathan's filial duty and patriotism prevented a complete rupture with his father." He goes back to the table with the spear.
⚙ Read the unit by its two nouns for nose and you have the argument. Saul's ʼaph burns (v. 30); Jonathan's ʼaph burns (v. 34); David's ʼappayim go into the dirt (v. 41). Three men, one organ, three kingdoms. Saul's burning is the rage of a man defending a throne God has already withdrawn, and every act it produces, the curse, the summons, the spear, is an attempt to make a promise stand by force. Jonathan's burning is the anger of a man who has read the same providence and has decided to lose by it. David's face in the dust is the posture of the only one of the three who is actually being given a kingdom, and he is given it while lying on the ground behind a rock, hiding.
Two covenants are on the table in this chapter and only one of them is written down. Saul's is dynastic and enforced: thy kingdom shall not be established while he lives, therefore send and take him. Jonathan's is sworn in the name of the LORD and enforced by nobody: the LORD be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed forever. Saul's covenant dies with him on Gilboa. Jonathan's covenant outlives him by a generation and collects a lame man at David's table in 2 Samuel 9. The unit's quiet claim, which the text never states and the reader has to assemble, is that a promise held by the weaker party and guaranteed by God alone is the more durable of the two instruments.
And notice where the truth gets told. The banquet hall, where a king sits with his spear and his great men, produces a lie about a man's guilt and a sentence with no charge. The open field, where a prince shouts nonsense to a boy who understands nothing, carries the only honest communication in the chapter. That inversion is offered here as a reading, not as a doctrine, and it is offered to be tested: when a house of power has made truth unspeakable, God's word goes out of doors and travels by a code that only the condemned can read.
The kingdom passes at the exact moment the heir stops trying to keep it. (This line is the tool's own reading, not a verse of Scripture.)
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The lengthened form הַחֵצִי (chitstsîy, H2678) is nearly unique to this scene. It appears in only four verses of the Hebrew Bible, three of them here at 1 Samuel 20:36, 37 and 38, and once outside, at 2 Kings 9:24, where Jehu draws his bow with full strength and the arrow goes through Joram's heart. K&D notes the distribution exactly: "The form חצי for חץ only occurs in connection with disjunctive accents; beside the present chapter... we find it again in 2 Kings 9:24." The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme. ⚙ The contrast is the reader's to draw, not the text's: one rare arrow is deliberately overshot so that an anointed man may live and flee; the other is deliberately aimed so that a reigning son of a condemned house may die. Both arrows serve the same providence about a throne.
2 Kings 9:24
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2678 chitstsîy, a rare form occurring in only 4 verses total, three of them inside this unit and one at 2 Kings 9:24. K&D independently records the same distribution. Verbal link only; neither text quotes the other.
בָּחֳרִי־אָף (chŏrîy, H2750, with ʼaph, H639) occurs in only six verses of the Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier surfaces its companions: Exodus 11:8, where Moses goes out from Pharaoh in hot anger; Deuteronomy 29:24 and Lamentations 2:3, where the burning is the LORD's against a broken covenant; Isaiah 7:4, where a king is told not to fear two smoking firebrands; 2 Chronicles 25:10, where dismissed troops go home in fierce anger. ⚙ The company the word keeps is instructive. In almost every other occurrence the burning belongs either to God or to a man who has been wronged and is walking out. Jonathan leaving Saul's table belongs, by vocabulary alone, in that second group.
Exodus 11:8 · Deuteronomy 29:24 · Isaiah 7:4 · Lamentations 2:3 · 2 Chronicles 25:10
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2750 chŏrîy, rare at 6 verses total, in the fixed idiom with H639 ʼaph (269 vv). The rare member of the pair carries the link; no quotation is claimed in either direction.
The oath of v. 42 binds זֶרַע to זֶרַע עַד־עוֹלָם. In 2 Samuel 9 David asks whether any of Saul's house is left "that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake," and Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, is brought and seated at the king's table permanently. The Verifier's candidate list gives the shared personal names H3083 Jonathan (74 vv) and H7586 Saul (335 vv) across 1 Samuel 20 and 2 Samuel 9:6-7. ⚙ Personal names are a weak verbal basis and we do not treat them as one; the real link is narrative and structural, and it is a link the books themselves make, since 2 Samuel 9 explicitly invokes Jonathan as the ground of the kindness. This is the oath of the open field being paid out after both the king who cursed it and the prince who swore it are dead.
2 Samuel 9:6 · 2 Samuel 9:7
basis: Verifier bases are shared proper names only (H3083 Yᵉhôwnâthân, 74 vv; H7586 Shâʼûwl, 335 vv), which is too common to carry a verbal tier. The confirmed link is narrative: 2 Samuel 9 names Jonathan as the reason for the kindness shown.
Jonathan says "Go in peace" in a field; David says "how are the mighty fallen" over a corpse. The Verifier links 2 Samuel 1:12 and 1:23 to this unit through H3083 Jonathan, H7586 Saul and H4194 mâveth, the same death-noun Saul used in בֶן־מָוֶת, "a son of death." ⚙ There is a grim symmetry the vocabulary permits: Saul in v. 31 declares David a son of death and demands he be fetched; in 2 Samuel 1 it is Saul and Jonathan whom death has taken, and it is David who mourns them both without distinction. Benson, writing on v. 42, notes that the two friends met only once more on earth, "by stealth in a wood." The lament is the last word of a friendship that began with an oath in a field.
2 Samuel 1:12 · 2 Samuel 1:23
basis: Verifier: shared H3083 Yᵉhôwnâthân (74 vv), H7586 Shâʼûwl (335 vv), H4194 mâveth (149 vv). None is rare enough to justify a verbal tier; the names and the common death-noun mark a shared narrative arc, not a quotation.
Cambridge, glossing בֶן־מָוֶת at v. 31, points past the Hebrew to Matthew 23:15 and John 17:12, where the Greek preserves the same Semitic construction: son of gehenna, son of perdition. Pulpit describes the idiom generally: son is "constantly used in Hebrew to express qualities, or, as here, the fate to which a man is destined." ⚙ We flag the obvious limit. A Greek text and a Hebrew text cannot share a Strong's number, so no verbal basis exists or can exist here; what is shared is a Semitic idiom carried into the Greek of the Gospels. The irony is worth stating and worth doubting: the phrase Saul coins for an innocent man is the phrase the Gospels reserve for one who is genuinely lost.
Matthew 23:15 · John 17:12
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition and no verbal tier is available. The recorded basis is the shared Semitic construction "son of X" for appointed fate, cited in Cambridge's own note at 1 Samuel 20:31.
Both Poole and Gill explain הִגְדִּיל at v. 41 by reaching forward to 1 Samuel 26:19, where David complains that he has been driven out from the inheritance of the LORD. Gill goes further and says "many of his psalms" were written "on this occasion." ⚙ We record the link and flag it. The Verifier returns no shared lexeme between this unit and 1 Samuel 26:19, the connection is a commentator's inference about David's inner state rather than anything the text of chapter 20 says, and the further claim about psalm composition has no superscription behind it that names this parting. The reading is old and plausible; it is not sourced, and a reader should know the difference.
1 Samuel 26:19
basis: No Verifier-computed shared lexeme. The link rests on inference by Poole and Gill about David's motive at v. 41; Gill's additional attribution of unnamed psalms to this occasion is unsupported by any superscription and is flagged as such.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ David in this unit is already anointed and wholly dispossessed. The reigning king calls him בֶן־מָוֶת, a son of death, and demands he be fetched; the charge is never stated because there is none, which is the force of Jonathan's meh ʻasah, "what has he done?" Geneva names the lawlessness of it: "it was too great tyranny to put one to death and not to give a reason why." The anointed one is then pushed out of the city, out of the feast, and out of reach of the sanctuary, and Poole lists the losses: his friend, his wife, his relations, "the commonwealth of israel," and "the service of God." Reading David as a type of the rejected Messiah is the ancient and widely held apostolic pattern; the New Testament itself applies the rejected-stone of Psalm 118 and the persecuted-righteous of the Davidic psalms to Jesus, and Hebrews puts him outside the gate, where his people are told to go out to him. What this particular unit adds to the type is the posture: the king of Israel receives his kingdom while lying behind a rock, and the only crown he touches in chapter 20 is a friend's promise.
Psalm 118:22 · John 1:11 · Hebrews 13:12 · Hebrews 13:13
⚙ Jonathan is the legal heir of Israel, and he spends this chapter systematically dismantling his own claim. Saul sees it exactly and says so: as long as the son of Jesse lives, "thou and thy kingdom will not stand" (K&D's rendering). Gill puts the worldly logic in Saul's mouth, that it was Jonathan's "highest wisdom to deliver David up." Jonathan instead swears an oath binding his own seed to the seed of the man who will displace him, and then, in the phrase K&D and Cambridge both read as broken off mid-sentence, says lek le-shalom, go to peace. It is one of Scripture's most striking pictures of voluntary self-emptying in favour of the true anointed: a man with a legitimate title who lays it down, protects the one who takes it, and goes home to keep honouring the father who threw a spear at him. Barnes notes the last detail, that Jonathan "went into the city," his "filial duty and patriotism" intact. We mark this reading as novel in its Christological application, because the named commentators in this brief draw the moral of friendship rather than a figure of Christ, and John the Baptist's "he must increase, but I must decrease" is our own bridge and not theirs.
John 3:30 · Philippians 2:5 · Philippians 2:7
⚙ The Hophal יוּמַת is the stem of judicial execution, and Jonathan uses it to demand a legal basis his father cannot produce. The Gospels record a Roman governor asking the identical question three times over an identical silence: "Why, what evil has he done?" The construction is native to each language and we claim no verbal dependence; what recurs is a specific legal shape, a death sentence handed down by an authority that has already decided, with the charge left blank and a bystander asking the one question nobody will answer. Henry's application to believers in this chapter is fraternal rather than Christological, and Gill's expansion of Jonathan's plea stays inside the story. The link to Pilate's question is our own, offered to be tested, and marked novel accordingly.
Matthew 27:23 · Luke 23:22
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 on this unit. Text. Three places are genuinely uncertain and we have not smoothed any of them. (1) At v. 30 נַעֲוַת may be a feminine Niphal participle, making the insult run through Jonathan's mother (K&D), or an abstract noun, making it "son of perversity of rebellion" (Ellicott, Pulpit, Gill, Cambridge, and Ellicott's named authorities Clericus, Lange and Payne Smith). BSB supplies "woman"; the Hebrew does not contain the word. (2) At vv. 36 to 38 the Chethibh reads the singular הַחֵצִי where the Keri reads the plural; K&D judges the singular "evidently the original reading" and the plural "an emendation, according to the meaning of the words." Behind this sits the arithmetic problem Ellicott states plainly, that three arrows were agreed at v. 20 and one is narrated. Ellicott and Cambridge both resolve it as narrative economy; we record it rather than resolve it. (3) At v. 41 מֵאֵצֶל הַנֶּגֶב is, in Cambridge's word, "anomalous." Ellicott calls the text "very doubtful" and lists the Chaldee ("from the stone of the sign... which is on the south"), the Vatican Septuagint ("from the Argab") and the Alexandrian ("from sleep"); Barnes notes the Septuagint reading means "a heap of stones"; K&D defends the Masoretic phrase and says only Aquila and Jerome rendered it correctly. BSB's "from the south side of the stone" supplies "of the stone" from v. 19.
Object ambiguity. At v. 34 the suffix on הִכְלִמוֹ may refer to David (Gill, Cambridge, BSB) or to Jonathan (Benson, Poole, who supply the missing conjunction and make it a second cause of grief). Both readings are printed in the divergence note and neither is preferred here.
Sources. Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible (CC0); parse, transliteration and Strong's numbers are from the Berean interlinear; all ✦ commentary is verbatim public-domain material resolved by code from the named entries, not retyped. Eleven commentators are present in this unit (Ellicott, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D, Benson) and all eleven are quoted. Note that Cambridge at v. 34 is itself quoting the Speaker's Commentary, Cambridge at v. 30 is quoting Kitto, and Ellicott and Pulpit at vv. 41 to 42 are both quoting Phillipson; those are quotations within quotations and are flagged in the voice notes where they occur.
What is machine synthesis. Every ⚙ item, the literal renderings, the divergence and word notes, the movements, the sola reading and pullquote, the thread bodies and the Christ readings, is fallible tool work built on the sourced material above. Two of the three Christ readings are marked novel because no commentator in this brief makes the figural claim; the David-as-rejected-anointed reading is marked ancient because the New Testament itself applies the Davidic pattern to Jesus. The 1 Samuel 26:19 thread is flagged because it rests on commentator inference with no computed lexical basis, and because Gill's further claim that "many of his psalms" belong to this occasion has no superscription behind it. JFB's diagnostic language about Saul ("maniacal frenzy") and Ellicott's ("that poor diseased brain") are nineteenth-century medical framing, not the text's own account, which speaks of an evil spirit and a hardened will.
✦ = 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)