but this change in his position is merely hinted at indirectly at the close of 1Sa 13:4; so here Saul's return from Gilgal to Geba with the fighting men who remained with him is not distinctly mentioned, but simply taken for granted as having already occurred.
Verses 17-18
Then the spoiler went out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. ראשׁים שׁלשׁה is made subject to the verb to define the mode of action (see Ewald, §279, c.); and rashim is used here, as in 1Sa 11:11. המּשׁחית, according to the context, is a hostile band that went out to devastate the land. The definite article points it out as well known. One company took the road to Ophrah into the land of Shual, i.e., went in a north-easterly direction, as, according to the Onom., Ophrah of Benjamin was five Roman miles to the east of Bethel (see at Jos 18:23). Robinson supposes it to have been on the site of Tayibeh. The land of Shual (fox-land) is unknown; it may possibly have been identical with the land of Saalim (1Sa 9:5). The other company turned on the road to Beth-horon (Beit-ur: see at Jos 10:11), that is to say, towards the west; the third, “the way to the territory that rises above the valley of Zeboim towards the
