position of being unable to carry out the oath (see 1Sa 14:45). All the people kept the command. “They tasted no bread.” ולא־טעם is not to be connected with ונקּמתּי as an apodosis.
Verse 25
“And all the land (i.e., all the people of the land who had gathered round Saul: vid., 1Sa 14:29) came into the woody country; there was honey upon the field.” יער signifies here a woody district, in which forests alternated with tracts of arable land and meadows.
Verse 26
When the people came into the wood and saw a stream of honey (or wild or wood bees), “no one put his hand to his mouth (sc., to eat of the honey), because they feared the oath.”
Verse 27
But Jonathan, who had not heard his father's oath, dipped (in the heat of pursuit, that he might not have to stop) the point of his staff in the new honey, and put it to his mouth, “and his eyes became bright;” his lost strength, which is reflected in the eye, having been brought back by this invigorating taste. The Chethibh תראנה is probably to be read תּראנה, the eyes became seeing, received their power of vision again. The Masoretes have substituted as the Keri תּארנה, from אור, to become bright, according to 1Sa 14:29; and this is probably the correct reading, as the letters might easily be transposed.
Verses 28-30
When one of the people told him thereupon of his father's oath, in consequence of which the people were exhausted (העם ויּעף belongs to the man's words; and ויּעף is the same as in Jdg 4:21), Jonathan condemned the prohibition. “My father has brought the land (i.e., the people of the land, as in 1Sa 14:25) into trouble (עכר, see at Gen 34:30): see how bright mine eyes have become because I tasted a little of this honey. 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?” כּי אף, lit. to this (there comes) also that = not to mention how much more; and עתּה כּי is an emphatic introduction of the apodosis, as in Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10, and other passages, and the apodosis itself is to be taken as a question.Result of the battle, and consequences of Saul's rashness. - 1Sa 14:31. “On that day they smote the Philistines from Michmash to Ajalon,” which has been preserved in the village of Yâlo (see at Jos 19:42), and was about three geographical miles to the south-west of Michmash; “and the people were very faint,” because Saul had forbidden them to
