1 Samuel 13:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 13:2
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: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
three
שְׁלֹ֣שֶׁתshe.Lo.shet
H7969
three · noun, common both genders singular construct
thousand
אֲלָפִים֮'a.la.Fim
H505
hence (the ox's head being the first letter of the alph… · noun, common both genders plural absolute
Israel
מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל֒mi.Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · preposition + proper noun, a place name
thousand
אַלְפַּ֗יִם'al.Pa.yim
H505
hence (the ox's head being the first letter of the alph… · noun, common both genders dual absolute
Saul
שָׁא֜וּלsha.'Ul
H7586
Shaul · proper noun, a man's name
Michmash
בְּמִכְמָשׂ֙be.mikh.Mas
H4363
Mikmas or Mikmash · preposition + proper noun, a place name
mount
וּבְהַ֣רu.ve.Har
H2022
a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Beth-el
בֵּֽיתbeit-
H1008
Beth-El · proper noun, a place name
thousand
וְאֶ֗לֶףve.'E.lef
H505
hence (the ox's head being the first letter of the alph… · conjunction + noun, common both genders singular absolute
Jonathan
י֣וֹנָתָ֔ןyo.na.Tan
H3129
Jonathan · proper noun, a man's name
Gibeah
בְּגִבְעַ֖תbe.giv.'At
H1390
Gibah · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Benjamin
בִּנְיָמִ֑יןbin.ya.Min
H1144
Binjamin · proper noun, a man's name
rest
וְיֶ֣תֶרve.Ye.ter
H3499
properly · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
people
הָעָ֔םha.'Am
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
sent
שִׁלַּ֖חshi.Lach
H7971
to send away · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
man
אִ֥ישׁ'ish
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
tent
לְאֹהָלָֽיוle.'o.ha.Lav
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 10:26 And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.
1 Samuel 13:5 And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as th…
1 Samuel 14:31 And they smote the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon: and the people were very faint.
1 Samuel 13:23 And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the passage of Michmash.
Joshua 18:28 And Zelah, Eleph, and Jebusi, which is Jerusalem, Gibeath, and Kirjath; fourteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the…
Judges 19:12 And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel; we will pass…
1 Samuel 8:11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his ch…
1 Samuel 14:5 The forefront of the one was situate northward over against Michmash, and the other southward over against Gibeah.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 13:1-7
We are not told wherein it was that the people of Israel offended God, so as to forfeit his presence and turn his hand against them, as Samuel had threatened (Sa1 12:15); but doubtless they left God, else he would not have left them, as here it appears he did; for,
I. Saul was very weak and impolitic, and did not order his affairs with discretion. Saul was the son of one year (so the first words are in the original), a phrase which we make to signify the date of his reign, but ordinarily it signifies the date of one's birth, and therefore some understand it figuratively - he was as innocent and good as a child of a year old; so the Chaldee paraphrase: he was without fault, like the son of a…
Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel--This band of picked men was a bodyguard, who were kept constantly on duty, while the rest of the people were dismissed till their services might be needed. It seems to have been his tactics to attack the Philistine garrisons in the country by different detachments, rather than by risking a general engagement; and his first operations were directed to rid his native territory of Benjamin of these enemies.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 13:2
Two thousand were with Saul - Saul, no doubt, meditated the redemption of his country from the Philistines; and having chosen three thousand men, he thought best to divide them into companies, and send one against the Philistine garrison at Michmash, another against that at Beth-el, and the third against that at Gibeah: he perhaps hoped, by surprising these garrisons, to get swords and spears for his men, of which we find, (Sa1 13:22), they were entirely destitute.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 13:2
Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel,.... Out of the 300,000 that went with him to fight the Ammonites, and returned with him to Gilgal, where he now was, and had stayed as may be supposed about a year, since now he had reigned two years. These 3000 men some of them doubtless were appointed as a guard about his person, and the rest were a standing army to preserve the peace of the nation, to protect them from their enemies, to watch the motions of the Philistines, and to be ready on any sudden invasion:
whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash, and in Mount Bethel; "Michmash", according to Bunting, (s) was four miles from Gilgal. Jerom (t) says, in his time it was shown a larg…
The Church Fathers
And there were with Saul two thousand in Michmash, etc. The Church chooses for itself the strongest and those worthy of a thousand in number, by whose sword of the word and shield of faith it is fortified; furthermore, it sends back the weaker in faith to protect the tabernacles of their own conscience, in which they are strangers to the Lord. However, since both Saul and Jonathan pertain to the kingdom, but the merit of both is not the same; of whom, to pass over other things in silence, one persecutes God's chosen David as an enemy, while the other loves him as his own soul, a dual order of believers or preachers seems to be signified in them. One of them says: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name (Matthew VII)? The other hears: But you are those who have remained with me in my temptations (Luke XXII). Hence, Saul is rightly called "desired," without doubt referring to him about whom the Lord speaks to the apostles: Behold, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat (ibid.). Jonathan, however, is interpreted as the gift of the dove, or he gave the dove, or the gift of the Lord: signifying those who attribute all virtue they have to the spirit of grace and confess they have received it from him. And Saul remained in Michmash and in the mountain of Bethel, that is, in humility and in the mountain of the house of God: Jonathan, however, in Gibeah of Benjamin, that is, on the hill of the son of the right hand with his soldiers. Because even the reprobate sometimes seem to exercise or even teach spiritual virtues with a left or unstable mind, but only those endowed with dove-like simplicity are proven to belong to the exalted kingdom of Christ, who is at the right hand of God. Also, the fact that there were two thousand with Saul, but a thousand with Jonathan, surely teaches that the more perfect they are, the fewer they are. Or certainly, the two thousand are devoted in humility and on the mountain of the house of God, by the purity of faith and advanced in the height of hope: while the thousand in the hill of the Son of the right hand are glorious in the perfection of charity, which never fails.
2. The number one thousand, which is produced from one hundred collected ten times, suggests the highest perfection. When indeed it is repeated three times, the various perfections of the elect are designated by it. Saul therefore chose three thousand men from Israel: because the preacher of truth leads to the defense of the holy Church not the weak and feeble, but strong and valiant warriors. They are said to be three thousand: because at the height of perfection, they bring forth virgins; alongside whom they place both the continent and the defenders of truth. For while by the example of virgins they kindle others to the highest incorruption, while by the life of the continent they draw others away from the corruptions of the world, while they defend the weakness of the humble through the aid of the powerful, good teachers come against the enemies of the holy Church as if with three thousand chosen men. They are called men on account of their fortitude, and are said to be from Israel on account of divine contemplation. For he cannot be contained in the highest number of perfection who lacks either the virtue of great work or the knowledge of inward vision. What does it mean that some of the chosen men are said to be with Saul, and others with Jonathan? But even the very names of the places in which they are said to be should not be believed to be devoid of mysteries. Jonathan, who is described as the son of the king and has a portion of the warriors, clearly signifies those who are helpers of teachers in the ministry of preaching. For they are their sons: because they ardently love those by whose ministry they are begotten for God. But they preside over a portion of the warriors: because they bear the care of the holy Church, and advance some by example and others by exhortations to the love of virtues. For as a great king had sent his son into the army, he who was speaking to the Corinthians said: "Therefore I have sent to you Timothy, who is my most dear and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ Jesus, as I teach in all the churches of the saints" (1 Cor. 4:17). Hence he likewise says: "When Timothy comes, see that he may be with you without fear: for he does the work of the Lord, as I also do" (1 Cor. 16:10). 3. Now Jonathan is said to be with a thousand men in Gibeah of Benjamin, while Saul is with two thousand…
Dictionary and topics
Army — The Israelites marched out of Egypt in military order (Ex. 13:18, “harnessed;” marg., “five in a rank”). Each tribe formed a battalion, with its own banner and leader (Num. 2:2; 10:14). In war the…
Bethel — House of God. (1.) A place in Central Palestine, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem, at the head of the pass of Michmash and Ai. It was originally the royal Canaanite city of Luz (Gen. 28:19). The…
Encamp — An encampment was the resting-place for a longer or shorter period of an army or company of travellers (Ex. 13:20; 14:19; Josh. 10:5; 11:5). The manner in which the Israelites encamped during their…
Host — An entertainer (Rom. 16:23); a tavern-keeper, the keeper of a caravansary (Luke 10:35). In warfare, a troop or military force. This consisted at first only of infantry. Solomon afterwards added…
Jonathan — Whom Jehovah gave, the name of fifteen or more persons that are mentioned in Scripture. The chief of these are, (1.) A Levite descended from Gershom (Judg. 18:30). His history is recorded in 17:7-13…
Samuel — Heard of God. The peculiar circumstances connected with his birth are recorded in 1 Sam. 1:20. Hannah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, who came up to Shiloh to worship before the Lord, earnestly…
Saul — Asked for. (1.) A king of Edom (Gen. 36:37, 38); called Shaul in 1 Chr. 1:48. (2.) The son of Kish (probably his only son, and a child of prayer, “asked for”), of the tribe of Benjamin, the first…
Armies Of Israel, The · Disbanded after war — Disbanded after war
Kings · Attended by a body-guard — Attended by a body-guard
The war with the Philistines (1 Samuel 13-14) certainly falls, at least so far as the commencement is concerned, in the very earliest part of Saul's reign. This we must infer partly from the fact, that at the very time when Saul was seeking for his father's asses, there was a military post of the Philistines at Gibeah (Sa1 10:5), and therefore the Philistines had already occupied certain places in the land; and partly also from the fact, that according to this chapter Saul selected an army of 3000 men out of the whole nation, took up his post at Michmash with 2000 of them, placing the other thousand at Gibeah under his son Jonathan, and sent the rest of the people home (Sa1 13:2), because hi…
Earlier, Saul had employed 330,000 troops to fight against a much less formidable foe (11:8). The selection here of 3,000 special troops probably does not reflect overconfidence (cp. Josh 7:3-4). Rather, Saul likely recognized the need for a smaller, highly trained, elite militia to deal with the troublesome Philistines (see 1 Sam 14:52). • Micmash was located in Benjamin about two miles northwest of Saul’s home in Gibeah.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 13:1
One year was Shaul in his reign. Our Rabbis, of sainted memory, said,1 Maseches Yoma 22b. [Shaul was] like a one year old, who did not experience the taste of sin. It may also be interpreted, "Shaul was a year in his reign," i.e., in the first year in which he was made king, though he actually ruled over Yisroel two years, in the first year, immediately, "Shaul chose for himself three thousand [men]."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— Mentioned in scripture: Bethel
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
