1 Samuel 13:22 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 13:22
So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found.
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
Judges 5:8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
1 Samuel 17:47 And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our…
1 Samuel 17:50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the…
Zechariah 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spir…
1 Corinthians 1:27-29 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the t…
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 13:15–end
Here, 1. Samuel departs in displeasure. Saul has set up for himself, and now he is left to himself: Samuel gat him from Gilgal (Sa1 13:15), and it does not appear that he either prayed with Saul or directed him. Yet in going up to Gibeah of Benjamin, which was Saul's city, he intimated that he had not quite abandoned him, but waited to do him a kindness another time. Or he went to the college of the prophets there, to pray for Saul when he did not think fit to pray with him. 2. Saul goes after him to Gibeah, and there musters his army, and finds his whole number to be but 600 men, Sa1 13:15, Sa1 13:16. Thus were they for their sin diminished and brought low. 3. The Philistines ravage the cou…
Yet they had a file--as a kind of privilege, for the purpose of sharpening sundry smaller utensils of husbandry.
Next: 1 Samuel Chapter 14
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 13:22
In the day of battle - these was neither sword nor spear - But if the Israelites enjoyed such profound peace and undisturbed dominion under Samuel, how is it that they were totally destitute of arms, a state which argues the lowest circumstances of oppression and vassalage? In answer to this we may observe, that the bow and the sling were the principal arms of the Israelites; for these they needed no smith: the most barbarous nations, who have never seen iron, have nevertheless bows and arrows; the arrow heads generally made of flint. Arrows of this kind are found among the inhabitants of the South Sea islands; and even axes, and different implements of war, all made of stone, cut and polish…
So it came to pass in the day of battle,.... When that drew near, and they were called to it, and obliged to fight or flee, or surrender:
that there were neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: which was not owing to their leaving them behind in the camp, or casting them away from them through fear, as they followed Saul with trembling, but to the cause now mentioned. In what manner some preceding battles were fought with the Philistines and Ammonites, notwithstanding, have been accounted for on 1 Samuel 13:19, but it is strange that the Israelites did not furnish themselves with the arms of the Philistines at the defeat of them in Eb…
The Church Fathers
And when the day of battle came, neither sword nor spear was found, etc. When the day of battle against adversarial powers is a daily occurrence, many content with their rusticity, very few proceed properly armed for this battle with a fitting reading or hearing of the Scriptures; hence, aided by our lethargy, the spiritual adversary now does to us what it is described the carnal adversary did to Israel then.
33. What is understood by the lance, if not the keen foresight of the holy preachers? And what is shown by the sword, if not the subtlety of their understanding? For by the lance we pierce through things set before us at a distance. But by the sword, enemies near and almost joined to us are slain. Rightly therefore in the lance the foresight of the elect is shown, by which they strike hidden enemies before they suffer their nearby assault. For while they anticipate by guarding against the future ambushes of demons, they strike as if with a lance from afar those whose nearby blows they are unwilling to receive. Whence also the blessed apostle Paul, when he discerned the armed spirits of fornication from afar, held conjugal chastity as a lance and did not permit them to approach nearer, saying: 'Because of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. Let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise the wife to the husband' (1 Cor. 7:2). And again: 'Come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence' (ibid. 5). Hence also concerning himself he says: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest preaching to others, I myself should become a castaway' (1 Cor. 9:27). For he who had chastised his body lest he become a castaway was surely piercing with a lance his enemies positioned at some distance before him. The foresight of abstinence for taming the lust of the flesh is therefore taken as a lance, by which approaching enemies are struck. Rightly also understanding is expressed by the sword, because whoever recognizes and rejects the wicked suggestions of the evil spirit in the present time strikes, as it were, an enemy nearby and placed right next to him. He also cuts as if with a sword sharpened on both edges, because he condemns both false goods and true evils. But what does it mean that the sword is said to be in the hand of Saul and Jonathan? They are not in the hand of those who keenly understand things near and present and foresee future things, yet do not exercise their strength to destroy them. They openly know that the ancient enemy casts down the greatest part of the human race through the power of the flesh into fornication, yet they do not take care to chastise the flesh through abstinence. So also some clearly see present evils but make no effort whatsoever to avoid them. These…
Dictionary and topics
Armour — Is employed in the English Bible to denote military equipment, both offensive and defensive. (1.) The offensive weapons were different at different periods of history. The “rod of iron” (Ps. 2:9) is…
Philistines — (Gen. 10:14, R.V.; but in A.V., “Philistim”), a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the…
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…
Arms, Military · Of conquered nations taken away to prevent rebellion — Of conquered nations taken away to prevent rebellion
Philistines · Invaded the land of Israel with a great army — Invaded the land of Israel with a great army
Spear · The Israelites: Ill provided with, in the times of Deborah and Saul — The Israelites: Ill provided with, in the times of Deborah and Saul
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).
Disarming of Israel by the Philistines. - The following account is no doubt connected with the foregoing, so far as the facts are concerned, inasmuch as Jonathan's brave heroic deed, which brought the Israelites a splendid victory over the Philistines, terminated the war for which Saul had entreated the help of God by his sacrifice at Gilgal; but it is not formally connected with it, so as to form a compact and complete account of the successive stages of the war. On the contrary, the 16th verse, where we have an account of the Israelitish warriors and their enemies, commences a new section of the history, in which the devastating march of the Philistines through the land, and the disarming…
no blacksmiths: The Philistines kept the Israelites unarmed by gaining a monopoly on the iron necessary to make weapons. Iron technology had not existed long in Canaan; it might have developed in the Aegean area, and metalworking skills were possibly introduced into Canaan through seafaring peoples, including the Philistines.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 13:22
But they could be found with Shaul. By means of a miracle.15 See Vayikra Rabbah 25:8.
