Old Testament: 1Sa 14.1–3

To read the Bible in a year, read First Samuel 13–14 on April 13, In the year of our Lord Christ 2023

By Don Ruhl 

Jonathan decided that he and his armorbearer alone would attack the Philistines, and so he did not tell his father or anyone else: 

Now it happened one day that Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who bore his armor, “Come, let us go over to the Philistines’ garrison that is on the other side.” But he did not tell his father. And Saul was sitting in the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men. Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the LORD’S priest in Shiloh, was wearing an ephod. But the people did not know that Jonathan had gone.

– 1 Samuel 14.1–3 

Why did he not tell his father or anyone else in Israel? His father seemed hesitant since they did not have weapons, which we can understand, but that did not stop Jonathan, for he knew that if the Lord was with them, He would work a victory for them whether they had weapons or not! 

Yet, later you will find that Jonathan violated an oath that his father had made, and if he had stayed with Israel, or at least if he had informed his father, he could have learned about the oath. 

Questions: 

• Have you taken off to go somewhere without telling someone? 
• Do you want your loved ones going off without telling you? 

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