By Many or by Few

Let's establish something really important from last week's passage that we didn't fully dig into at that time. Saul disobeyed the Lord, and as a result, he was told that his kingdom would not continue forever.

That does not mean that Saul has officially been rejected as king. That hasn't happened (yet). Rather, Samuel's words point to the fact that Saul is not going to have a dynasty, where Saul's sons will reign after him, and their sons will reign after him, and his name will be attached to it all. That's not going to happen.

The House of Saul is not going to be a thing. A replacement king is already waiting in the wings for whenever Saul is finished.

Which means that Jonathan, who we were introduced to last week, is not going to be king after his father. Which almost seems unfair. Because, as we're going to see this week and next, Jonathan looks like he'd make a great king. He is everything his father is not.

But one of the best places where Jonathan's true character shines through is how he responds to the next king coming and stealing the spotlight from him. If you're bothered by the fact that Jonathan doesn't get to be king, just remember that he wasn't.

1. The Setting (vv. 1-5)

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's pick up where we left off: Saul and Jonathan are the only two guys with swords, 80% of their army has abandoned them, people are hiding in caves and holes in the ground, and three Philistine raiding bands are moving in three directions through the land, totally unopposed.

And verse 1 tells us the moment when things started to change: “One day Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who carried his armor, ‘Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side.’ But he did not tell his father” (1 Samuel 14:1).

This is huge. Saul has lost the confidence of his own family. Jonathan knows that nothing is going to happen if he doesn't do something. So, just like before he went and struck down the Philistine garrison or governor, once again he prepares to throw down and make something happen. And at his side is his trusty armour-bearer, a young man who probably carried his shield for him in battle and would have fought beside him as a close partner.

a. People

Before the story goes any further, it stops to give us a bit of a more detailed sense of the setting for what's happening here. First, we get the setting of the different people involved.

Verse 2: “Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah in the pomegranate cave at Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men” (1 Samuel 14:2).

The word "staying" here can also mean "sitting." Saul is staying in a cave, or maybe sitting under a pomegranate tree—the original Hebrew could be taken a few different ways—but what's clear is that Saul, and the few people still with him, aren't fighting.

One of the 600 people with Saul is singled out in verse 3: “including Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, wearing an ephod” (1 Samuel 14:3).

This is important for three reasons. First, remember Eli? Remember how Samuel said that Eli's line was finished? That a whole new line of faithful priests was going to be chosen?

Saul either didn't get that memo, or he's ignoring it. But either way, these two make a sad pair: a king and a priest, both from failed houses, each of them due for replacement at any time.

Second, we should just ask—why is there a priest here, wearing an ephod? The ephod was the sacred garment the priests wore when they were on duty. Sounds like Saul is doing what Israel did when they were fighting the Philistines decades ago, back when Samuel was still a kid: dragging the priests to the front line as if God was a good luck charm.

And third, something we miss in English, but the phrase used here for this priest wearing or bearing the ephod is the same wording as Jonathan's young man who bears his armour. And this further reinforces the contrast between Saul and Jonathan. Jonathan is ready to trust God and take action with his armour-bearer. Saul is ready to sit around and play religious games with his ephod-bearer.

And verse 3 finishes by reminding us that nobody knew Jonathan had left. He kept it a secret on purpose. Which again becomes key to the story, especially as things go on.

b. The Geography

So that's the setting of the people. What comes next in verse 4 is the geographic setting, which is really important for how this story works. We know from chapter 13 that “Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmash” (1 Samuel 13:16).

Geba and Michmash are still populated today, with names that haven't changed much—Jeba and Mukhmās. In between these two towns is a deep ravine or gorge, called the Wadi Suweinit, with pretty steep cliffs on each side. It's just a few hundred metres across and is 150-250 metres deep—that's like 500-800 feet. So we're dealing with a small canyon, some sections of which are nearly vertical.

And you're actually looking at a picture of this canyon behind you on the screen. And what's interesting—you can go look this up on satellite imagery—is how the north side of the gorge, closest to Michmash, is more bright limestone and tends to be steeper, whereas the south side, closest to Geba, is generally a bit gentler and also covered in more scrubby plant growth.

So we read in verse 4 that “Within the passes [or the gorge] by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag [or cliff]on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozez [which means gleaming or shiny], and the name of the other Seneh [which means thorny]. The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba” (1 Samuel 14:4–5).

All of this detail is important because the way this story unfolds is totally connected to this geography. The way that Jonathan can slip away undetected, move unseen across the valley, and needs to scramble up the other side on his hands and feet—all of this and more is deeply connected to the landscape here. Even the Israelites hiding in caves, which we know are plentiful in this canyon. The geography is crucial for understanding how the story unfolds.

But more than that, all of this detail adds to what one source I read called the "tactical realism" of this passage. This is all far cry from "a long time ago in a land far, far away." This is history, written by people who were there and knew how the land worked, and this detail gives this story rich authenticity.

2. The Plan (vv. 6-10)

So, after the setting there, verse 6 picks up again with Jonathan's plan. “Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, ‘Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few’” (1 Samuel 14:6).

This is one of the key bits of dialogue in this passage, and it shows a lot about what Jonathan thought and how he worked. First of all, he called the Philistines "these uncircumcised." Which was not mainly a reference to their ethnicity.

Circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. It was the sign that you belonged to the people to whom the Lord had given this land. To be uncircumcised meant that you had no right to this land. God hadn't given it to you.

Jonathan's words here are showing how he thinks. These Philistines have no right to this land. God promised it to us. So let's go kick them out.

He also knows that the Lord promised to help and fight for his people, and that their small numbers are not a hindrance to God helping them. One of the covenant promises from Leviticus 26 said, “Eight of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword” (Leviticus 26:8).

God doesn't need a big army to save. He's saved his people before with a small group. Nothing can stop the Lord from saving by many or by few.

Notice that Jonathan is not presuming on anything. "It may be that the Lord will work for us." It might happen. He's not saying "I have absolute certainty that God is going to save Israel by my hand today." He just knows that God can do that. And that "can" is enough for him.

So Jonathan is putting himself in a spot, not where he is demanding or manipulating God to work, but where He is available should God choose to work through Him. Jonathan is taking a risk, in other words. A faith-filled risk.

A risk like Joab will take some years in the future. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:12). Or Esther did years later: “Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).

Jonathan is taking a faith-filled risk that has no chance of success if God does not come through for him.

That is not the only thing that is going on here, though. Jonathan's actions here do involve a certain amount of tactical planning and awareness. This is where we need to think about the geography again. We've got two armies across a gorge. That means it's very easy for them to see each other, but it’s very hard for them to get at one another.

Imagine if Jonathan rallied the troops and made a full-out assault on the Philistines. The whole thing would be seen in real time as it happens, and the Philistines would be ready for them. And you don't want to make an uphill assault against a prepared enemy. That's suicide.

Which is why you have such a stand-still going on here. That's why the Philistines haven't attacked the Israelite camp because, as small as they are, they have the advantage on their side of the canyon.

So Jonathan doesn't take a large force. He goes with just his armour-bearer. Two men could easily sneak off and move through the canyon undetected from both sides until a critical moment.

And before we keep going, we can't miss the wonderful response of his armour-bearer in verse 7: “And his armor-bearer said to him, ‘Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul’” (1 Samuel 14:7). Modern translation? "Let's roll, man!" I love this guy, and we don't even know his name.

And then Jonathan shares the rest of his plan that I just hinted at. “Then Jonathan said, ‘Behold, we will cross over to the men, and we will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, ‘Wait until we come to you,’ then we will stand still in our place, and we will not go up to them. But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hand. And this shall be the sign to us’” (1 Samuel 14:8–10).

At first read, this can sound a little bit like Gideon's fleece, just a random sign. But it's more than that.

Jonathan knows that at some point the Philistines on the other side are going to see them making their way up the opposite canyon wall to them. And their response will say a lot about how attackable they are. If the Philistines say, "Stop there, we'll come down to you," that means that they'd be in a defensive posture, watching out for an attack, and don't want to let any hostiles approach their position. They're braced for trouble, and that's not the kind of enemy you want to attack.

So what will Jonathan do in that situation? He'll stay in his spot and, apparently, trust God with what's next.

But if the Philistines say "come up to us," then that shows that they aren't worried. They're off their guard—literally. They're happy to invite these two soldiers to come up to their position, because they're not expecting an attack—because nobody in their right mind would make an uphill attack against a prepared enemy with only two soldiers?

And that's Jonathan's whole play. He will strike only if and when the Philistines are not expecting a strike. That's good military instincts there.

So while he can't control how the Philistines respond, if they give him the invitation, he's going to take that as a sign that the Lord has given them into his hands.

3. The Plan in Action (vv. 11-15)

And now, having made his plan, Jonathan puts his plan into action in verse 11. “So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, ‘Look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves.’ And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, ‘Come up to us, and we will show you a thing’" (1 Samuel 14:11–12a).

The Philistines see the two men and mock them as if they were rats or cockroaches coming out of their holes. And they respond with cocky arrogance, inviting them up to where they are in order to "teach them a lesson."

This is exactly what Jonathan was looking for. These guys are overconfident, and they have no idea what's coming for them.

“…And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, ‘Come up after me, for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.’"

Notice Jonathan is not doing this for his own glory. Or his own benefit. He acts as an agent of the nation, God's nation. He fights for Israel.

"Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet [which is exactly what you'd have to do in that terrain], and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him” (1 Samuel 14:12–13).

They show up, cresting the ridge, but these visitors aren't here for a chit-chat. Swords flash and, caught completely off-guard, the Philistines fall before Jonathan and his armour-bearer. And in that first attack, twenty men fall.

Twenty men falling is not a huge amount when you have thousands of soldiers. But just imagine this from the perspective of the rest of the Philistines. They have lookouts posted. They know that the Israelites haven't launched an assault. They feel totally safe. And all of a sudden men are falling dead at their most secure and unexpected spot to an invisible enemy who showed up out of nowhere?

No doubt aided by the Lord, the entire Philistine force falls into a panic—in the camp, in the field, among all the people. The garrison and even the raiding parties that had been sent out tremble.

And it's more than the Philistines trembling—the ground itself shakes. Like the last time he routed the Philistines under Samuel, God is turning nature itself against them, triggering an earthquake that shows that the very ground they stand on isn't a safe place for them.

And so things move from a panic at the beginning of verse 15 to a very great panic at the end. Or, as the Hebrew could mean, a panic from God.

A precision strike combined with natural psychological shock and then God's direct involvement has thrown the entire Philistine army into disarray.

4. Israel Responds

The next five verses tell us how the rest of Israel joins in the rout. But first, we get an almost funny but sad account of what it took to get Saul in the game. It starts with the scene shifting back to verse 16 where Saul's watchmen report how the Philistines are scattering in every direction. Remember, they can each see everything that's going on on the other side.

Saul immediately asks for a count to figure out who might have caused this, and, "behold, Jonathan and his armor-bearer were not there" verse 17 days. That word "behold" might be a statement of surprise, or it could as easily point to a sense of, "of course it would be them. That's exactly the kind of thing that they would do—sneak off and cause trouble."

So what does Saul do next? Just remember, his enemies are already in a God-caused panic. They are falling before the sword of Jonathan at that moment. And what does Saul do? He says to the priest, "bring the ark of God here."

That's when we find out that Saul has dragged the ark out of storage and has brought it to the front lines again, because that worked out so great when they did that before, right? And the idea seems to be that he wants the priest to use the Urim and the Thummim before the ark to discern the will of God. In other words, he's asking God, should we go join this battle?

He wants to know if they should join a battle he should have started days ago, a battle that God is already winning for them!

This is like the guy who wants to pray about everything even when God has already told us what to do. "You should go to church." "I'll pray about it." "You should stop cheating on your wife." "I'll pray about it."

Verse 19—“Now while Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines increased more and more. So Saul said to the priest, ‘Withdraw your hand’” (1 Samuel 14:19).

Eventually, Saul himself gets the point. We don't need to ask God what to do when God is already working so obviously. “Then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and went into the battle. And behold, every Philistine’s sword was against his fellow, and there was very great confusion” (1 Samuel 14:20).

Israel doesn't have swords, but they don't need swords because God has turned the Philistines' swords against each other, just like he did with the Midianites in the day of Gideon (Judges 7:22). And there was a very great confusion, the very thing God promised to send upon Israel's enemies in Deuteronomy 7:23.

Verse 21 talks about the Hebrews who were with the Philistines—either as hired mercenaries or captured slaves—turning against them and joining Israel in the battle. And verse 22 describes all of the men who had gone into hiding coming out of hiding and following hard after the Philistines in battle as the battle passes beyond Beth-aven, with the Philistines in full retreat.

And verse 23 gives us the summary statement of what happened that day: “So the Lord saved Israel that day” (1 Samuel 14:23).

The Lord saved Israel. He used Jonathan. He used Jonathan's courage, tactical skills, planning, and awareness. But He did the saving.

Conclusion & Application

That dynamic is right at the heart of this passage and pulls us into the message it gives to us today. And I want to look at three overlapping areas where Jonathan sets an important and good example for us.

1. Faith and Action

Last week we saw how trusting God sometimes means waiting and doing nothing, when doing something would mean obeying a direct command the Lord has given us.

But this week we see that trusting God often enough means taking action. Samuel had come. There was no more reason to wait. God promised victory to his obedient people. Jonathan saw no reason to keep sitting around, so he just did something. He took a godly risk and God answered.

Many Christians could stand to learn this lesson, including, often enough in my experience, many Christian young people. As they grow up, they realize that making decisions is hard. Taking action is hard. Taking risks is hard. So often, young people spiritualize their inactivity by saying that they are just waiting on the Lord.

Even good Christians do this. Some of you may be familiar with the story of Jim and Elizabeth Elliott, and how a sincere and devoted Jim kept Elizabeth on a string for years, refusing to marry her until he had clear direction from the Lord. And as I read their story, it seems so obvious to me that Jim just needed an older man to kick him in the pants—perhaps literally—and tell him to go marry that girl before someone else did.

Jonathan believed the promises of God, and he took action. Just like the Apostles did in the book of Acts, moving out to spread the gospel, often without a direct word from God, trusting God to redirect them as He chose to.

Whether we are young or old, we shouldn't spiritualize our fear by sitting on our hands and waiting for the sky to part. Everything we need to know about the will of God is in this book. Believe it, trust it, obey it, and do the next right thing. Make yourself available for God to work through you.

2. Faith and Thinking

Second, Jonathan's example of combining great faith with great tactical strategy shows us that trusting God and using our brain are not opposites. Trusting God and making a plan are not opposites. Just like we shouldn't spiritualize inactivity, we shouldn't spiritualize thoughtlessness.

Once again, this is a mistake many Christians have made. Trusting God means jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Or, like Satan tempted Jesus to do, jump from the pinnacle of the temple trusting God to catch you.

It is not faithless to make plans. It is faithless to trust in our plans as if we were God. That's what James corrects in those famous words from James 4. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. But that doesn't stop us from making plans. We just say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:15).

And Jonathan sets a great example of that.

3. Faith and Resources

But, third, lest we get out of balance, Jonathan also shows us the limits of human wisdom and human resources. He made a plan, but a plan that would have ended in disaster if God did not come through for him. So what if he killed 20 men in a surprise attack, if the rest of the camp rallied and turned against him? This story could just have easily ended with Jonathan's lifeless body being cast off the cliff that he'd just climbed up.

So we use our brains and we make our plans, but do we factor God and His promises into those plans? Do we believe, with Jonathan, that our limited resources are not a problem to God? Do we believe that the Lord can save by many or by few?

I want to pause on this last point and carefully apply this to us as a church—as Emmanuel Baptist Church. I haven't been able to help but notice over the past few years as we've made decisions about the kinds of things we're going to do together, the question of "can we do this?" seems to rise to the surface quite a bit sooner than the question of "should we do this?"

So, for example, at one of our congregational meetings we were discussing weekly communion. The elders had put forward some reasons to consider weekly communion, but we basically skipped right over that discussion and talked about whether we could do communion every week—whether we had the resources and the people to make it happen.

Now that impulse isn't entirely wrong. Jesus commended the person who sat down to count the cost before they began a project (Luke 14:27-32).

But sometimes, don't you think we need a bit more of the faith of Jonathan? Don't you think that sometimes we should ask, “Should we do this?" And if the answer is yes, then instead of just asking “Can we do this or not?" we ask, “Okay, how can we do this? How can we make this work?"

And we don't leave God out of the answer. Because nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.

Now once again, there's a bunch of qualifications we could add to this. I get that some of us are more visionaries, and some of us are more practical, and we need each other. But as a church, as families, as individuals, let’s not play it safe. Let’s be always ready to say yes to something big that we can’t do without God, trusting Him for His help.

4. From Jonathan to Jesus

There's one final way we can learn from Jonathan this morning, and it has nothing to do with his example. It has to do with what he did, and how he went out to do for Israel what everybody else had failed to do. Like David after him, Jonathan was the champion who took the fight to the enemy to save his people.

And in this sense, Jonathan points us to our Saviour, who did for us what we could not do. He brought the battle to the enemy that day. He attacked the forces of darkness in a way least expected—death on a cross—and the rout continues to this day as, like the people in verses 22-23, we join in to proclaim the gospel and rescue people from the kingdom of darkness.

And it's in the Great Commission that the work of Christ for us, and the example of Jonathan's thoughtful, initiative-taking faith, come together. Jesus has died and risen and ascended. The enemy has been put to open shame. Christ has sent us out to make disciples of all nations.

Maybe for you this week the way you apply this passage is by going and starting a gospel conversation with a neighbour or a friend. Maybe it's by filing that application to that missions agency. Maybe it's by just getting up in the morning and facing your day with faith. Whatever it is, let's go trust and obey, because nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.