40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 14:1-35 (Episode 237)

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Jonathan and his armor-bearer engage with a group of Philistines. God brings about a great confusion as battle breaks out. Saul discovers his son is missing. And a foolish oath from Saul results in forbidden eating. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Livestream Signup Chad Bird's New Book 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. Go over to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there this is the last time i'm going to say this chad make sure you click on that here we still stand live stream banner so that you can get registered for the live stream that is coming up october 16th and 17th two-day event all online it's free cost you nothing when i say get registered i literally just mean type your name and email address into a form and then we'll send you links at the appropriate time that's all it takes and you can join us for the here we still

in live online conference. Also, if you're sitting there right now listening to this, you can also whip out your phone while you're listening, go to Amazon, type in Unveiling Mercy, and you can hit that pre-order for Chad's book. We don't know. Every single one of you might have already done this because they don't give us numbers for the pre-order. So we don't know. I mean, I might be talking to no one. Every single one of you may be like, guys, I already did it. I don't know. But if you haven't, now's the time. Christmas is coming. My kid informed me that I can't remember how many days it was, but it was less days than I thought it was away just the other day. So you can get those Christmas presents ordered. Nothing like a devotional in the Hebrew

for everyone that you know. So get that all done. Chad, we are in 1 Samuel 14. So we got a long chapter that we're going to try to make our way through with a bunch of weird stuff in it. Yeah, we have a lot of weird stuff coming up here. We've got some crazy oath that Saul makes. We got Jonathan, who ends up being like a really, really good warrior. And then we have some strange like people eating meat with blood in it. And Saul almost puts Jonathan to death. I mean, there's a lot of strange happenings in 1 Samuel 14, and it is a long chapter, 52 verses, so we've got quite a bit to cover here. Have you noticed this about the Old Testament and the New Testament, but particularly in the Old Testament? Here is something you can learn from the Old Testament. Don't make oaths. Just don't do it.

Just don't. I mean, why? Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Yeah, this is not good. Like, don't make the oaths, man. Like, we've seen now numerous times where people have made oaths that were ill-advised, and just don't do it. Yeah, because chances are you're going to get your kid in trouble. I feel like this is what Jesus is thinking of.

This is a recurring pattern. Yeah, Jesus— Probably so. He's thinking about dudes making oaths about sacrificing the first thing out their door. He's thinking about 1 Samuel 14, and Jesus says, just let your yes be yes and your no be no. This oath business has not went well historically. no no it has not yeah so we'll uh we will we will get to uh to this particular oath uh a little ways into the chapter so what's gonna what's gonna go down basically just kind of give you a let me give

you a big picture view here so jonathan and his armor bearer are going to attack some philistines and it's going to go really well philistines are going to freak out and then the israelites are going to start to pursue some of the philistines and it turns out that some of the israelites had actually gone over to the side of the philistines like outlaws so we're gonna see what happens to them jonathan gets hungry eat some honey saul said nobody's supposed to eat anything and in the end it's a question of what's going to happen when the lots the urim and thumim are cast we're going to figure out what's going to happen when Jonathan is the one chosen by Lot. So anyway, that's kind of an outline what we're coming up to. Well, it begins with Jonathan deciding that he's going to

do something about the Philistines. So Jonathan has his armor bearer, his servant who's with him, and he says to his armor bearer, tell you what, let's cross over to the garrison of the Philistines that's on the other side but he did not tell his father now yeah just to recap you have to remember that they are facing down what seems like uh an insurmountable uh opposition here which is probably why you have some defectors that were like you know what now is a good time to switch sides yeah he had some opportunists there he were like i'm not liking these odds so i think i'm going to join the the philistines the uncircumcised philistines for uh for a little while yeah things are not looking good for saul uh i mean you can you kind of get the feel from not just this chapter but

the previous chapter it's like you just pick up these little hints that things are gradually collapsing all around saul i mean we're going to get to his related to his collapse in the next episode in chapter 15. But you're already picking up on a lot of pretty strong hints that things are not going to work out well for the first king of Israel. And we're going to see more of this in this chapter. Saul just can't, he can't seem to get his act together. It's like there's always something going wrong with him. Either something happens or he does something wrong or his men desert him, and things just gradually begin to fall apart for him. So in this particular case, we start out with a focus on Jonathan, and this particular story kind of sets the father and son

at odds, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly in the sense that if there's any hero in this particular story, it's certainly not Saul. I mean, he kind of comes across in many ways as a buffoon, but jonathan comes out as this daring gallant uh really good warrior who basically thinks that his dad has made a huge mistake and has led to all sorts of problems for for the rest of the troops so anyway jonathan says to his armor bearer this this young servant he says let's go over there's there's philistine garrison over there he didn't tell his father we're told that he didn't tell his father, because that's going to become significant a little bit later in the story. So they sort of, I guess, I guess they're just going to take matters into their own hands. They're

going to sneak off and see what they can do. So Saul is staying in the outstarts of Gibeah under a pomegranate for some reason, and I can't quite figure it out. I even researched this. The ESV translates it under the pomegranate cave or something like that. Yeah, it's just, but it's the pomegranate tree in hebrew i don't know why they have cave there but depending on the translation you're using you'll see something about a pomegranate probably a tree anyway so he's staying there uh it's close to this place called migron right outside gibia and he's got 600 guys with him so this is what you were talking about earlier dan he's only got 600 men he's had that he started out with about 2 000 and so he's uh his troops have just been hemorrhaging uh losing

them left and right. They're deserting him. Now he's got 600, and that's it. So 600 was Saul, and he's also got a priest with him. This is the first time we've met this guy, but we know his grandfather. So he's got Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli. So Ahijah is the grandson of Eli. You remember Eli from several episodes ago of course that's how first samuel starts out eli's the priest samuel is taken under under him he kind of becomes samuel's eli becomes sort of samuel's adopted father he's raising him there at the the tabernacle eli dies when news comes back that the ark of god has been taken as do his two sons so this is his grandson ahijah and he is there he's the so he's

the the new priest of the lord i guess maybe he's the the high priest we're not told that but he's probably the high priest and he was wearing an ephod you got to keep this all these details are significant because the ephod is going to come up a little bit later when we have to decide when we have to cast lots and the people did not know that jonathan had gone so nobody knows at this point that jonathan is armor bearer on this uh secret mission to attack the philistine garrison how are they going to get there well they take this really dangerous route it says between the passes by which jonathan sought to cross over to the philistine garrison there were a couple of real sharp crags it's like a the hebrew there is like a tooth crag i guess like you know just like

teeth stick out so these were sticking out on uh on either side and they're even i guess these were so well known that they gave names to the to both of these uh these rocky outcroppings one was named bozes and the other was named uh sine which means shining and thorny so this was evidently a well-known place you got you got this uh real steep drop off between them and it's not a place the reason this geography is important is this is not a place where the philistines would have expected someone to come from, right? So the one rises on the north, and the one rises on the south. So we're at verse 5 now. Verse 6, Jonathan says to the young man who was carrying his armor, come and let us cross over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. Perhaps

the Lord will work for us, for the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few. That's a pretty good, I would say, pretty good theological statement. First of all, he says, you know, perhaps. He says perhaps, not because he doubts the Lord's ability to give him success. The perhaps is, listen, I don't know the will of God, right? And I'm about to engage in a very difficult maneuver, trying to get to where the enemy's at. And perhaps the Lord will work for us. because you know what? Numbers don't matter to God. The Lord is not restrained to say by many

or by few. Can the Lord save his people with an army of 10,000? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Can the Lord save his army with one angel? Yeah. He did that much later in the time of Isaiah, right? When he just basically wiped out the whole Assyrian army with one angel. Or you have, you know, David later on one guy a kid arm of the sling and they have this uh this battle of one warrior against another warrior and he ends up taking out the the philistine warrior takes out goliath so god can god can save his people by by many or or by a few and in this case there's going to be two of them jonathan and his armor bearer yeah i mean that's this is why uh this is why thy will be done is like the best statement of faith it's like it's it's it's a statement that does two things it

tells it says that god is sovereign uh and that you are not it is putting your trust in god while not being presumptuous that you know everything that he knows uh or that you know even what it is that he is or isn't going to do right so this perhaps is not at all doubt it's like actually the it's actually much different than doubt it's it's knowing uh the difference between you and god yeah yeah and this occurs this isn't the only place this hebrew word occurs it occurs uh in several of the contexts where the will of the lord is uncertain you know uh it as kind of a standard theological rule of thumb is that if god has promised something unconditionally unconditionally, then you pray for it unconditionally. God has promised you

unconditionally forgiveness and peace and hope and all of these things. And so you don't pray, Lord, if it is your will, give me love. You don't pray, Lord, if it is your will, give me forgiveness. No, you ask for that without any conditions because God has promised it unconditionally. But if he's promised something conditionally, that is, you don't know for sure if he's going to give it to you like healing a body uh or you know protection from danger all that kind of stuff keeping you uh you know from getting uh injured or whatever it might be uh then yeah you pray thy will be done there's a lot of most of life is praying thy will be done because most of life we're we're saying perhaps we don't know for sure yeah but we do know that god's not

restrained by many or by few he can do that which he wants because he is god yeah yeah god's god's will is sometimes unknown but his his power is not so he certainly has the you pray knowing he has the power to do whatever it is that you're asking uh the only question is is is this what he wills to do but yeah i mean some people even say you know the things that god has promised and you see people do this in the scriptures all the time you you can almost demand that god do certain things once he has locked once he has locked himself up with his word yes yeah yeah yeah we have a great example of that in uh you know the the mother of the the syrophoenician mother yeah right yeah she's she's praying for mercy yeah you can demand

mercy from god in in the sense of you know you can say you never say lord if it is your will have mercy no you say lord have mercy you said lord have mercy it's not even a statement with a question mark on the end of it uh lord have mercy no it's a it is a there's a period on the into that thing yeah absolutely absolutely so jonathan is uh not sure so he says perhaps maybe maybe he will and his armor bearer said to him it's a little bit uh a little bit strange in the hebrew here so you'll see this translated uh a little bit differently depending on which one you're using but mine has do all that is in your heart turn yourself that's the the confusing part that translation of that verb for turn yourself and here i am with you according to

your heart or like your heart basically what he's saying is this uh whatever's in your heart go ahead and do that and i am with you like your heart's with you the septuagint the greek translation has has it something like i don't have it here in front of me i looked at it earlier this morning something like as is your heart so is my heart yeah something like that but i mean the the point he's making is basically i'm with you no matter what you know if your if your heart is leading you to this that is say if the uh your heart is the epicenter of your being so if if the epicenter of your being if the if who you are is leading you to do this then yeah I'm I'm with you where you go it's kind of a a Ruth kind of moment right where you go I will go

yeah so his armor bearer is basically telling him that whatever you want to do I'm I'm with you his armor bearer kind of says you know like what your will is that's going to be that's going to be my will so here's verse 8 Jonathan's going to kind of lay out his plan he says look here's what we're going to do we're going to cross over to where these these guys are at these Philistines and we're going to reveal ourselves to them and that's when this guy checked out that's when i was with you right up until then wait he's like he's like wait we're gonna do what like i'm with you my heart is with you okay what we're gonna do is we're gonna cross over and then we're gonna show ourselves okay see like that was okay my heart is my heart is now has now fled

yeah i was with you until you said that so uh that so that's the first part of the plan we're going to kind of sneak over there, and then we're going to show ourselves. And then, verse 9, they're going to say one of two things. So if they say, wait, and we will come to you, then we're going to stand where we're at, and we're not going to go up to them. But if they say, come up to us, then we will go up, because the Lord has given them into our hands, and this shall be the sign to us now this is a little strange to me just because having said all that about jonathan and the perhaps thing he kind of here he seems to be kind of laying down like okay god uh here's what i want you to do you know depending on what they say is i'm gonna put

the fleece out like yeah yeah so if they say this if they say we're coming to you then evidently God is not really in my plan you know but if they say come up to us then that's going to be God's sign to us how did Jonathan know that I don't know I guess he's like well if they say if they come after us we know it's not God's plan and we run and if they say come to us then we'll just we have to go with this is God's plan because we're gonna we're gonna be the ones making the move yeah i guess that's i guess that's what he's that's what he's thinking uh so and it by the way this is sort of a uh i don't know that this is necessarily intended uh but it is kind of a cool thing in the hebrew it's almost a play on jonathan's name so jonathan's name in hebrew would

be pronounced either uh yahonatan or yonatan so the yahoo or yo is short for yahweh the lord and the Yeho Natan, the Natan part of that is where we get names like Nathan, but Natan means to give. So Jonathan's name, Yeho Natan, means the Lord has given. And he says here, if they say, come up to us, then we're going to go up because the Lord has given them into our hands. So Jonathan is, whether purposely or inadvertently is making a play on his own name. So Jonathan says, if they say, come up to us, then they've been Jonathaned into our hands. Well, you can probably forecast what is actually going to happen.

Verse 11, they both reveal themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines seem to be mocking them here. they're like oh look the hebrews are coming out of the holes where they've hidden themselves look here come the cave men right yeah look at these uh hebrew prairie dogs out there yeah look the hebrew prairie dogs have shown i've shown their heads they're coming out of the caves uh and then they continue the mocking uh the men of the garrison they they call out to jonathan into his armor bearer and i don't like the translation i'm using here it it renders it a little bit too literally it says come up to us and we will tell you something well the first part

is fine come up to us but that we will tell you something kind of has the the feel of like come here we're going to teach you a lesson you know what i mean yeah that's kind of the feel of this the yeah the esv says uh come up to us and we will show you a thing oh yeah yeah there you go show it seems to me that what they're saying is hey come over here we're going to show you a little something yeah that's it that captures the essence of it so it's a the the hebrew there is a a verbal form of like cause someone to know but it kind of has the given the context it's kind of like yeah we're going to show you a little thing just come on up to it we got a little something for you yeah that's it come on up here prairie dogs we're going to show you a thing or

two well of course this was exactly what jonathan had laid down as the sign right if they said come up then this is the sign so they uh they climb up this is remember they're climbing like up this sharpie precipice so it says they climb up on their hands and their and their feet so they're just you know they are looking like prairie dogs i suppose they're crawling like animals and his armor bear is behind him and then when the battle begins it says they fell before jonathan and his armor bearer put some of them to death as well and in fact that slaughter verse 14 was one in which jonathan and his armor bearer killed about 20 guys in a small space it says literally it's within half a furrow in an acre of land uh which i suppose is just the hebrew way of

saying it's a pretty small area where these guys were at but the the main point is listen it's 20 to 2 these are not good odds you know but jonathan and or maybe there were more but they killed 20 of them anyway so this this particular small isolated incident is the pebble in the pond we're going to have the ripple effect after after this so jonathan and his armor bearer because of course god is with them because the lord is giving these philistines into their hands they have a great success and verse 15 is fascinating because it says there was a a trembling in the camp in the field and among all the people even the garrison and the raiders trembled and the earth quaked so that it became a great trembling literally so that it become

became a uh a trembling from god or a panic from god it's fascinating because you you have this kind of language in a lot of different places both in prose and poetry but you have it all over the place in some of the psalms where like david is talking about this great victory that god gives and it's like the earth is cooperating right you have all like stars are falling from the sky the earth is shaking the ground is splitting apart i mean some of this is like exaggerated hyperbolic poetic language in the psalms where he's describing how the the earth is involved in this appearance of god but you also have things like this happening in a lot of other prose context where there's some kind of battle that takes place but creation is as it were

cooperating with god and with with his army because all sorts of things start to happen like hailstones fall on the enemies or hear the ground quakes of course then you have the most monumental with like you know the sea splitting or the earth opening up to swallow up korah and his and his rebels so there's all sorts of kind of creational things happening when uh you have these battles taking place as well now interestingly here's a little bit of a intertextuality for you so the relationship between two different texts i was looking at this particular verse and i wondered if that verb translated here as quaked if it had occurred anywhere else or you know any significant significant context so i did a word search on it and i found this fascinatingly if you go back

to the book of exodus chapter 15 remember this is right after they've crossed the sea this is this is the song at the sea so if you look at exodus 15 verse uh 14 it says this the piece so this is the song of the sea right after they crossed the peoples have heard they tremble that's the same verb that's used here in first samuel but notice who trembles it says anguish has gripped the inhabitants of philistia those are the interesting so all the way back at the crossing of the red sea when they sang that song and and use that same verb for trembling or quaking it was connected to the people of the philistines now we skip forward generations to first samuel 14 and once more who's quaking who's trembling ah well the inhabitants of philistia

So that's a cool way you'll sometimes see two narratives that really don't seem to have a whole lot in common linked together by use of the same verb. You know, of all the enemies of Israel that we see, it does seem like the Philistines are the enemy that is most fearful of the God of Israel. We've talked about this before, but they absolutely seem to believe that he is a real thing.

And they've experienced some things that would lead them to believe that. And so, you know, if you're like, yeah, we just saw two guys saunter in there and just start wiping guys out. You start to wonder, like, oh, my gosh, are these people's God? Is he coming out to battle for them again? Again? Yeah. They probably are thinking that. I mean, that's a great point to make, too. They do seem to be, in an odd sort of way,

they seem to be the most theologically akin to the israelites in that way in that way i mean of course they're worshiping different gods but they they actually have respect for the god of israel and probably because of well even before they captured the ark but i guarantee you the whole ark story that was something that fathers told their sons and those sons told their sons like that got passed down like beware of messing with the god of the israelites because of what happened to us they probably also think i mean this is just true because this is the way god is god is unlike you would ever think god is and so obviously all your false gods behave exactly the way that you assume they behave because you created them i imagine the philistines have have really tried

to figure out this god of israel and they can't do it right and because he neither can we because This god is so unlike all the other gods. We can't figure this god out. He seems so unknowable. And in a lot of ways, this god seems unpredictable. I mean, sometimes he comes out. Sometimes he doesn't. We can't determine how to avoid god.

Sometimes he doesn't show up. And then we have these big victories. And then sometimes two guys come and wipe out a bunch of people. And this is very inconsistent. yeah this is the this is the philistines painful way of learning the theology of the cross right yeah the backwards sort of ways that god likes to work i guess we keep moving on here uh we have this all this trembling taking place everybody's scared uh and then so this is happening among the philistines but saul's people find out about it too so saul's got these spies in gibeah and they

see everything that's going on they see the multitudes melting away they're going this way they're going that way so saul says to saul knows something's happened right why are all these philistines taking off so saul says to his people uh that they need to figure out who's not there number us number us and see who has gone from us so they had some kind of system whereby they could you know figure out pretty quickly who was there and who wasn't and they when they numbered them all when they, you know, did their, their roll call or whatever they did. Jonathan and his armor bearer went out there. So of course he knows, ah, my son, he's responsible for this. Then we have this strange episode. Saul says to Ahijah, Ahijah is the priest. So the grandson of Eli,

he says, bring the ark of God here. Okay. Bad idea. I mean, this is, you talked about the odes earlier you know they should know by now that bringing the ark of god not not a good move hey samuel is still alive and last time that we did this without asking if samuel if this was a good idea it was not a good idea so not a good idea here either saul just blew it with samuel it's sort of unfathomable that he is making this move without saying what he should be saying right bring samuel here i got a question to ask him yeah yeah yeah that's it he's a uh conspicuously absent from this whole this whole chapter so he's not there i got the ark uh but what another part that kind of that's strange about this is so he says bring the ark of god here okay the ark of

god was at that time with the sons of israel should not have been but it was but the ark kind of fades for the story because what's going on is he really wants the priest to cast lots because he goes on it says so Saul's talking to the priest and then there's a commotion in the camp of the Philistines it just keeps increasing it continues so into verse 19 has this kind of a brief statement that needs some explanation he says to the priest withdraw your hand withdraw your hand from what well i think what's going on here is this so saul called to hide to the priest he's like okay we i need to know the will of god here what do i do you know do i stay here do i attack what do i need to do so he says and and this is admittedly speculation but i'm i'm speculating on the

basis of these few words but i think what he said was we need to determine the will of the lord so why don't you cast lots for me? Why don't you pull out the urim and thumim and tell me what I'm supposed to do? And then when he's about to do that, things are thrown into such confusion that he says, withdraw your hand. That is to say, don't worry about it. Don't cast lots. We just need to act now. This is the only time, if my reconstruction of that is right, this is the only time in the scriptures where basically you stop a priest halfway through casting lots yeah to say nope we just need to move on we got it we don't have any time to determine the will of the lord we just need to to go so what happens well Saul and all the

people who were with him rallied they came to the battle and it says that every man's sword was against his fellow that takes us that echoes what we what happened in judges seven when Gideon and his men you know they hold up the torches blow the trumpets and the swords and the meeting knots were turned against each other well that's what's happened in here with the philistines every man's turned against him and it says there was a a very great confusion now i did a a search of this this particular phrase very great confusion it's three words in hebrew three words in english occurs only here and one other place. Back in chapter 5, verse 9, when the ark of God was brought into one of the cities of the Philistines, there was very great confusion. I think this is the case where the

author is wanting us to link these two episodes together. God caused confusion back in chapter 5 when they brought the ark of God into one of the Philistine cities, and now, what's more, God is causing a very great confusion among the philistines because he is going out to battle with with his israelites verse 21 the hebrews now the hebrews who were with the philistines previously now these are the outlaws that i mentioned earlier they also went up with them all around in the camp even they also turned to be with the israelites who were with saul and jonathan so these are the guys you know some real flip-floppers here they see the they see the tie turning they're like well my best you change uniforms right quick let me put on my my israelite

uniform once more right yeah so uh they keep they keep flip flipping and flopping back and forth and all the men of israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of ephraim they heard that the philistines had fled and so they pursued them in battle also and the lord delivered israel that day and the battle spread beyond beth avon so everything at this point really seems to be going fairly well right jonathan is armor bearer they had this great victory over the garrison of the philistines and then uh saul and his army well they rally and some of the guys who had deserted them they come back around to their side some of the guys who were in hiding they come out and everybody's chasing the israelites now i mean everybody's chasing the

philistines now this should have been should have been great yeah i mean i'm not a i'm not a prophet priest or king chad but i feel like this is the moment where you you make a sacrifice you take the win and go home yeah that would have been probably smart but as you might suspect uh that's not that's not what happens the uh verse 24 says the men of israel were hard pressed on that day why were they hard pressed well because saul here's our oath saul had put the people under oath saying and this is this just makes no sense here's the oath cursed be the man who eats food before evening and until i have avenged myself on my enemies so none of the people tasted food yeah This isn't the smartest thing.

Okay, so every time I go to go play basketball, if I know I'm going to go play basketball for a couple hours, I eat a peanut butter Snickers and a banana. That's for the carbs, the sugar, and the potassium so that your muscles don't cramp up and so you have energy and calories to burn. I assume if I'm about to go into battle, like not eating anything all day is is not the way it's not it just doesn't seem like a wise move

no no so you play basketball i i run so like my wednesday mornings are my long run so i ran 10 miles last week now the day before i eat more food than usual you know if you're if you're running a long race you eat a lot of food the day before you carve up right yeah because you know you're pushing your body to the extreme the next day so i know i have never been i have never pursued philistines i know nor have i ever been a soldier in battle but i would assume that it's the same thing right if you if you want to have energy you need to be eating the last thing you need to be doing is fasting during a battle no man you gotta hit that protein bar yeah you need your snickers but this is another one of these cases just like jephthah that we talked

about you know back in a book of judges and his foolish oath that he swore this is another foolish oath and we'll see as the story goes on exactly why how foolish it was so uh what happens next well the people they enter the forest there's honey on the ground i guess kind of a strange episode but honey's dripping evidently from some some honeycombs and uh no man ate any of it Because, of course, they're afraid of the oath. Jonathan, he didn't know about it. So he's got his staff in his hand. He reaches down and he puts some in the honeycomb and puts it to his mouth and says his eyes brightened.

You know, he was hungry. Right. And the honey helped. He made it. It was a practical, realistic decision. There was no reason for Jonathan not to do this. but one of the people said uh jonathan your your dad strictly put the people under oath saying curse to be the man who eats food today and i love jonathan's response this is verse 29

jonathan makes no excuses he says my father has troubled the land see now how my eyes have brighten because I tasted a little of this honey. The Hebrew verb akar, which is used there for troubled, that takes us all the way back to the book of Joshua. Remember how Achan had troubled Israel and he was stoned and buried and it was called the Valley of Achor. So Jonathan says here of his dad, yeah, well, you know what? My dad has made trouble for the land. You should taste some honey just like i did so anyway that was that's the whole uh the breaking of the breaking of the oath part so moving on verse 31 they they struck down the philistines and they pursued them all the way to kind of the philistine border and it says the people were weary

understandably so so they end up rushing upon the spoil and they're taking some sheep and some oxen and some calves and they're slaughtering them and they're not slaughtering so as to drain all the blood so when they're eating the meat they're actually eating the meat with the blood which we all know from genesis 9 and from leviticus is is a huge huge taboo in in the old testament it's got to be real hungry they're coming like the sun has gone down they come up on some cattle and they just start hacking it into steaks man yeah yeah i mean they could be some of this uh raw you know it's it's not unheard of for hunters to do that and so maybe they're you know taking a bite out of the uh the heart who knows what they're doing but they're they're eating the animals with

without the blood drain so Saul after he's uttered his foolish oath now he's all worried because the people are sinning against the Lord and so he takes this great stone it's gonna make an altar all of a sudden and he says to the people hey bring the animals here and slaughter it here don't sin against the lord by eating the meat with the blood so the people brought their animals to him and he slaughtered it there and everything i suppose was kosher kosher after after that so dan are we gonna be able to finish this i don't think we're gonna make it man i thought we were gonna make it are we gonna have to leave everybody hanging it looks that way i mean we i'm looking ahead here we've got we've got like uh we've got a significant portion coming up here

where we have to cast lots and we got to figure out who's guilty and who's innocent and we might just have to leave that until next time we might have to yeah so i mean so we have to leave here where saw has made an altar uh it just said this was uh this was the first altar that he built to the lord so this is uh this is a new thing for him right yeah it is it's it in fact it's a it's almost a pentateuchal kind of statement right let's talk about how abraham built an altar isaac built an altar jacob built an altar now saul builds an altar to uh to the lord and you kind of wrap up here but you know saul is a strange character because he'll utter these it's it's almost like he is pious but in a in a wrong sort of way like he want he makes this oath

you know no no one can eat until god has given us victory and he's all worried about the guys eating the the blood with with the meat but at the same time he's almost foolishly pious because the oath that he makes ends up hurting his own people and jeopardizes his son later on so well you're not eating the you're not eating the meat with the blood in it if you didn't make the oath that no one's supposed to eat anything right yeah and what this all comes down to is god didn't tell him to make that oath i mean god god did not this this oath was not instructed by god so this is just a there's and we see this i mean we talk about like there is such a thing as coming up or inventing

your own piety. They're really pious about doing things that sound godly that God hasn't said to do. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, that was one of the complaints of the Reformation, right?

All of these invented acts of piety in the medieval church that were thought actually to earn divine merit, earn divine grace, and they weren't commanded by god so beware of falsely creating your own methods of piety especially thinking that somehow god is going to be pleased when you when you do that because we learned from the case of saul that that is not that is not so in fact you you might you might

feign some piety and end up actually committing some sin yes right right well i'm sorry everybody we thought i thought we were going to get through this but uh ends up being 52 verses is a little bit longer a little bit a little bit too much so stay tuned stay tuned guys next week of course uh we'll be we'll be live and not talking about this talking about something else something altogether different of the live recording of 40 minutes which is how the here we still stand conference starts out so on friday if you want to join us live all you have to do is sign up and you can you can hang out with chad and eric and i as we do something special for here we still stand and then we'll be back in it the following week

to find out how the rest of this shakes down. Chad, I will see you next week. In person. Yeah. See you then.