Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 14:22
Likewise all the men of Israel which had hid themselves in mount Ephraim, [when] they heard that the Philistines fled, even they also followed hard after them in the battle.
Verse 22. The men – which had hid themselves] See 1Sa 13:6.
The Vulgate and the Septuagint add here, And there were with Saul about ten thousand men; but this is supported by no other authority.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Likewise all the men of Israel which had hid themselves in Mount Ephraim,…. In the caves and rocks, thickets and pits there, see 1Sa 13:6 when
they heard that the Philistines fled; now being delivered from their fears, and thinking themselves safe, ventured out of their lurking places:
even they also followed hard after them in the battle; they joined the pursuers who came their way, and stuck to them, and closely pursued the flying army of the Philistines. According to Josephus p, the army of Saul was now increased to 10,000.
p Antiqu. l. 6. c. 6. sect. 3.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
COWARDS IN THE WAKE OF CONQUEST
1Sa 14:22
SOME months ago, in my daily Bible reading, my eye rested one morning on the words of this text, and I determined then to preach from them at some time. They impressed me then, as they do now, as being a vivid setting forth of the general subject of Cowardice in the Wake of Conquest. Here are three classes of men coming to battle only when Jonathan has his enemies on the run at a time when they were not essential to victory, but could add something to human slaughter.
Saul and all the people that were with him, were cowed by Philistines, and only got their courage when they saw Jonathan conquering.
The mugwump Hebrews, who had gone over to the successful side, like politicians for revenue only, turned again to their first love, when they saw the Philistines cause lost.
The cowards who crouched in the caves of Mount Ephraim came out of hiding and rushed after the fleeing enemy with Davidic courage when they saw that Jonathan was victorious. That is ideal history indeed; not that it lacks the basis of an actual event, but that such basis is furnished afresh by the happenings of every hour. Just as certainly as you will discover camp-followers keeping to the track of a marching army, so the social, moral, political and religious cowards are always in the wake of conquest. They contribute little or nothing to the actual battle, but they are always on hand to claim a share of the spoils. I want us to see, today, how all the relations of life are ramified by that wretched principle.
It is true of the fight for financial and social stations. The brilliant and ambitious poor boy, who is trying to keep soul and body together, support a widowed mother, and yet save something for self-improvement, finds sympathetic friends few enough. It may be, it often is, that one man will discover the courage, the heroism of his spirit and stand by him, as Jonathans armour-bearer stood by him. But not infrequently such a boy finds no friend. He fights the unequal battle alone! He stands single-handed against hundreds of enemies, and not a volunteer comes to his aid.
But the moment such a boy demonstrates his ability to win; the moment his enemies, poverty, low birth, partial breeding, low social station, such Philistines are overcome and conquered, he finds himself the center of a crowd. They come after him; they claim kinship with him; they laud him for his courage, but covertly remind him that he conquered by their timely aid, etc.
It matters little how lofty the social and financial station of a man may be, if he is never a friend to a fellow-man until that fellow-man has reached the point where his friendship is not needed, he is a coward in the wake of conquest. To illustrate! The young bloods of New York City of seventy years ago would have spurned an introduction to Jay Gouldthe boy who had kept books for a Hobart blacksmith. But when Mr. Gould became a millionaire, they sought him out. They delighted to walk in his wake! They never tired of telling how they believed in him from the first, how they helped him in critical hours, and how their aid made his colossal future possible. Cowards in the wake of financial conquest!
I knew a young woman of considerable beauty, of more than average intellect, who had to do work somewhat servile for a living. But she did it honestly. She did it well. The fashionable women of the city often visited the house where she wrought without deigning a smile to her who opened the door to let them in. By and by the wife died from that house. The widowed husband woke one day to find he loved the girl that served. Their engagement was announced. Polite society stormed. Some of those who had themselves indulged certain hopes had hysterics that Mr. Cshould stoop to such an espousal. But the wedding went on. The deserving girl had conquered, and in the sweet assurance of her lords love, cared little for criticism.
Presently the old crowd returned, and by their smiles, flatterings and fawnings they sought to add new laurels of honor. She didnt need them then. The battle was won. They hadnt dared to brave the objections of the elite until those objections were dead, and then they came courageously to her help; they came as cowards in the wake of conquest. The time to help those who fight such battles is in dangers hour, not when they stand in the fine flush of victory. It is told to the. honor and spirit of Sir Alexander Ball, that in a naval engagement he noticed the pallor on the face of a young British officer; noticed that his hands trembled and his knees knocked together with fear. Walking to his side, Ball laid his palm tenderly on the quivering hand and said assuringly, Courage, my dear boy! I was frightened in my first engagement, but I have lived through many severer ones since. From that moment the young English heart was stout for war, and knew no further fear. He afterward said, It was as if an angel had spoken to me. There are critical hours in every life! The man who has true courage will not wait until the trying times have passed to come to his fellows help.
All attempts at moral and political reforms illustrate the theme announced. It takes a Jonathan to commence crusades against the Philistines of moral and political evil. And when such a crusade is once begun, Jonathan must expect to stand almost alone until the fiercest fight is over, and with the chief danger past, the enemy is fleeing before him. Wendell Phillips, the man of more natural and cultivated graces than any other American of his time, sees slavery with an unprejudiced eye, and decides it ought to be abolished. In the ardor of his burning intellect, the courage of his dauntless spirit, and the hopefulness of his youth, he sets about the battle for universal freedom. What is the result? Friends forsake him. The ruling powers at the Capitol said, as Saul was saying of success against the Philistines, It cant be done! Many mugwump politicians, who were abolitionists in spirit, joined the slavery party as offering to them safety and profit. Such men as Governors W. L. Marcy of New York, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, rushed into the arm of Governor M. C. Duffie of South Carolina, and joined him in an effort to legislate against anti-slavery speech or print, while even such heroic spirits as Lyman Beecher, Dr. Wm. E. Channing, Jeremiah Evarts and others, were not much in evidence until Garrison, Lovejoy and Phillips had done the fiercest fighting and laid many enemies low. Then, when the enemy was in something of disorder, when the southern hosts were fighting among themselves, the great crowd came, and in the wake of Phillips partial conquest, pushed the enemy hard, and the Lord saved the oppressed people. But Phillips was our Jonathan! The first honors for saving our State from that foul stain are his. Garrison, Lovejoy and Lincoln were armour-bearers, indeed, of courage equal to that of this Son of Thunder. Many that went to make the armies that swept the South were the Saul and all the people that were with him, who before the day of battle pretended friendship for slavery; and some were cowards who had skulked in silence until such an hour as victory seemed certain.
Later, history repeated itself. Beyond the dispute of any large-minded statesmen, such as Phillips, and Gladstone; of any great moral teachers such as Beecher, Spurgeon and Manning, there was, till lately, on our national garments a deeper stain than slavery ever was; in our legislative machinery an alien wheel that strained the nation as slavery never did, and that was the legalized saloon. And what was the attitude of many of Gods people toward it? Exactly the old one of these forces of Israel toward Philistia. There were Jonathans among usJohn B. Gough, Neal Dow, Francis Willard, and Roderic Gambrell. These names showed Christian courage in facing that foe.
They had their armour-bearers not a few, and a braver battle was never fought beneath Gods sun than some of these made. But alas for the quivering, cowardly crowd. The Government, like Saul and those with him, sat down in indifference while this liquor Goliath defied it to find a man who could fight with it. Many Christians, who belonged in the temperance camp, were consorting with the saloonists because they counted that the safest place so long as the saloon party was on top. Democracy and Republicanism both claimed to believe in temperance, but lived in tents of Bacchus. Then there was a great residue of Christians who saw the crying shame of our country under saloon control, but they wouldnt speak out for anything. Some of them were intense partisans and feared for the G. O. P. or O. D. P. Some of them were politicians and loved office better than right, or even national life. Some of them were preachers, and feared for their pastoral heads, if they honestly opened them. Many did not hesitate to say, We are prohibitionists at heart, and believe that the prohibition party platform is, as a whole, the most-statesman-like statement of great national principles, but we cant vote that ticket when there is no show for it to win. We dont want to lose our votes. When we see there is a chance for victory, well join you!
How courageous! They kept on aiding the liquor business until they found themselves in the minority, and then they turned over. How full of principle that! How splendidly patriotic! Well I knew a man in Kentucky who took that view of things. For twenty-five years he had been a Republican. When the landslide came on which Mr.
Cleveland rode into the Presidential chair, he turned democratic. Then when Mr. Harrison went in, he returned to his first love, and applied for the position of Government Agent as whisky gauger. He didnt believe in voting with a losing party. Now that the Jonathans of Temperance have come to conquest, and the saloon is biting the dust, the Sauls from our capitol, the Israelites from the whisky camp, and the conscientious Christians from the hidings of silence, come forth in an overwhelming crowd, and with a courage astonishing hold jubilee over the death of John Barleycorn. But they are welcome! Jonathan didnt reject the recruits that came so late. Jonathan didnt tell Saul, and the turncoats and cave-crawlers they were cowards. He hailed their coming with joy. So do the leaders against the saloon hail us when we come. But can we rejoice in a conquest which we only claim because we crawled in its wake? Were not the call of God, and the interests of Israel, such that every soul of us should have sprung forward to the fight, and have been at least armour-bearers of the brave?
Look at the efforts at municipal reform and see our text illustrated. Mr. Stead stood alone in London when he uncovered its crime. They sent him to prison and all men forsook him. When he came forth, and, returning to the fight, overthrew his enemy, all London rushed after him, cowards in the wake of his moral conquest. Dr. Parkhursts plucky fight in New York showed the same. When he opened his battery upon Tammany years ago, and began the fight of a man of courage and faith, he was soundly condemned. The press that lionized him later, lied against him then, and used its most defamatory pen, its most accursed columns, to blacken his character and cut short his saving work. Even the Christian public blushed with shame that a preacher should speak so, and the pulpit was not free from outspoken objections to his course. They imprisoned his armour-bearer, and Israel forsook him more than ever. He picked up new pebbles, went to the fight afresh, and struck down one Tammany Goliath, and the other cowardly giants fled, and then New York Christians found their courage, the pulpit grew brave, the press was animated by a sudden purpose of reform, and the whole cowardly company tumbled over one another in the wake of conquest in municipal reform. Even politicians came to the battle, and if Parkhurst failed to perfect what he began, it was from being hindered by the crowd.
The same, or a somewhat similar condition, existed in Chicago. The Civic Federation went begging at the beginning, but few joined it. It gained a victory and the crowd rushed in. Then its very life and original purpose was finally lost because politicians, turncoats and cowards came forward to divide with the Jonathans the spoils. Jonathans and armour-bearersthese only can redeem Israel from her shame.
Perhaps no other conflict so perfectly illustrates our text and theme as that of Christs Church against the world. It finds abundant illustration in the life of the local church. To begin with, the average church enterprise originates with a few men. Some Jonathans and armour-bearers steal off from the great camp, and selecting a certain point of attack, commence a battle. The noise of it is heard in the camp, and heard by neighbors around. They know a few men have planted a church, built a fort, if you please, and precipitated a fight against unbelief, sin and Satan.
The home camp is full of souls who sit calmly down and wait to see if the Jonathans will succeed. They say, We doubt if that church will grow. We dont care to join a doubtful enterprise. Wait! If they get on, if they grow, if they prove they can carry the load, then we will go over and join. Ah, what courage! Ah, what Christianity that? Then those who live among the Philistines, children of the church one time, but dwelling now with the un-regenerate, they look on to say, Well, we will see! If this church goes we will join it after a while, after its battles are over, after its numbers are increased, after its debts are paid, after its house is rebuilt and becomes spacious and full of beauty. Then we will go in! What splendid self-devotion, what a sacrificial spirit, what a courageous soul, what a Christ-like, cross-bearing Christian! When such join the church, they ought to have a chromo. As for myself, I have only this to say, I believe any true church will grow faster, be stronger, and enjoy more of Gods approval if such people give it a wide berth. The Church of God is not helped by cowards who seek to crawl in the wake of Christian conquest. The same is true in the enterprise of City missions, Home missions and Foreign missions.
I beg you, my people, to share in the struggle, despising the spoils; to fight for the salvation of our city and let those who will, dispute the honors with God, to whom alone they must belong.
And then our own Home and Foreign Mission enterprizes. How they suffer today! with empty treasuries and retracing steps, and misguided officials.
The time of trial, the hour of dangerthese are the occasions for Christians; not the time of conquest and of crown. You know the story of the Greek architect who designed the coliseum for the Roman Emperor. The grand building so pleased his majesty that he ordered a gala day in honor of the architect. The people crowded the amphitheatre, and the emperor, for entertainment of his friend, the architect, ordered the lions loosed into the pit and the Christians dragged from prison and thrown in. The heathen crowd gloated at the sight and shouted their huzzahs. A moment of silence came. The Greek arose, and lifting his voice above the moans of the dying, and the roar of ferocious beasts, he cried out, I, too, am a Christian! He knew what it meant to declare himself, but he preferred death rather than deny Christ. Such men mean conquest for the church!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
1Sa 14:22 Likewise all the men of Israel which had hid themselves in mount Ephraim, [when] they heard that the Philistines fled, even they also followed hard after them in the battle.
Ver. 22. Even they also followed hard after them. ] The Greeks have a proverb, When a tree is falling, every passenger will be pulling at it. a Leoni mortuo vel mus insultat.
a D .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
mount = hill country of.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
hid themselves: 1Sa 13:6, 1Sa 31:7
the battle: The LXX and Vulgate add here, , Et erant cum Saul, quasi decem millia virorum. “And (all the people who were, LXX) there were with Saul about ten thousand men;” but this is supported by no other authority.
Reciprocal: Jdg 7:23 – General 1Sa 14:11 – out of the holes 1Sa 17:52 – the men of Israel 1Sa 31:2 – followed Jer 41:9 – because of Gedaliah