1 Kings 14:44
And Saul said: May God do so and so to me, and add still more: for dying thou shalt die, O Jonathan.
Open 1 Kings 14:44 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et ait Saul : Hæc faciat mihi Deus, et hæc addat, quia morte morieris, Jonatha.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Σαούλ Τάδε ποιήσαι μοι ὁ θεὸς καὶ τάδε προσθείη, ὅτι θανάτῳ ἀποθανῇ σήμερον.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר שָׁא֔וּל כֹּֽה יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים וְכֹ֣ה יוֹסִ֑ף כִּֽי מ֥וֹת תָּמ֖וּת יוֹנָתָֽן
Haydock's commentary
Die. We may here admire the respect which the ancients had for an oath, without seeking for any modification; and the blindness of Saul, who condemns his son with as much haste as he had pronounced the curse, thinking thus to honour God. The thing surely required some deliberation, and he ought to have consulted the Lord about it. The action of Jonathan was not criminal, and the former silence of God did not prove that he deserved death. (Calmet)
If it had, the people would never have been able to have rescued him, no more than the unhappy Achan, Josue vii. (Haydock)
If Saul had been more enlightened, and more humble, he would have concluded that God was displeased at him, and not at Jonathan. (Calmet)
Yet Cajetan and Serarius find fault with the latter. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily XIV
12. Saul then having made this declaration, the people were more afraid than before, and all were in a state of great trembling and terror. But the devil rejoiced, at having rendered them all thus anxious. There was no one, we are told, of all the people, who answered. “And Saul said, Ye will be in bondage, and I, and Jonathan my son, will be in bondage.” But what he means is to this effect; “You are aiming at nothing else, than to deliver yourselves to your enemies, and to become slaves instead of free men; whilst you provoke God against you, in not delivering up the guilty person.” Observe also another contradiction produced by the oath. It had been fitting, if he wished to find the author of this guilt, to have made no such threat, nor to have bound himself to vengeance by an oath; that becoming less afraid, they might more readily bring the offender to light. …