1 Samuel 14:28

28 Then one of the soldiers spoke up: "Your father bound the troops by a solemn pledge: ‘Anyone who eats food today is doomed.' That's why the troops are exhausted."

1 Samuel 14:28 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 14:28

Then answered one of the people, and said
To Jonathan, who might direct and encourage the people to do as he had done, at least so he did by his example, if not by words; the latter is not improbable: and therefore one of the men that came along with Saul, and had now joined Jonathan, and who heard what Saul had said, replied,

thy father straitly charged the people with an oath;
gave them a strict charge, with an oath or imprecation annexed to it:

saying, cursed be the man that eateth any food this day;
that is, until the evening, as in ( 1 Samuel 14:24 )

and the people were faint;
which is either the observation of the writer of the book; or it may be the words of the man, imputing the faintness of the people to this adjuration of Saul restraining them from food; or as taking notice how strictly the people observed it, though they were hungry, faint, and weary.

1 Samuel 14:28 In-Context

26 But even when they came across the honeycomb with the honey still flowing, no one ate any of it because the troops were afraid of the solemn pledge.

27 But Jonathan hadn't heard his father make the people swear the pledge, so he dipped the end of the staff he was carrying into the honeycomb. When he ate some his eyes lit up.

28 Then one of the soldiers spoke up: "Your father bound the troops by a solemn pledge: ‘Anyone who eats food today is doomed.' That's why the troops are exhausted."

29 Jonathan said, "My father has brought trouble to the land. Look how my eyes lit up when I tasted just a bit of that honey!

30 It would have been even better if the troops had eaten some of their enemies' plunder today when they found it! But now the Philistine defeat isn't as thorough as it might have been."