V.22 Those who had no desire to fight the Lord’s battles, now hear that the enemy fled, so they suddenly come to life. Like us sometimes — when life gets difficult to stand up for the Lord, we hide. But when other believers have stayed and stood up and succeeded then we reappear to get some benefit.
V.24 What King Saul did. The only part he contributed was to trouble and hinder the people of Israel and particularly so the man who deserved most credit — his son Jonathan. Saul only thought of himself in verse 24. Now that he had been in power only a little while, all thought about God was gone.
V.27 Jonathan hadn’t heard his father forbid anyone to eat that day.
V.29 Shows us how far apart father and son really were. Jonathan was the one God was using, not Saul. The food had strengthened Jonathan.
V.30-33 The people, seeing how Jonathan was helped, go out to battle, win, and eat the sheep, oxen and calves in defiance of the king. But they go too far, for they ate the blood too. This was a sin against God.
V.34-52 Saul builds an altar to the Lord at the very time he had brought his son under the sentence of death.
V.47 Though Saul attacked the enemies, he didn’t destroy them as he should have.