The Bible account of this battle with the Philistines is noteworthy. 1 Samuel 13:23 says ‘Now a garrison (an outpost) of the Philistines had gone out to the ravine pass of Michmash.’ Whilst there, Jonathan and his attendant decided to attack this outpost. The account in chapter fourteen describes his tactics and the outcome. In verse three, parenthetically, we have an additional piece of information that Ahijah, of the priestly line of Eli, was carrying the ephod – the ephod was a sleeveless tunic that had a square breast piece attached. Contained within the breast piece, in some unspecified way, were the Urim and Thummim – a means of enquiring of Jehovah.
Anyway, Jonathan had success in spreading terror amongst the Philistines. Then there was an earthquake and great commotion, and so Saul decided to have a head-count, only to discover that the only ones missing were his son and his attendant. We then get verse eighteen where, according to New World Translation (nwt), Saul says ‘bring the Ark of the true God near!’ This is odd as there is no evidence that they had the Ark with them.
Where was ark? In first Samuel chapter four we are told that the Ark had been captured by the Philistines in the days of Eli. It caused them grief, particularly in humiliating their God, Dagon, so they decided to send it back. They put it on a new wagon, attached some cows and they took it to Bethshemesh. Whilst there further disaster struck, so it was taken to the house of Abinadab, on a hill in Kiriath-jearim. And there it stayed until David collected it some 70 years later, as recorded at second Samuel chapter six. Casually moving it resulted in the death of Uzzah. So it went to the house of Obededom. Three months later it was collected in proper fashion. Numbers chapter four shows how the Kohathites, who were commissioned to carry the Ark, were not even to see, let alone touch it, on pain of death. It was to be carried on poles, having been previously covered over by Aaron and his sons.
That the Ark was used on the battlefield as a good luck charm is well known. It was just this usage that led to it being captured by the Philistines in the first place. This, however, was an unauthorised usage and, given its long-term storage at Abinadab’s house, it is unlikely that Saul did have the Ark with him. If he did have it, why was it returned to Abinadab’s house and not to the Tabernacle where it belonged? So why does nwt read as it does?
The simple reason is because this is what the Hebrew text says. However, following Saul’s command, the verse adds, also parenthetically, that the Ark was with the Israelites at that time, as if trying to explain something that didn’t make sense. Of course, in a general sense, it was with Israel – at Abinadab’s house! The account adds that the turmoil was growing greater, so Saul says to Ahijah ‘Stop what you are doing’ or literally ‘withdraw your hand.’ What was he doing and where was his hand? Likely he was enquiring of Jehovah by means of the Urim and Thummim, kept in a pocket of the breast piece.
It is obvious that verse eighteen refers not to the Ark but to the ephod mentioned earlier. If this is a scribal error, then the Septuagint corrects it. I just wonder why NWT does not correct it, or even note the possibility of a textual error in a footnote. Insight does note this curiosity, the difference between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint, but there’s no attempt to explain it. As for the rest of the account the accuracy is remarkable. I came across this:
We owe to Major Vivian Gilbert, a British army officer, this description of a truly remarkable occurrence. Writing in his reminiscences [Chichikov: The Romance of the Last Crusade] he says : ‘In the First World War a brigade major in Allenby’s army in Palestine was on one occasion searching his Bible with the light of a candle, looking for a certain name. His brigade had received orders to take a village that stood on a rocky prominence on the other side of a deep valley. It was called Michmash and the name seemed somehow familiar. Eventually he found it in 1 Sam. 13 and read there: ‘And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, abode in Gibeah of Benjamin but the Philistines encamped in Michmash.’ It then went on to tell how Jonathan and his armour-bearer crossed over during the night ‘to the Philistine’s garrison’ on the other side, and how they passed two sharp rocks: ‘there was a sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on the other side: and the name of the one was Bozez and the name of other Seneh.’ (1 Sam 14). They clambered up the cliff and overpowered the garrison, ‘within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow’. The main body of the enemy awakened by the melee thought they were surrounded by Saul’s troops and ‘melted away and they went on beating down one another.’ Thereupon Saul attacked with his whole force and beat the enemy. ‘So the Lord saved Israel that day.’
The brigade major reflected that there must still be this narrow passage through the rocks, between the two spurs, and at the end of it the ‘half acre of land.’ He woke the commander and they read the passage through together once more. Patrols were sent out. They found the pass, which was thinly held by the Turks, and which led past two jagged rocks–obviously Bozez and Seneh. Up on top, beside Michmash, they could see by the light of the moon a small flat field.
The brigadier altered his plan of attack. Instead of deploying the whole brigade he sent one company through the pass under cover of darkness. On Feb 18th 1918, the few Turks whom they met were overpowered without a sound, the cliffs were scaled, and shortly before daybreak the company had taken up a position on the ‘half acre of land.’
The Turks woke up and took to their heels in disorder since they thought they were being surrounded by Allenby’s army. They were all killed or taken prisoner. ‘And so,’ concludes Major Gilbert, ‘after thousands of years British troops successfully copied the tactics of Saul and Jonathan.’ “
The Bible As History Second Revised Edition. Werner Keller, translated from the German by William Neil. Original edition Copyright 1965, Hodder and Stoughton. New revised edition, 1980, Stoddard and Stoughton. Published 1981, William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. Pp. 182-183.
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