Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel, of which two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in the Mount of Bethel, and one thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
We do not know what interval of time elapsed between this chapter and the preceding one.  The scholars disagree, assigning the interval anywhere between a day or two and ten or fifteen years.  A complicating factor is the appearance of Jonathan here as a competent military commander in charge of a thousand men.