Saul said, Let us go down after the Philistines by night, and take spoil among them until the morning light, and let us not leave a man of them. They said, Do whatever seems good to you. Then said the priest, Let us draw near here to God.
Jonathan would have had to die if he had broken Yahweh’s command, as Achan did. However, Saul’s oath was not on that high a level of authority, though Saul thought it was, as is clear from his insistence that Jonathan die. The soldiers who had gone along with Saul’s requests thus far (1 Samuel 14:36; 1 Samuel 14:40) refused to follow his orders when he called for Jonathan’s execution (1 Samuel 14:45). They recognized that Saul’s rule about abstaining from eating (1 Samuel 14:24) was not divine law. They correctly saw that even though Jonathan had violated Saul’s rule, he had obeyed God’s order to drive Israel’s enemies out of the land. Saul’s failure to see his role under God and the difference between the Word of God and his own commands resulted in confusion and disunity. Saul’s preoccupation with Jonathan’s eating against his wishes cost him a great victory over the Philistines.