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.
Samuel’s departure from the battlefield (1 Samuel 13:15) was symbolic of the breach that now opened up between Samuel and Saul. Saul’s presumptuous plan also failed to bring his departing soldiers back to him.