“Tell me what you have done,” Saul commanded him. So Jonathan told him, “I only tasted a little honey with the end of the staff that was in my hand. And now I must die?”
Here is, I. Saul's boasting against the Philistines. He proposed, as soon as his soldiers had got their suppers, to pursue them all night, and not leave a man of them, Sa1 14:36. Here he showed much zeal, but little discretion; for his army, thus fatigued, could as ill spare a night's sleep as a meal's meat.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 14:36-46
Then Saul said to Jonathan, tell me what thou hast done,.... What sin he had committed, the lot having fallen on him, and found him out: and Jonathan told him; the whole of the matter, all the truth, without any reserve: and said, I did but take a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand; he speaks of the...
1Sa 14:43-44 When Saul asked him what he had done, Jonathan confessed that he had tasted a little honey (see 1Sa 14:27), and resigned himself to the punishment suspended over him, saying, “Behold, I shall die;” and Saul pronounced sentence of death upon him, accompanying it with an oath (“God do so,” etc.: vid., Rth 1:17).
Commenting on 1 Samuel 14:43-44