And that first slaughter... — Considerable doubt exists as to the exact meaning of this verse. The LXX. either had here a different text before them, or else translated, as has been suggested, “conjecturally, what they did not understand;” their rendering is “about twenty men, with darts and slings and stones of the field.” Ewald explains the Hebrew words as follows: “At the very beginning he strikes down about twenty men at once, as if a yoke of land were in course of being ploughed, which must beware of offering opposition to the sharp ploughshare in the middle of its work.” The simplest interpretation seems to be that twenty men were smitten down, one after the other, in the distance of half a rood of land. Bunsen considers this verse an extract from a poet.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 14:14
1 Samuel 14:14
14 And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armourbearerd made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow.