Far be it from thee. — Vulg., absit hoc a te. This strong expression bears emphatic testimony to Jonathan’s implicit belief in his loved friend’s stainless loyalty. He indignantly refuses to take his life, or even to allow that life to be touched by his father. The sentences here are broken ones; the next one following is left, in the Hebrew, incomplete. They betoken the agitation and deep feeling of the chivalrous, indignant speaker.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 20:9
1 Samuel 20:9
9 And Jonathan said, Far be it from thee: for if I knew certainly that evil were determined by my father to come upon thee, then would not I tell it thee?