And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armourbearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow.
That first slaughter ... within ... an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow. This was a very ancient mode of measurement, and it still subsists in the East, [But Dr. Kennicott ('First Dissertation,' p. 452) purposes, by a slight change of the punctuation, a different text, which brings out a meaning exactly corresponding to that of the Septuagint-kai egeneethee hee pleegee hee prootee heen epataxen Ioonathan kai ho airoon ta skeuee autou hoos eikosi andres en bolisi kai en petrobolois kai en kochlaxi tou pediou, And this first slaughter, by which Jonathan and his armour-bearer smote about twenty men, was accomplished by arrows, by slinging of stones, and by flints of the field.] The men who saw them scrambling up the rock had been surprised and killed; and the spectacle of twenty corpses would suggest to others that they were attacked by a numerous force. The success of the adventure was aided by a panic that struck the enemy, produced both by the sudden surprise and the shock of an earthquake. The feat was begun and achieved by the faith of Jonathan, and the issue was of God.