And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground.
And all the people came into the forest; and there was honey upon the ground.
And all they of the land have come into a forest, and there is honey on the face of the field;
And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey on the ground.
1 Samuel — The transition from judges to monarchy. Samuel rises as prophet-judge; Israel demands a king; Saul rises and is rejected; David is anointed in obscurity and flees across the wilderness. Three lives overlapping — the prophetic-judicial-royal handoff.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Voices5
Saul, as it is written in the first book of Kings [Samuel], pronounced a curse on him who ate bread before the evening, and until he had avenged himself upon his enemies. So none of his troops tasted any food while all the people of the land ate.
Jerome· Against Jovinianus 2.15, 420patristic
There follows: (Verses 25, 26) "And all the common people of the land came into a forest, in which there was honey upon the surface of the field. And so the people entered the forest, and flowing honey appeared, and no one put his hand to his mouth." A forest is a wooded and hilly place. By this name, indeed, the hearts of worldly people are fittingly designated, because while they serve external cares with all their attention, like wooded places, they are not cultivated for the fruit of good work by the plowshare of preaching.
Gregory the Dialogist· Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 5, Chapter 4, 604patristic
And all they of the land came to a wood,....
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
All they of the land - literally, all the land, probably meaning all those named in 1Sa 14:21-22, who now flocked to the wood as a rendezvous.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)evangelical
Those are worthy of the name of Israelites that can deny themselves and their own appetites even when they are most craving, and the delights of sense most tempting, for fear of guilt and a curse, and the table becoming a snare.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first — the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Exodus 3:8I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and…
leads to
And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
And when the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites—the land He swore to your fathers that He would give you, a land flowing with milk and…
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac,…
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—
They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us word: “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.”
Through
Numbers 13:27And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!
leads to
I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and…
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise, I might destroy you on the way.”
Through
Deuteronomy 9:28Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them,…
leads to
‘Because the LORD was unable to bring this people into the land He swore to give them, He has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
The whole web at once: see the Arc.
The verses this one reaches7
But I would feed you the finest wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
So he scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. And when he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.
And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!
I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’
John wore a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up.
