13:15-23 See how politic the Philistines were when they had power; they not only prevented the people of Israel from making weapons of war, but obliged them to depend upon their enemies, even for instruments of husbandry. How impolitic Saul was, who did not, in the beginning of his reign, set himself to redress this. Want of true sense always accompanies want of grace. Sins which appear to us very little, have dangerous consequences. Miserable is a guilty, defenceless nation; much more those who are destitute of the whole armour of God.And another company turned the way to Bethhoron,.... Of which name there were two cities, the upper and nether, and both in the tribe of Ephraim, of which see Joshua 16:3 this lay northwest from the camp of the Philistines at Michmash; eight miles from it, according to Bunting (d):

and another company turned to the way of the border, that looketh towards the valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness; some take this to be the Zeboim which was destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah; and the wilderness, the wilderness of Jordan; but as that, so the valley in which it stood, was turned into a bituminous lake; this seems to be a city in the land of Benjamin, Nehemiah 11:34 near to which was a valley, and this towards the wilderness of Jericho, and so lay eastward; the Targum calls it the valley of vipers, perhaps from its being infested with many; and so David de Pomis (e) says it is the name of a place where plenty of serpents were found, and which he says were called so because of the variety of colours in them; with which agrees Kimchi's note on the place; they seem to mean serpents spotted (f), as if they were painted and dyed of various colours, as the Hebrew word which is thus paraphrased signifies: according to Bunting (g), it was eight miles from Michmash.

(d) Travels of the Patriarchs, &c. p. 133. (e) Tzemach David, fol. 13. 2. & 153. 1.((f) , Homer. Iliad. 12. ver. 208. "notis maculosus grandibus", Virgil. Georgic. l. 3. v. 427. (g) Ut supra. (Travels of the Patriarchs, &c. p. 133.)