Saul and his son Jonathan fall into their classic personality patterns here. Saul comes off as an impulsive, rash, and foolish leader while Jonathan displays faith and wisdom that we wish Saul had.
Saul has his 600 men camped near the Philistine camp. Jonathan decides to attack the Philistine camp with his armor bearer. The two men attack the Philistines alone and kill 20 Philistines. As they were approaching, Jonathan says that God can win a battle with many soldiers or a few. So, he demonstrates a strong faith in God. Why has Saul's 600 men not done this?
Panic breaks out among the Philistine camp. God also sends an earthquake which causes more commotion. The Philistines start killing each other and scattering in multiple directions. Saul's army sees this and they finally attack.
At some point, Saul makes the vow/curse that any soldier who eats before evening will be cursed. Jonathan had not heard of this, probably because he snuck off to attack. Jonathan sees a honeycomb and eats of the honey. He later hears of Saul's vow/curse and comments that it is foolish, and that they could kill more enemy soldiers if there strength was up.
The Israelites win and it is later discovered that Jonathan ate the honey. Saul is ready to kill Jonathan when the soldiers step up to protect him. They save Jonathan.
Telling his soldiers not to eat the day that they are fighting strikes me as incredibly stupid. But we have already seen a ton of crazy vows during warfare. I don't get.
That said, Saul did a number of things in this chapter that were right. He ensured the soldiers properly bled the slaughtered animals and he did ask the military priest to enquire about what God had to say.
The chapter concludes by saying that Saul drafted every strong man into his army. I actually respect this since it appears that Saul faced constant warfare throughout his reign.
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