Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 14:43-44

"Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did certainly taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand; and, lo, I must die. And Saul said, God do so and more also; for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan." — 1 Samuel 14:43-44 (ASV)

Look, I must die. —These wild and thoughtless vows are especially characteristic of this half-barbaric period. We have already observed that the age now closing had been especially the age of vows. A similar terrible oath, equaling Saul’s in its rashness, had been taken by Jephthah.

It is noticeable that not only Saul, who vowed the vow, but Jonathan, its victim, were convinced that the vow, though perhaps hastily and rashly made, must be kept. “Against both these,” says Erdman in Lange with great force, “rises the people’s voice as the voice of God: the question (1 Samuel 14:45), ‘Shall Jonathan die?’ and the answer, ‘Far be it!’ expresses the sorrowful astonishment and the energetic protest of the people, who were inspired by Jonathan’s heroic deed and its brilliant result. ... Over against Saul’s oath the people set their own: ‘As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground.’ Probably Saul was not unwilling in this awful question, when his son’s life trembled in the balance, to submit his will for once to the people’s.”

“Take then no vow at random: taken in faith,
Preserve it; yet not bent, as Jephthah once,
Blindly to execute a rash resolve,
Whom it would have better suited to exclaim,
‘I have done ill,’ than to redeem his pledge
By doing worse.”—Dante, Paradise, 5:63-68.