Jonathan son of Saul יהונתן בן שאול

The first thing told of him is a raid with his armour-bearer on a Philistine outpost: they climbed the crag on hands and feet and cut down about twenty men, which set off a panic in the camp, and Saul's army won the day without doing anything for it.

That same day Saul rashly bound the people by oath not to eat until evening. Jonathan, who had not heard the oath, tasted honey with the tip of his staff — "and his eyes brightened." When it came out, his father sentenced him to death; the people ransomed him: "shall Jonathan die, who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel?"

Then David came. It is put this way: "the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." He took off his cloak and gave it to him — and his tunic, his sword, his bow and his belt. That is not a gift: the heir hands the claimant the marks of his own standing.

After that he saved David's life several times, spoke for him to his father, and arranged the signal of the arrows in the field. And he told him plainly: you will reign over Israel, and I shall be second to you, and my father knows it.

He fell at Gilboa on the same day as his father and brothers. David's lament is one of the peaks of Hebrew poetry: "how are the mighty fallen… Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not parted."