Several years after he became king, he chose three thousand men from the Israeli army to go with him to fight the Philistines. Then he sent the other soldiers back home. Of the men he chose, 2,000 stayed with Saul at Micmash and in the hilly area near Bethel, and 1,000 stayed with Saul’s son Jonathan at Gibeah, in the area where the descendants of Benjamin lived.