1 Samuel 13:6
When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.
God permitted Israel to be brought into a sore trial and a tight strait. The strait came from the immense Philistine host gathered at Michmash, thirty thousand chariots and sixty thousand horsemen with troops as numerous as the sand on the seashore. When the men of Israel saw that they were in the strait, the distressed people hid themselves in caves and in thickets and in rocks and in high places and in pits. They fled to caves and hid among thickets and rocks and climbed into high mountain retreats and went down into pits.
Some crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead, while those who remained with Saul at Gilgal followed him tremblingly. The fearful people scattered from Saul. Their scattering added to his sense of confusion and urgency.
Their terror and flight revealed distrust and fear and lack of confidence that God would help them as before, showing how weak they were without God. It reflected their sense of sin in choosing a king and rejecting God's rule. They refused to put in the new king the confidence they had formerly put in the Lord as Ruler, and they dared not call upon the God they had slighted, so that they learned the meaning of defeat even before battle was joined.
These discouraging outward appearances created an emergency that tested Saul to act faith and wait.