1 Samuel 11:6-11

Saul’s deliverance of Jabesh-gilead 11:6-11

God’s Spirit came on Saul in the sense that He stirred up his human spirit (cf. 1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Samuel 10:10). Saul’s response to the messengers’ news was appropriate indignation since non-Israelites were attacking God’s covenant people (Genesis 12:3). Saul may have had a personal interest in Jabesh-gilead since some of his ancestors evidently came from there (cf. 1 Samuel 31:11-13). Following the civil war in Israel, during which many Benjamites had died, many of those who remained alive took wives from the women of Jabesh-gilead and the women of Shiloh (Judges 21).

Saul did something drastic to impress the gravity of the Ammonite siege on his fellow Israelites. He followed the example of the Levite whose concubine had died in Saul’s hometown (Judges 19:29-30). Later another plowman, Elisha, would slaughter a pair of oxen and host a meal for his friends as he began his ministry as a prophet (1 Kings 19:21).

"Saul’s slaughter and dissection of his oxen is reminiscent of the Levite’s treatment of his murdered concubine and clearly is designed to connect the commencement of his reign with the historical event which accounts for his Jabesh-Gilead maternal roots." [Note: Eugene H. Merrill, "The Book of Ruth: Narration and Shared Themes," Bibliotheca Sacra 142:566 (April-June 1985):140, n. 13.]

Saul linked himself with Samuel because Samuel was the recognized spiritual leader of the nation. The Israelites probably dreaded both Saul’s threatened reprisals for not responding to his summons and the Ammonite threat.

"In Saul’s energetic appeal the people discerned the power of Jehovah, which inspired them with fear, and impelled them to immediate obedience." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, p. 112.]

The response of the Israelites constituted the greatest show of military strength since Joshua’s day (assuming eleph means "thousand" here). Bezek stood about 16 miles west of Jabesh-gilead on the River Jordan’s western side (cf. Judges 1:4-5). The division of the soldiers into Israelites and Judahites probably reflects the division of the nation that existed when the writer wrote this book. There is no evidence that such a division existed when the event recorded here happened.

The messengers returned to Jabesh-gilead with the promise that their town would be free by noon the next day. The leaders of Jabesh-gilead played with words as they cleverly led the Ammonites into self-confidence, thinking that they would win. The Ammonites had threatened to put out the right eyes of the men of Jabesh-gilead (1 Samuel 11:2). The Jabesh-gileadites now told the Ammonites to do whatever seemed good literally "in their eyes" (cf. 1 Samuel 14:36).

Saul wisely divided his troops into three companies. He attacked the besieging Ammonites early in the morning. The morning watch was the last of three night watches, and it lasted from about 2:00 to 6:00 a.m. These three watches had their origin in Mesopotamia, but all the western Asian nations observed them before the Christian era (cf. Lamentations 2:19; Judges 7:19). The only other place in the Old Testament where this phrase "at the morning watch" occurs in Hebrew is Exodus 14:24. Then God slew the Egyptian soldiers as they pursued the fleeing Israelites through the Red Sea. Perhaps the writer wanted his readers to view this victory as another miraculous deliverance at the beginning of a new phase of Israel’s existence.

The Ammonites did not expect the other Israelites to show so much support for the Jabesh-gileadites. Saul thoroughly surprised and defeated them. [Note: For another interpretation of 11:1-11 that views it as an artificially constructed story, see Diana Edelman, "Saul’s Rescue of Jabesh-Gilead (1 Samuel 11:1-11): Sorting Story from History," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 96:2 (1984):195-209.]