The King Delivers

Saul is not in town when the messengers of Jabesh Gilead come to Gibeah seeking help against the Ammonites. But he soon appears, coming in from the field with his herd. The king of Israel has been working his farm! Perhaps Saul simply sees his role as being, like the judges, to respond when crises occur. But it is also possible that he is hesitating to ‘ “do as the occasion demands’ ” (10:7), that is, to strike Israel’s enemies, perhaps because he lacks self-confidence or simply doesn’t know what to do. In any case, God now provides all he needs to act as Israel’s deliverer. When he asks why there is evident anguish in the town and is told of the message from Jabesh Gilead, the Holy Spirit comes upon Saul, emboldening and empowering him. He immediately cuts apart a pair of oxen and sends the parts throughout Israel as a summons to war. Interestingly, he calls the people to go to battle with himself and with Samuel—he wants the guidance of the prophet of God in this desperate effort to deliver Jabesh Gilead.

With Saul’s message goes a threat—if any man remains on his farm, his oxen will be similarly cut apart. But it is not the threat that brings the Israelites together—it is “the fear of the Lord.” God so works in their hearts to cause the men of Israel to assemble “with one consent,” three hundred and thirty thousand strong. Saul then sends a promise of aid to Jabesh Gilead, prompting the people of the city to tell Nahash that they will “come out” the next day, a seeming pledge of surrender that actually means nothing of the sort. For when the next day comes, Saul divides his men into three companies and attacks the Ammonites until “the heat of the day,” killing many and scattering the survivors. God uses him to effect a mighty deliverance, what Matthew Henry calls “the first-fruits of Saul’s government.”

There is an interesting sidelight to this passage. The men of Saul’s town, Gibeah, sinned horribly in the time of the judges, sparking a civil war that nearly wiped out the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. 19–21). To help the Benjamites repopulate, the leaders of Israel’s other tribes struck Jabesh Gilead for failing to join the war effort, sparing only its virgin girls as wives for men of Benjamin. Saul’s mother may have been one of these girls of Jabesh Gilead. Now this son of Benjamin is used of God to save the city once destroyed for the sake of his tribe.