1 Samuel 11:1-11--Saul Defeats the Ammonites

1 Samuel 11:1-11
English Standard Version

Saul Defeats the Ammonites
11 Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.” 2 But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.” 3 The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days' respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.” 4 When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter in the ears of the people, and all the people wept aloud.

​5 Now, behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. And Saul said, “What is wrong with the people, that they are weeping?” So they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. 6 And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. 7 He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the LORD fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. 8 When he mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. 9 And they said to the messengers who had come, “Thus shall you say to the men of Jabesh-gilead: ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation.’” When the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, they were glad. 10 Therefore the men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.” 11 And the next day Saul put the people in three companies. And they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.

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The Ammonites were descendants of Lot, so they were not destroyed in the initial conquest of the descendants of Canaan, the the LORD told His people that the time of their judgement would eventually come, and now it is time.  They have harassed the people of Gilead for quite some time and the people of Gilead feel abandoned and alone like the people of the Promised Land to the west wouldn't even come to their rescue if they called for help when the Ammonites threatened to put all the people Jabesh into servitude and to gouge out their right eyes.  You can tell this was for sport for them though as they give the people of the city seven days to try to come up with a deliverer as the Ammonites don't believe there is anyone left in all of Israel that would care about these men of Gilead enough to go to war for them, but they were wrong.

When the messengers from Gilead reach the place where Saul lives, he was plowing his field and he heard the great weeping from the people.  Saul is filled with the spirit and becomes angry so that he kills his team of oxen and cuts them to pieces and tells the messengers to care the pieces to all of Israel with a new message--any man which does not meet Saul and Samuel to go to war against the Ammonites, King Saul will do the same to your oxen as he has done to these oxen.

This put the fear of the LORD into the people as they were more afraid of Saul and the LORD now than they were for the Ammonites.  He mustered the troops and there were 300,000 men of Israel that came out to fight, with 30,000 of these men coming from the tribe of Judah alone (remember that Judah is supposed to be the leader of the people, though Saul was chosen from the tribe of Benjamin).

They sent word to the people of Jabesh-Gilead that by the time the sun was hot the next day (probably meaning noon or slightly after noon), that they would see their salvation.  So the people of Jabesh lied to the Ammonites and pretended they would surrender to them the next day (knowing this was the day that Saul and his forces would attack).  Saul split his men into three companies of 100,000 each and they surrounded the Ammonite camp fighting them until midday.  The Ammonites were so routed that day that the text tells us that no two men left alive were left standing anywhere close to each other--anyone who had survived was on his own.