1 Samuel 11 - Introduction
XI. (1 Samuel 11:1) King Saul shows himself worthy of the Kingdom by his prompt action in the case of the Siege of Jabesh-gilead by the Ammonites. He is universally acknowledged Sovereign.... [ Continue Reading ]
XI. (1 Samuel 11:1) King Saul shows himself worthy of the Kingdom by his prompt action in the case of the Siege of Jabesh-gilead by the Ammonites. He is universally acknowledged Sovereign.... [ Continue Reading ]
NAHASH THE AMMONITE. — Nahash was king of the children of Ammon (see 1 Samuel 12:12). This royal family was in some way related to David (see 2 Samuel 17:25; 1 Chronicles 2:16). At the time of David’s exile owing to the rebellion of Absalom, a son of Nahash the Ammonite is specially mentioned as sho... [ Continue Reading ]
ON THIS CONDITION. — The horrible cruelty of this scornful proposal gives us an insight into the barbarous customs of this imperfectly civilised age. Indeed, many of the crimes we read of in these books — crimes which, to modern ears, justly sound shocking and scarcely credible — are referable to th... [ Continue Reading ]
GIVE US SEVEN DAYS’ RESPITE. — This kind of proposal has always in time of war been a common one; such a request from a beleaguered fortress we meet with constantly, especially in mediæval chronicles. It was, no doubt, made by the citizens in the hope that Saul the Benjamite, in whose election as ki... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN CAME THE MESSENGERS TO GIBEAH. — In the preceding verse we read that it was resolved by the beleaguered city to send messengers to all the coasts of Israel, but we only hear of the action taken by Saul in Gibeah. It therefore may be assumed that this was the first city they sent to, not only on... [ Continue Reading ]
AND, BEHOLD, SAUL CAME AFTER THE HERD OUT OF THE FIELD. — Saul was still busied with his old pursuits. At first this would seem strange, but it must be remembered that the regal authority was something quite new in republican Israel, and that the new king’s duties and privileges at first were vague,... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD CAME UPON SAUL. — Nothing, perhaps, could have moved Saul so deeply as this news respecting the distress of Jabesh-gilead; he was affected not merely by the disgrace to Israel over which the Eternal had so lately directed him to be anointed king, but by the sore peril which men... [ Continue Reading ]
A YOKE OF OXEN. — In a moment all the great powers of Saul, hitherto dormant, woke up, and he issued his swift commands in a way which at once showed Israel that they had got a hero-king who would brook no trifling. In that self-same hour, striking dead the oxen standing before his plough, he hews t... [ Continue Reading ]
BEZEK. — Bezek was in the tribe of Issachar, in the plain of Jezreel, an open district, well adapted for the assembling of the great host which so promptly obeyed the peremptory summons of the war-signal of King Saul. THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WERE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, AND THE MEN OF JUDAH THIRTY TH... [ Continue Reading ]
TO MORROW, BY THAT TIME THE SUN BE HOT. — That is, about noon the army of rescue will be at hand. The distance from Bezek to Jabesh was not much over twenty miles.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE MORNING WATCH. — The morning watch was the last of the three watches, each lasting for four hours; this was the old Hebrew division of the night. Thus the first onslaught of the men of Israel under Saul would have taken place some time between two and six a.m. The battle, and subsequent rout of... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO SAMUEL. — The great weight and influence of the seer among the people is strikingly shown by this record of their turning to him, even in the first flush of this great victory of Saul’s. It was Samuel to whom the people looked to bring to punishment the men who had dared to... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SAUL SAID, THERE SHALL NOT A MAN BE PUT TO DEATH THIS DAY. — A wise, as well as a generous, decision; anything like a bloody vengeance would have been the commencement of future feuds and bitter heart-burnings between the new king and the powerful families of the other tribes, who misliked and o... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SAID SAMUEL TO THE PEOPLE, COME, AND LET US GO TO GILGAL. — This was the well-known sanctuary of that name, and was selected as the place of solemn assembly, no doubt, because it was in the now royal tribe of Benjamin. It is situated in the Jordan Valley, not far from Jericho, and has been the... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THERE THEY MADE SAUL KING BEFORE THE LORD IN GILGAL. — We must not understand with the LXX. Version that Saul was anointed afresh at Gilgal. The Greek Version reads, “and Samuel anointed Saul king there.” The Gilgal convention was nothing more than a solemn national confirmation of the popular e... [ Continue Reading ]