Saul and Jebesh Gilead

There is an interesting vignette at the end of Saul's life that I have never understood. I think it was David Jeremiah who pointed out the significance of the story. It is in 1 Samuel 31. The Philistines had defeated Saul's army and killed his three sons and Saul. They discovered his body on the battle field and severed his head, taking it to their temple. That was pretty philistine action. (I have wanted to use that as an adjective for a long time. Big whoop.)
10 They put his weapons in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. 11 Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all the valiant men rose and walked all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

I always wondered why the men of JG were so solicitous of this dead guy's honor and respect. After all, David was known to be the next king and why not ignore the deposed (and beheaded) despot and get on with life.

As Paul Harvey used to say, here is the rest of the story. And the "rest" also has a rest. This story is macabre and bizarre in the extreme. The "back story" is found in 1 Samuel 11. One tribe of Israel, Jabesh Gilead had been attacked by the Ammonites. JG surrendered, or offered to surrender. But the leader, Nahash, made one condition of their surrender to gouge out every man's right eye. (Talk about philistine. Got to use it twice.)

The Gileadites appealed to the rest of their brothers, Israel, to deliver them from such a barbaric and ignominious treatment. The Israelites were upset, but did not know what to do. Saul, who had been anointed King by Samuel not too long before, did know. (What Did He Know...) He called together the diverse tribes and attacked Nahash, delivering the people of Jabesh Gilead.

Some of the initial resistance to the rescue may have come from another "back story." For this we have to go back to Judges 21. Actually, it began in chapter 19 when a Levite was traveling through the territory of Benjamin and the men of Gibeah raped and abused his concubine to the point that she died. (Murder, I believe.) When the rest of the tribes demanded justice, the entire tribe of Benjamin defended their brothers.

This led to a "civil war" in which the entire tribe of Benjamin was wiped out, with the exception of 400 men who escaped. Then the import of the actions dawned on the rest of the tribes and they lamented having "wiped out an entire tribe."

Their solution was to identify a city which had not participated in the "cleansing" and steal enough women from this city to provide wives for the "orphaned" 400 and repopulate the tribe. The city which "provided" the brides was Jabesh Gilead. So it is not too far fetched for the people to be a little reticent to respond to the call for help.

It was probably more of shame, for the way they had treated JG than anything else. Another irony and "coming of full circle" was that the city from which Saul launched his rescue was Gibeah.

Story in short: Gibeah offended mightily, leading to the "discipline" of the rest, wiping out the tribe. Then the rest raided Jabesh Gilead to provide an avenue to rebuild the devastated tribe. This story was played out in the final three chapters of Judges (19-21) Is it any wonder that the book ends with, (25) "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Then Saul, a member of the "resurrected" tribe, rescued JG from his base in Gibeah.

Now at the end of his life, the men of Jabesh Gilead felt honor bound to repay his kindness of delivering them from shame and disgrace by countering the abuse provided by the Philistines. And to complete the circle, Saul's remains were buried in Jabesh Gilead.

Once again, we see the Lord taking a real mess and turning it into a positive situation and a learning tool for us. He is able to take our failures and use them to bring good to us, to others, and ultimately, to His kingdom.