1 Samuel 11 explained: Saul Rescues a Besieged Town

A cruel surrender offer (vv. 1-3)

Nahash ruled the Ammonites, a people living east of the Jordan River, and his demand to gouge out every man's right eye would maim them, likely leave them unfit to fight, and shame all Israel. He probably granted the seven days because he was sure no one would come to their rescue.

Saul hears the news (vv. 4-6)

Saul had already been chosen king (chapter 10), but he was still working his fields, and the messengers told the townspeople rather than him. When he heard, the Spirit of God came on him and he burned with anger, like the sudden empowering told of Israel's earlier rescuers in the book of Judges.

A grim call to arms (vv. 7-8)

Cutting up oxen and sending the pieces echoed an earlier summons in Judges 19, and it warned that anyone who stayed home would lose their own oxen. The numbers are huge, and many scholars think the word for "thousand" may mean a military unit, so the real army was probably smaller.

Rescue at dawn (vv. 9-11)

The townspeople told the Ammonites they would come out to them the next day, which many readers take as a ruse to keep the enemy off guard, though the text does not say what they intended. Saul attacked in three groups in the last watch before dawn and struck the enemy until the heat of the day, scattering any who survived.

Mercy and a confirmed king (vv. 12-15)

The crowd wanted to execute the men who had scorned Saul (10:27), but Saul refused and gave the credit for the victory to the LORD. At Gilgal, an old sacred site, the people publicly made him king and held shared sacrificial meals of thanks called fellowship offerings.

Key verse: 1 Samuel 11:13

Where Christians differ

Readers differ on whether the "renewal" at Gilgal simply reaffirms Saul's earlier selection or preserves a separate account of how he first became king.

Something to think about

Saul had the power to punish the people who had mocked him and chose not to; what do you think makes that kind of restraint possible, or difficult, in a moment of victory?