1 Samuel 11
The Ammonite king threatens to gouge out every right eye in Jabesh-gilead. Saul hears the news, and the spirit of God rushes on him.
Summary
Chapter 11 gives Saul his best hour. The crisis comes from the east: Nahash the Ammonite besieges Jabesh-gilead and proposes terms so humiliating they amount to a statement that Israel cannot defend its own people. Gouging out the right eye of every man in the city would make them unfit for military service and mark them permanently as a subjected people. The elders ask for seven days to seek help, and Nahash, apparently confident no help will come, grants it. The messengers reach Gibeah and the city weeps. Saul, returning from fieldwork behind his oxen, hears the weeping and asks the reason. When he is told, the spirit of God rushes on him with fury.
The response is immediate and effective. Saul slaughters his oxen, sends the pieces as a summons throughout Israel, and raises an army of three hundred and thirty thousand men at Bezek. He sends word to Jabesh-gilead: tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will have deliverance. The people of Jabesh-gilead tell the Ammonites they will come out the next day and surrender — buying time. Saul divides his army into three columns and strikes in the morning watch, routing the Ammonites before the heat of the day. After the battle some Israelites want to execute the men who had earlier questioned Saul's fitness as king. Saul refuses — no one shall be put to death today, this is a day of salvation. At Gilgal the people renew the kingship before the Lord with great rejoicing. The chapter is the peak of Saul's story.
- 1 Samuel 1Chapter 1 opens at the sanctuary at Shiloh, where Elkanah of Ephraim brings his household each year to worship.
- 1 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens with the Song of Hannah, one of the most influential poems in the Hebrew Bible — my heart exults in the Lord, the mighty brought low, the hungry fed, the barren bearing seven.
- 1 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most carefully paced call narratives in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 4Chapter 4 is the disaster that the previous chapters have been building toward.
- 1 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the ark narrative in Philistine territory, told with something close to sardonic comedy.
- 1 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is the ark's return to Israel, engineered by Philistine priests who want to know whether their afflictions are the Lord's doing or mere coincidence.
- 1 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the closing movement of the Samuel-as-judge arc.
- 1 Samuel 8Chapter 8 is the pivot of the entire book.
- 1 Samuel 9Chapter 9 introduces Saul, and the introduction is built on irony.
- 1 Samuel 10Chapter 10 is Saul's anointing and public selection.
- 1 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is Saul's first military action and the only chapter of his reign where he functions without any reservation or failure.
- 1 Samuel 12Chapter 12 is Samuel's formal farewell as Israel's judge, a speech that occupies the whole chapter.
- 1 Samuel 13Chapter 13 begins the decline.
- 1 Samuel 14Chapter 14 is a chapter of action and its costs.
- 1 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the final disqualification.
- 1 Samuel 16Chapter 16 is the introduction of David and one of the most carefully constructed scenes of divine election in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the book's most famous chapter.
- 1 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is where the book's two great relationships crystallize.
- 1 Samuel 19Chapter 19 is the escalation from hostility to overt murderous intent.
- 1 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the central scene of the David-Jonathan friendship and one of the great parting scenes in ancient literature.
- 1 Samuel 21Chapter 21 is a chapter of disguise and desperation.
- 1 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is one of the darkest chapters in the book.
- 1 Samuel 23Chapter 23 is a chapter of pursuit and one extraordinary meeting.
- 1 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the first of two episodes in which David has Saul's life in his hands and refuses to take it.
- 1 Samuel 25Chapter 25 opens with Samuel's death — mourned by all Israel — and then turns to a story of David's near loss of self-control and the woman who stops it.
- 1 Samuel 26Chapter 26 is the second episode in which David refuses to kill Saul and, like chapter 24, it is structured to make the refusal as emphatic as possible.
- 1 Samuel 27Chapter 27 is the chapter of David's double game among the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 28Chapter 28 is one of the strangest and most debated passages in the Hebrew Bible.
- 1 Samuel 29Chapter 29 is the resolution of a problem the narrative has been building toward: David, marching with Achish and the Philistine forces to fight against Israel.
- 1 Samuel 30Chapter 30 is the crisis of David's time among the Philistines.
- 1 Samuel 31Chapter 31 is the last chapter of 1 Samuel and the end of Saul's story.