The Price of Servitude

The city of Jabesh-gilead lay east of the Jordan River in the foothills of Gilead. Long before Saul’s time, the nation of Ammon had held Israel in slavery for eighteen years until Jephthah defeated them in battle (Judges 11:32). Now, once again, the nation of Ammon rose up, under their king Nahash, and sought to reclaim all the land east of Jordan.

Jabesh was alone—outnumbered, surrounded, and apparently doomed.

Believing they could not succeed in battle, the men of Jabesh sought terms from Nahash. His response was brutal: “On this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may thrust out all your right eyes, and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel” (1 Samuel 11:2).

This would render all men of war useless as their damaged depth perception would not allow proper aiming of weapons. “It was not that Nahash had any special grudge against the elders of Jabesh more than the rest of Israel; his purpose was to show contempt for all Israel by inflicting injury on some of their number.” The elders of besieged Jabesh requested seven days to formulate a response. Nahash agreed, thinking a delay would not change their fate and might add prestige to the victory. But messengers slipped through the lines and made their way to the tribes west of the Jordan. They held little hope that their request for assistance would be granted, but they had to try. “Jabesh-gilead had risen from the ruin of earlier days, but its inhabitants had probably not forgotten their brutal punishment following the affair with Benjamin. . . . “It would seem that since Israel’s servitude under the Ammonites, Jabesh had more or less withdrawn from association with even nearby tribes such as Issachar, Ephraim, and Benjamin. . . . They were not even sure that the tribes would make any response to their plea.

In sheer desperation they virtually acknowledged their shortcomings and threw themselves upon the mercy of their fellow Israelites, whom they had neglected in the past.” “Thank God for the thousand ways He has out of every difficulty!”