The Battle for Jabesh Gilead

Something changed in the king’s eyes. He turned to the oxen he had led back from the field. He slaughtered them there, right at the town well. He himself cut them into pieces. He took the animals that were necessary to work the fields, one of the most important signs of wealth, and he killed them. And then he sent messengers to every corner of Israel with a message: “This will be done to the oxen of anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.”

Joktan watched in awe. The king himself was going to come to rescue his city. The king himself sacrificed his own wealth to make sure his people would come to him. The king would gather his army.

And the army gathered. The men of Israel came at the summons. In fact, they feared. Is this what it was to have a king? To be threatened like this? But, afraid or not, they came.

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Joktan couldn’t count how many came. Someone told him there were over three hundred thousand men there camped around Gibeah. Endless campfires lit the hills.

As Joktan looked over the masses, Saul put his massive hand on his shoulder. “Go back to your home. Tell them, ‘By the time the sun is hot tomorrow, you will be delivered.’”

You will be delivered.

Joktan’s heart paused. That word. That promise.

Delivered.

His family would be saved. Their eyes would not be plucked out. They would not be slaughtered by a merciless enemy. Saul was bringing his army to crush the Ammonites that threatened them.

Once he could breathe again, he grinned at the king. “I’ll tell them.”

And he ran.

He sprinted down hills and through valleys. He splashed across streams and waded across the Jordan river. Before he’d run in desperation; now he ran in triumph.

The king was coming to deliver them.

He dashed past the enemy encampment. He banged on the gate of Jabesh Gilead, his home. “Let me in! I’m a messenger! I’ve spoken to the king!”

The gate cracked open, and he squeezed through.

The elders of the city gathered around him. “Are they coming? What did the king say?”

And Joktan’s grin told them enough.

A pounding came at the gate. “Well?” the enemy demanded. “Are you surrendering?”

One of the elders grinned back at Joktan. He called to the enemy, “Tomorrow! Tomorrow we’ll surrender to you, and you can do to us whatever seems good to you!”

---

That evening, Joktan watched the enemy’s camp from the wall of the city. The soldiers there sang. The scent of roasting meat wafted through the night air. Already they celebrated their victory.

“Get some sleep. You’ve earned it,” the elder said to Joktan.

“No,” he answered. “I need to see what’s coming.”

And deliverance came from the hills.

During the last watch of the night, not long before dawn, Saul’s army swept down from the heights from three different locations. It was like watching Gideon striking down the Midianites.

It was like watching God himself deliver his people.

They fell on the Ammonites like a flood. Fires snuffed out as Saul’s army raced through the enemy camp. Men screamed in surprise and pain. The enemy that had threatened them, that they would have had to surrender to, were wiped out. No two of them escaped together.

And come the dawn, Saul strode into the city he had liberated. The king was hailed as the conqueror he was.

Joktan cheered his deliverer.

This story is based on I Samuel 11:6-11.