A little farther on is Jabesh-gilead. The story of Jabesh-gilead
is a touching one. The people of the city were besieged by the
Ammonites under their king, Nahash. The men of the city were
willing to make a covenant to serve the Ammonites. But Nahash told
them that the only condition on which he would make a covenant
with them would be to thrust out all their right eyes and lay it
as a reproach upon Israel. The elders of Jabesh asked a respite of
seven days in which to get help, which request was granted. The
situation was critical in the extreme. Messengers left the
besieged city and hurried to the new king of Israel. Saul heard
the story of their distresses. Immediately he gathered an army of
three hundred and thirty thousand men, and, marching rapidly up
the Jordan Valley, crossed the river and attacked the Ammonites
and completely routed them with great slaughter. And thus he saved
the city.

The men of Jabesh-gilead never forgot Saul and his kindness to
them. Forty years later the disastrous battle of Gilboa was
fought. In this battle both Saul and Jonathan were slain. The next
day when the Philistines searched for spoils among the dead they
found Saul and his three sons, and they cut off his head to carry
it as a trophy to Philistia; but they took the headless trunks of
the king and his sons to Beth-shan and fastened them against its
walls as a terrible warning to the Israelites. But, "when the
inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines
had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and went all night and
took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of
Bethshan and came to Jabesh and burnt them there. And they took
their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted
seven days." (II. Samuel 31:11-13.)