His election, however, was not accepted unanimously, consecrated though it had been by Yahveh. There were some who failed to see in the tall enthusiast anything more than the son of a yeoman at Gibeah. But a sufficient number of his own tribesmen were ready to gather around him as soon as he should summon them to battle. And the occasion was not long in coming. Jabesh-Gilead, the old ally of Benjamin, was beleaguered by Nahash, the Ammonite king. The city was too weak to resist, and its inhabitants, offered to surrender. But with Semitic ferocity Nahash answered that he would spare their lives only on condition that the right eye of each should be torn out. Seven days were granted them in which to determine whether they should accept his terms or fight to the death, and during the period of respite the elders of the city sent to Benjamin to beg for help. Saul was ploughing when the messengers arrived, and, fired with indignation, he cut his oxen into pieces, which he sent throughout Israel with the words: ‘Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.’[[414]] The summons still ran in the name of the old seer.
Men came in from all sides, and Saul found himself at the head of a small army. It is said that when he numbered his troops at Bezek, ‘the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand.’ Such may have been the full fighting force of Israel before Saul’s reign was ended; it cannot have represented the number of those who were able to flock to his standard during the few days that still remained for the relief of Jabesh. As elsewhere in the Old Testament, the ciphers are largely exaggerated. Indeed when we consider the size of the Assyrian army, as recorded in the inscriptions, at a time when it was the most formidable engine of destruction in Western Asia, it becomes clear that the number of fighting men in the Hebrew army can never have been very great. The three hundred and thirty thousand men in Saul’s army are but an instance of that Oriental exaggeration of numbers and inability to realise what they actually mean, which is as common in the East to-day as it was in the age of Samuel.[[415]]
Jabesh was rescued, and the Ammonites were scattered in flight. The victory was a proof of Saul’s military capacity, and justified his choice as king. The news of it rang from one end of Israel to the other, and the victorious soldiers demanded the death of those who had questioned their leader’s right to reign. But Saul refused the demand; no bloodshed was to mar the glory of the day; from henceforth all true Israelites were to be united in recognising their king. Yahveh had chosen him at Mizpeh; it was now needful that he should go to the sacred enclosure of Gilgal, the first camping-ground of the Israelites in Canaan, and there be solemnly acclaimed by the assembled multitude. As Joshua the Ephraimite had started from Gilgal to conquer Canaan, so Saul the Benjamite, the new ‘captain of the Lord’s inheritance,’ set forth also from Gilgal to restore its fallen fortunes.
A year had to pass before Saul felt himself strong enough to attack the Philistine garrisons. By that time he had collected three thousand Israelites about him, all of them prepared to fight and willing to obey their leader. But they were armed only with implements of agriculture, or such other makeshifts for weapons as they could find. The Philistines had forbidden the wandering blacksmiths to enter Israelitish territory, and Saul and his son Jonathan, we are told, alone possessed sword and spear. Out of the three thousand, one thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah; the rest were with Saul watching the road that led over the mountains from Michmash to Beth-el. There was a Philistine fort on the hill above Gibeah, in the very heart of Saul’s own country; another fort commanded the pass of Michmash and the approaches to Ephraim.
The Philistines seemed to have made a rising among the Israelites impossible. Their forts and garrisons commanded the roads, like the French garrisons in Algeria, and the conquered population was forbidden the use of arms. Saul, nominally the king of Israel, was in reality merely the chief of a band of outlaws, desperately holding their own in the fastnesses of the mountains, and protected by the sympathy of the priests and the peasantry. The victory over Nahash had confirmed Saul’s title to lead them among his own countrymen; it had done nothing towards releasing them from the domination of the Philistines.
Now, however, Jonathan ventured to assail the Philistine outpost at Gibeah. The attack was successful; the fortress was taken and its defenders put to the sword.[[416]] It was open revolt against the Philistine supremacy, and the news of it quickly spread. Saul sent messengers throughout Israel, claiming the success for himself and the monarchy, and formed a camp at Gilgal. Meanwhile the Philistine army was on the march to suppress the revolt. The Hebrew chronicler describes it as consisting of ‘thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude,’[[417]] and it pitched its camp at Michmash, a little to the north of Gibeah. Here it cut Saul off from all communication with the north, and threatened his rear. He therefore left Gilgal and joined his son at Gibeah. Only six hundred men remained with him; the rest had fled at the approach of the enemy, who sent out three bands of raiders from their camp, one of which marched in a south-eastward direction towards the Dead Sea, while the other two turned, the one to the north-west, and the other to the north-east.
The mountainous district from which Saul drew his forces was panic-stricken. The peasantry fled from their devastated fields, and the whole country was given up to fire and sword. Pure-blooded Israelites and Hebrews of mixed descent were united in the common disaster. The one hid themselves in the caves and forests, even in cisterns and grain-pits, while the others took refuge in Gad and Gilead, on the eastern side of the Jordan.[[418]]
It was again Jonathan who brought deliverance to Israel. Between the Israelites at Gibeah, and the Philistines at Michmash, lay a deep gorge, usually identified with the Wadi Suweinît.[[419]] On either side rose a precipitous crag of rock which effectually cut off the hostile forces one from the other. Across this gorge Jonathan determined to make his way, accompanied only by his armour-bearer, and trusting in the help of Yahveh of Israel. In broad daylight the two heroes climbed the opposite cliff, in the face of the Philistines, who believed they were deserters from the Israelitish camp. But once arrived in the Philistine stronghold, they fell suddenly on its unprepared defenders and slew about twenty of them ‘within as it were half a furrow of an acre of land.’ The Hebrew camp followers of the Philistines thereupon turned upon their companions, and the camp of the Philistines became a scene of confusion and dismay. Jonathan had said nothing to his father of his intended exploit, but Saul soon observed that fighting was going on in the enemy’s camp.
Among the Israelitish fugitives with Saul was the high-priest Ahimelech,[[420]] the great-grandson of Eli, who had joined the king with the sacred ephod. The ark, too, had been carried for safety into the Israelitish camp, and was once more accompanying the army of Israel against its foes. When, therefore, Saul had numbered his men and found that Jonathan was absent, he called for the priest and bade him inquire of Yahveh whether they should go to his help or not. But before the question could be answered the tumult on the opposite side of the valley made hesitation impossible. It was clear that the moment had come for striking a blow at the supremacy of the foreigner. The gorge accordingly was quickly traversed, and the Israelitish king with his six hundred followers threw himself on the enemy’s rear. The Philistines resisted no longer. Attacked in front by the peasants who had followed them, and in the rear by the soldiers of the king, they fled precipitately up the pass to Beth-el.[[421]] The victory was complete, and the Philistine forces would have been annihilated had Saul’s religious convictions been less fervent. But when the instinct of the general overcame the zealot, and he had stayed the priest in the very act of consulting Yahveh, he salved his conscience by a vow. None should eat or drink until he had overthrown his enemies, and whoever broke the royal vow should be devoted to death.
The vow was rash and untimely, but it was registered in heaven. The Philistines were pursued as far as Aijalon. The Israelites were too weak from want of food to follow them further. Jonathan alone, who had not been in the Israelitish camp when the vow was made, ate a little honey which he saw dropping from a tree. His companions looked at it with longing eyes, but dared not follow his example. All the more fiercely, therefore, did they fall upon the spoil which they afterwards found in the Philistine camp. The sheep and oxen and calves were slaughtered as they stood upon the ground, ‘and the people did eat them with the blood.’ The news of this violation of one of the primary laws of Israelitish religion struck Saul with horror. He caused a great stone to be rolled towards him, and on this improvised altar the animals were slain. It was ‘the first altar,’ we are told, that Saul ‘built unto the Lord.’