Jabesh-gilead

Biblical Accounts

Judges: Absence from the Assembly and Punishment

According to Judges 21, the tribes of Israel that had fought against the tribe of Benjamin held an assembly at Mizpah. Not one man from Jabesh-gilead came to the assembly (Judges 21:8). Israel sent twelve thousand soldiers to strike the town and brought four hundred virgins found there to the camp at Shiloh. These women became wives for the men of Benjamin, a tribe that had nearly been cut off (Judges 21:10-14).

1 Samuel 11: The Ammonite Siege and Saul's Rescue

Nahash, king of Ammon, besieged Jabesh-gilead. When the inhabitants offered to surrender, Nahash set as his condition that he would thrust out the right eye of every one of them. When Saul heard the news, he cut a yoke of oxen in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel to muster troops. Saul divided his army into three companies, attacked the Ammonites at dawn, and delivered the town (1 Samuel 11:1-11). After this victory, Samuel gathered the people at Gilgal and renewed Saul's kingship (1 Samuel 11:14-15).

Saul's Burial

Saul and his sons died in the battle on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines fastened their bodies to the wall of Beth-shan. The valiant men of Jabesh-gilead traveled all night and recovered the bodies. At Jabesh they burned the bodies, buried the bones under a tamarisk tree, and fasted seven days (1 Samuel 31:11-13). The same account appears in 1 Chronicles 10:11-12, though the burning is not mentioned there.

After David became king, he blessed the men of Jabesh for having buried Saul (2 Samuel 2:4-7). Later he had the bones of Saul and Jonathan brought from Jabesh and buried them in the tomb of Kish at Zelah in the land of Benjamin (2 Samuel 21:12-14).

Background

Jabesh-gilead lay in the region of Gilead, east of the Jordan River. This area was separated by the river from the Israelite tribes to the west, and because it bordered Ammon, it was frequently under threat. The name "Jabesh" is understood to be related to a Hebrew word meaning "to be dry." Many scholars hold that the Wadi el-Yabis (the Yabis Valley) in Jordan preserves the name. However, scholars propose different sites for the town's exact location, and no consensus has yet been reached.

Significance in the Bible as a Whole

Within the narrative of 1 Samuel, Jabesh-gilead is bound up with both the beginning and the end of Saul's kingship. The first battle in which Saul led Israel as king was the rescue of this town, and after Saul's death it was the inhabitants of this same town who honored him to the very end. The word David used in addressing them, rendered "kindness" in the KJV, translates the Hebrew hesed (steadfast love, faithfulness). For this reason the scene is often read as a passage illustrating loyalty and faithfulness.

Jabesh-gilead does not appear in the New Testament. Some preachers compare this perilous recovery of the bodies to the act of Joseph of Arimathea, who took charge of the body of Jesus. This connection is drawn in preaching and is not stated by the text itself.

Interpretations and Debated Issues

• Relationship with Benjamin: In Judges 21 the women of Jabesh became wives of Benjamite men. Some interpreters therefore hold that there were blood ties between Saul, a Benjamite, and Jabesh, and that these ties account both for Saul's military campaign and for the loyalty of Jabesh. The Bible does not state this relationship directly.
• Reason for burning the bodies: Because burial was the customary practice in Israel, interpretations of the burning differ. Some hold that it was done to deal with bodies that had been mutilated; others, that it was meant to prevent further desecration; and other views exist as well.
• Manuscript differences: A manuscript of Samuel among the Dead Sea Scrolls contains an additional paragraph before 1 Samuel 11 stating that Nahash had thrust out the right eyes of the Gadites and Reubenites. Some English translations include this paragraph in the text. The New Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong) does not contain it.
• Distinction from Jabez: The individual Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 and the town of Jabez in the land of Judah in 1 Chronicles 2:55, both spelled the same as Jabesh in Korean, are distinct from Jabesh-gilead. The name of the individual Jabez in particular differs from Jabesh even in Hebrew. The Prayer of Jabez, widely read in the early 2000s, concerns the prayer of this individual and has no connection with Jabesh-gilead.

In the Korean Church

In Korean church preaching, Jabesh-gilead is chiefly presented as an example of people who did not forget the kindness they had received and who repaid it. First Samuel 11 is also preached as a passage describing how Saul was established as a leader.