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1 Samuel 11 Bible study: The LORD has rescued Israel
Saul's words at Jabesh Gilead, "today the LORD has rescued Israel" (11:13), come back to him. The people answer his oath with words like them to save Jonathan (14:45), and Jonathan uses them to plead for David (19:5).
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“Saul said, “No man shall be put to death today; for today the LORD has rescued Israel.””
Try it · Did you catch it?
“When the messengers from Jabesh came to Gibeah, Saul was coming out of the field behind the oxen.”
Is that in 1 Samuel 11, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
"How could this man save us?"
The chapter before ends with a question. When Saul had been chosen, "certain worthless fellows said, ‘How could this man save us?’ They despised him, and brought him no tribute. But he held his peace" (10:27). The LORD had told Samuel of the man he would send, "He will save my people out of the hand of the Philistines" (9:16), and Samuel had told the people, "you have today rejected your God, who himself saves you out of all your calamities and your distresses" (10:19). Now Nahash the Ammonite camps against Jabesh Gilead (11:1), and its elders ask for seven days, "and then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you" (11:3) (tap save). The answer goes back with the messengers: "Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will be rescued" (11:9). And when it is done, Saul says who did it: "today the LORD has rescued Israel" (11:13) (tap rescued). In Hebrew, save in 9:16, 10:19, 10:27 and 11:3 is one verb, yasha', and rescued in 11:9 and 11:13 is the noun teshu'ah, which Strong's gives as "from 7768 in the sense of 3467": from another root (7768), in the sense of this verb (3467).
Where it leads to Jesus
Not destroyed
1 Samuel 11:13leads toLuke 9:54-55
The people said of those who had doubted Saul, "Bring those men, that we may put them to death!" (11:12), and Saul answered, "No man shall be put to death today; for today the LORD has rescued Israel" (11:13). When a village of the Samaritans "didn’t receive him" (Luke 9:53), James and John asked Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky and destroy them" (Luke 9:54). "But he turned and rebuked them" (Luke 9:55), and "They went to another village" (Luke 9:56). No New Testament passage cites 1 Samuel 11, and Luke doesn't name it, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some see the same thing in both: those with a leader want the people who rejected him destroyed, and he will not have it. Others read each in its own setting: Saul gives his own reason, the LORD's rescue that day (11:13), while Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 1 Samuel 11
That was a taste
The rest of 1 Samuel 11 is waiting in Favor
- The Spirit came, and his anger burned
- The dread of the LORD
- Saul's words come back to him
- Three companies, the morning watch
- Jabesh Gilead, before and after
- 9 questions as you read
- 10 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
תְּשׁוּעָהteshu'ahsay te-shoo-AH
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "deliverance, salvation". Strong's: "rescue (literal or figurative, persons, national or spiritual)". The WEB renders it rescued twice here: the messengers' promise, "Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will be rescued" (11:9), and Saul's words, "today the LORD has rescued Israel" (11:13). In Hebrew, 11:13 has a verb with this noun: the LORD worked deliverance. Its only use before 1 Samuel is Samson's, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant" (Judges 15:18). 1 Samuel uses it once more, when Jonathan reminds Saul that "the LORD worked a great victory for all Israel" (19:5).
For your group
1 Samuel 11 Bible study questions
- 1The people had shouted, "Long live the king!" (10:24), and yet when the news came, Saul was "following the oxen out of the field" (11:5). What ordinary work are you doing right now, and how might God meet you in it?
- 2The elders of Jabesh said, "if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you" (11:3). When have you felt that no one could help you, and what did you do?
- 3On the day Jabesh Gilead was rescued, Saul said, "No man shall be put to death today; for today the LORD has rescued Israel" (11:13). When something goes well for you, what would it look like to give it to the LORD rather than to settle scores?
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home