1 Samuel 11:10
Therefore the men of Jabesh said, To morrow we will come out unto you, and ye shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you. Therefore the men of Jabesh said, To morrow we will come out unto you, and ye shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you.
The men of Jabesh-gilead told the Ammonites that on the morrow they would come out to them and yield themselves to be dealt with as seemed good to their enemies. That promise of surrender was made under the cruel condition that the right eyes of the people would be put out. Even while the message was being given, rescue was already on the way, for Saul's army was marching to save the city and help was to arrive that very morning.
The incident belongs to Saul's victory at Jabesh-gilead, in which he showed energy and military skill. The deliverance itself was the Lord's work, with Saul serving only as the agent through whom God acted. After the victory the whole nation extolled Saul and forgot God's part, and though Saul at first ascribed the glory to God, he afterward took the honor to himself. He had begun his reign humble and self-distrustful, but success made him self-confident, and that self-confidence led on to presumption and sacrilege in offering the unbidden sacrifice at Gilgal and to rejecting Samuel's message of reproof.