1 Samuel 11:12
And the people said unto Samuel, Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us? bring the men, that we may put them to death. And the people said unto Samuel, Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us? bring the men, that we may put them to death.
The cry for death came after Saul's rout of the Ammonites at Jabesh-gilead, when Israel assembled at Gilgal to confirm him as king, though it was God who had wrought the triumph through him. The victory stirred the people to exalt Saul, and in that flush of loyalty they called for the surrender of the dissenters to be killed.
What they demanded was the handing over for execution of the men who had before despised Saul's kingship and refused to receive him as ruler. Their earlier contempt was now to be punished with death at the people's insistence.
Saul would have none of it, refusing revenge and forbidding that any man be put to death on that day. His reason was that the Lord had that day wrought salvation and deliverance for Israel.
That forbearance and mercy evidenced a changed heart and transformed character, God's power having subdued and renewed his natural temper. By sparing his enemies he turned the honor of the victory away from himself and ascribed the glory to God.
Yet that same success also worked otherwise in him, leading him to take the honor to himself and to lean upon his own strength. In that self-confidence lay the seed of the presumption and disobedience that afterward brought his rejection.
At that Gilgal gathering he then sent home the greater part of the army he had led to victory. He did so even though the courage born of the defeat of the Ammonites might have been employed with effect against Israel's other foes.