impossible
to be obtained from them, they said they would deliver themselves up to
suffer whatever he pleased to inflict upon them.

2. So Nabash, contemning the multitude of the Gileadites and the answer
they gave, allowed them a respite, and gave them leave to send to
whomsoever they pleased for assistance. So they immediately sent to the
Israelites, city by city, and informed them what Nabash had threatened
to do to them, and what great distress they were in. Now the people fell
into tears and grief at the hearing of what the ambassadors from Jabesh
said; and the terror they were in permitted them to do nothing more. But
when the messengers were come to the city of king Saul, and declared the
dangers in which the inhabitants of Jabesh were, the people were in
the same affliction as those in the other cities, for they lamented the
calamity of those related to them. And when Saul was returned from his
husbandry into the city, he found his fellow citizens weeping; and when,
upon inquiry, he had learned the cause of the confusion and sadness they
were in, he was seized with a divine fury, and sent away the ambassadors
from the inhabitants of Jabesh, and promised them to come to their
assistance on the third day, and to beat their enemies before
sun-rising, that the sun upon its rising might see that they had already
conquered, and were freed from the fears they were under: but he bid
some of them stay to conduct them the right way to Jabesh.

3. So being desirous to turn the people to this war against the
Ammonites by fear of the losses they should otherwise undergo, and that
they might the more suddenly be gathered together, he cut the sinews of
his oxen, and threatened to do the same to all such as did not come
with their armor to Jordan the next day, and follow him and Samuel the
prophet whithersoever they should lead them. So they came together, out
of fear of the losses they were threatened with, at the appointed time.
And the multitude were numbered at the city Bezek. And he found the
number of those that were gathered together, besides that of the tribe
of Judah, to be seven hundred thousand, while those of that tribe were
seventy thousand. So he passed over Jordan, and proceeded in marching
all that night, thirty furlongs, and came to Jabesh before sun-rising.
So he divided the army into three companies; and fell upon their enemies
on every side on the sudden, and when they expected no such thing; and
joining b