The Garden of Eden 17

The Garden of Eden 17

XXX

 

THE BATTLE OF THE RIGHT EYES

 

 

When Saul reached home after his adventure with the seer, he was very

silent. Three men had met him by the way, one with three kids, another

with three baskets of bread, and the third carrying a skin bottle of

wine; and they had stopped and saluted him as some great person, and had

given him two loaves. And down from the top of a hill had come a

procession of prophets with the music of tambourines and flutes and

harps and cymbals, singing and dancing as they came, and Saul had felt

moved to join them, so that they who passed by and saw him were

astonished, and said, “Is Saul among the prophets?” But of all this he

said nothing. When his uncle Abner said, “Where have you been all this

time?” he answered, “We went to seek the asses, and when we saw that

they were nowhere, we came to Samuel.”

 

“And what did Samuel say?” asked Abner.

 

“Why, Uncle Abner,” said Saul, “he told us plainly that the asses were

found.” But the words of Samuel concerning the kingdom of Israel, he

told him not.

 

Presently, Samuel called the people of Israel together and said, “You

have asked the Lord to give you a king, and the Lord has granted your

request. This very day, even as I speak, the king stands among you. Come

now, pass before me tribe by tribe.” So they passed before him tribe by

tribe, and he chose the tribe of Benjamin. And he made the tribe of

Benjamin to pass before him family by family, and he chose the family of

Kish, Saul’s father. And he caused the family of Kish to pass before him

man by man, but there was one man missing. Where was Saul? So they sent

men to find him, for he had hidden himself. And they found him and

brought him out, and there he stood before the people, the tallest and

goodliest man in all the country round, head and shoulders above

everybody. And Samuel said, “You see him whom the Lord has chosen, that

there is none like him among all the people.” And they all shouted with

a great shout, “God save the king!”

 

As for Saul, though he was now a king, he went back the next day to his

own home and went to work again on the farm as if nothing had happened.

Indeed, it seemed for a time as if the people, in spite of their

shouting, would not take him for their king. Some of them said, “How

shall this man save us?” And they despised him and sent him no presents.

But he was silent as before, and attended to his own business in the

field and in the barn, and held his peace.

 

At last, one day, news came of the Challenge of the Right Eyes. The king

was plowing when the messengers arrived, and as he came home in the

afternoon, driving the oxen before him, he heard a great commotion among

the people. “What is the matter?” he asked. “What ails the people that

they weep?” So they told Saul the news.

 

The men of Ammon, whom Jephthah had fought and chased away, had come

back and laid siege to a town in Gilead called Jabesh. They had encamped

around it, so that nobody could go out or come in, and the citizens

could get no food. So the men of Jabesh said to Nahash the king of the

men of Ammon, “We will surrender the city. Only make an agreement of

peace with us, and we will be your servants.” But Nahash answered, “I

will make peace with you on one condition: that I may thrust out all

your right eyes.” Then the men of Jabesh were in a sad plight, and they

said, “Give us seven days to find help. If at the end of the week, there

is no one to save us, then we will come out, and you shall take our

eyes.” Then they sent messengers across the Jordan, and it was their

report which made Saul’s neighbors cry aloud.

 

And when Saul heard it, the Spirit of God came upon him. His anger was

kindled into a fierce blaze at the cruel threats of the men of Ammon.

Instantly he took a yoke of oxen and killed them and cut them into

pieces. And he sent messengers each with a bleeding piece of flesh to

all the towns of Israel; and the messengers cried, “Whoever comes not

forth after Saul to fight against the men of Ammon, so shall it be done

to his oxen.” And great fear fell on all the people, and they came out

with one consent. And word was sent to the men of Jabesh, “To-morrow by

the time the sun is hot, you shall have help.”

 

So the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “To-morrow we will come out to you,

and you shall do to us all that is in your heart.” But Nahash had no

knowledge of the march of Saul. Saul marched his army all that night;

and early in the morning he fell upon the Ammonites before they were

awake, and attacked them on this side and on that, and beat them, and

chased them back into the desert, till no two of them were left

together. Then some said, “Where are the enemies of Saul, who would not

have him for their king? Let us put them to death.” But Saul would not

permit it. “There shall not a man be put to death this day,” he said. So

they crowned Saul over again. “Come,” they said, “let us renew the

kingdom.” And all the people promised to obey King Saul.

 

 

 

 

XXXI

 

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GREAT TREMBLING

 

 

The wife of King Saul was named Ahinoam. They had five children, three

boys and two girls. And the name of their eldest son was Jonathan.

Jonathan was like his father, tall and handsome, and he was as brave as

he was modest. It was said that he could run as fast as an eagle could

fly.

 

At that time, most of the men of Israel who could run were running away,

in fear of the Philistines. The Philistines had taken possession of the

land. The Israelites had neither swords nor spears; and, in order to

keep them from making any, the Philistines had banished the blacksmiths.

Every time a man wanted to get his axe or his plow sharpened he had to

go to the country of the Philistines. There was little use, however, for

plows or axes, for the Israelites were afraid to go to work either in

the fields or in the woods. They hid themselves in caves and in thickets

and among the rocks and on the tops of the mountains and in pits. Some

of them left the country, and went over the Jordan to the land of

Gilead. Saul, indeed, had six hundred soldiers, but they followed him

trembling.

 

Now across the central mountains of the land, there was a pass, so that

men might go across the country from the Jordan River on the east to the

Mediterranean Sea on the west. The valley of Michmash led up from the

Jordan on one side and the valley of Ajalon led down to the sea-coast on

the other. On the south side of this deep and narrow pass was a place

called Geba; there Saul was encamped with his six hundred trembling men.

On the north side was a place called Michmash; there the Philistines had

so great an army that to count them was like counting the sand of the

sea. There was a sharp rock on the north, called Bozez, the Shining; and

a sharp rock on the south, called Seneh, the Strong; and the wood lay

between them.

 

Then the young prince, Jonathan, spoke to his armor-bearer and said,

“Come and let us go over to the Philistine garrison. It may be that the

Lord will bless us, for it matters not to Him whether we be many or

few.”

 

And the squire, his armor-bearer, said, “Do what you will; I will go

with you.”

 

Now King Saul was sitting under a tree on the other side of the camp,

so that he did not know what Jonathan was doing.

 

Jonathan said, “We will climb down to the bottom of the pass and show

ourselves to the enemy. If they say, ‘Stay there, you Israelites, till

we come down and get you,’ we will stand still in our place. But if they

say, ‘Come up here, if you dare,’ then we will go up. That shall be a

sign that the Lord is on our side.”

 

And pretty soon the watchmen of the Philistines saw two men in the wood

at the bottom of the pass. And the Philistines said, “See, the Hebrews

are coming out of the holes where they had hid themselves.” And they

called to Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, “Come up to us, and we

will show you something.”

 

And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Come now, for the day is ours.”

 

And he climbed up the steep face of the pass on his hands and knees, and

his squire climbed up after him. And suddenly, when nobody was looking,

they fell upon the Philistines, shouting like a hundred men. And there

was a panic in the Philistine camp. Nobody knew just what had happened.

Some thought that a great army of Israelites, twice the size of theirs,

and every soldier as big as a giant, had attacked them. And they began

to tremble, and those who were next beyond them trembled, and even the

earth trembled, so that it was a very great trembling. And they ran one

against another.

 

And King Saul came out from under the tree where he had been sitting,

and looked across the valley, he and his soldiers, and they said, “What

is the matter? What is going on in the Philistine camp? Why do they

run?” And Saul said, “See who is gone from us.” And it was found that

Jonathan and his armor-bearer were missing. So they knew that these were

the heroes who had scared the army of the Philistines. At first the men

of Israel were uncertain what to do, whether to fight or to pray. Saul

sent for the priest, and the priest gathered the people and began to

pray that they might know what all this meant and what God would have

them do. But while he prayed the noise in the camp of the Philistines

went on and increased, and it was plain that the multitude was running

like frightened sheep, and beating down one another as they ran. So Saul

stopped the priest and called for the captain, and over they all went

into the battle. And there were men of Israel in the camp of the

Philistines, who had been taken prisoners, and they began to fight

against their captors, and all the men who had hidden themselves in

caves and pits and among the rocks came out to see what all this noise

and tumult meant, and when they saw that the Philistines ran away, they

ran after them. So there was a great defeat. And thus the day went until

the sun began to set.

 

Then Saul took a great stone for an altar, and offered upon it the

sacrifice of the people, and gave great thanks to God, and there was

praise and rejoicing all that night. But the Philistines never stopped

running till they had reached their own cities and had locked the gates behind them.