JABESH-GILEAD. =7. Jabesh-gilead= is not certainly identified, but it was not far off from a valley known as Wady Jabes, or Yabes, about twenty miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee, in the land of Gilead. Bezek, where the hosts gathered before they started to cross the Jordan, was some plain near the Jordan not yet identified. =8. Three hundred and thirty thousand= of Israel gathered themselves together in three bands and hastily crossed the Jordan in the night, and before the heat of day they had slain and routed the Ammonites in the greatest battle that had been known in Canaan for several centuries. So great was the reaction from the long-continued indifference to united effort, and especially to the publicly expressed lack of confidence in Saul, that, in keeping with their rude manners, they demanded the immediate execution of those who had spoken against the king. =9. But Samuel turned this feeling= into another channel. He summoned a great gathering similar to the one called by Joshua 300 years before at Shechem, but at this time the assembly was at Gilgal. Here they renewed their promises to God and to the king. This was the Gilgal which was upon the plains of Jericho, and of which we have already spoken. =10. Saul now became king= in its fullest sense. His first act was to appoint a standing army of 3,000. By an ill-timed attack upon an outpost of the Philistines the anger of that entire nation was aroused at a time when the Israelites were unprepared to meet them. Samuel was called upon for advice and service, but Saul’s impatience and disobedience to the directions of the prophet discouraged Samuel so greatly that he withdrew from Saul. Jonathan by a stratagem executed in the night, 1 Sam. 14, created a panic in the Philistine army, and the Israelites, gathering together from various hiding-places to which they had fled in their fear, joined in pursuit, until the Philistines were driven back to their own country, which was upon the southwest coast of Palestine about forty miles distant. But the repeated instances of disobedience, coupled with deception, on the part of Saul led Samuel to withdraw from the king entirely and for ever, and by divine appointment he anointed David, in private, to be successor to Saul. David’s appointment was suspected, and it aroused the bitter jealousy of the king, which was shown by his continued pursuit and persecution of David, until the great and final battle of Saul’s reign, which took place on the plain of Jezreel, against the Philistines, about B. C. 1056. SAUL’S LAST BATTLE. =11. This battle=, with its associated geography and incidental history, requires some knowledge of the localities of SHUNEM, GILBOA, and EN-DOR.