At the beginning of his reign, Saul defended Jabesh-gilead against the aggression of Nahash the Ammonite (1 Samuel 11:1–11) and it appears as though Gileadites had not forgotten this act of deliverance on their behalf. This would explain their loyalty toward their king.
News of the death of Saul and his sons soon reached the people of Jabesh-gilead, just a few kilometres across the Jordan River from Beth-shan. They immediately sent courageous men to retrieve the remains of Saul and his sons. They most likely crossed the Jordan at night, ascended the slope leading up to Beth-Shean, scouted the city, and when everyone was sleeping soundly, took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:12). They carried the bodies back across the Jordan and made their way to a safe place in Gilead.1 They burned the bodies and buried the bones under the oak in Jabesh,
leaving the grave unmarked. The remains of Saul and his sons were burned (see 1 Samuel 31:12), an act that was probably linked to the desire not to defile the land through the burial of a body desecrated and hanged by pagan foes (see Deuteronomy 21:22–23).2 The Chronicler does not mention the burning of the remains of Saul and his sons probably to allow for an honourable burial of Israel’s fallen king and princes. The burial site under the oak in Jabesh
was an important local landmark and probably a sacred site. Fasting was a mourning custom in ancient Israel (1 Chronicles 10:12; 2 Samuel 1:12; 2 Samuel 3:35). The seven-day duration of the fast by the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead attests to their fierce loyalty and high regard for King Saul.3
Some years later, David moved the bones of Saul and Jonathan again, this time to Zela of Benjamin, in the sepulchre of Saul’s father Kish (2 Samuel 21:12–14), displaying thereby one last measure of respect to his former enemy whom he had more than once called the anointed of the Lord
(1 Samuel 24:6; 1 Samuel 26:9, 1 Samuel 26:11, 1 Samuel 26:16, 1 Samuel 26:23).4
11 But when all Jabesh-gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul,