Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman
Let us recall where we left off last time. Shaul takes a pair of oxen with which he has just been plowing, cuts them into pieces, and sends them throughout the territory of Israel: “Whoever does not come out after Shaul and Shmuel—this is what will be done to his oxen” (I Samuel, chapter 11, 7). “And the fear of the L-rd fell upon the people, and they all came out as one man” (I Samuel, chapter 11, ibid.).
Until that moment, it had been impossible to rouse all the Jews at once to go to war.
We know, for example, that Devorah, who called on the people to unite for a war in the north, complained that not all the tribes came out to fight (Judges, chapters 4, 5): “Among the divisions of Reuven there were great misgivings of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan...” (chapter 5, verses 16 and 17). Indeed, it is very difficult to muster the entire nation for war. All the more so when the war is not in the center of the country, but on a distant frontier (in the east), across the Jordan, where the tribes of Reuven and Gad and half the tribe of Menashe live so separately that they even built themselves an altar like the one in Shiloh. Their intentions were the very best: to ensure that their sons would not cease to identify as part of the Jewish people. However, this gave the other tribes of Israel reason to suspect their brethren of idolatry and send a delegation to investigate and, if necessary, to apply force (as we read in the book of Joshua, chapter 22, from verse 13 to the end). Matters almost come to war.
Only once had all the Jews risen up as one. This was the outrageous incident in Gibeah that we mentioned, when a woman who had been raped by a group of men from Binyamin did not die immediately but managed to reach the house where her husband was staying. She died a short time later. The Jewish people demanded the death penalty for the criminals, but the judges in the tribe of Binyamin insisted that, under the law, the sentence should be more lenient.
Then the murdered woman’s husband cut her body into pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel, accompanied by the words: “We are all parts of a single body; we are all one organism.” This made a powerful impression; no one stayed home.
In essence, Shaul did the same thing. By sending pieces of the oxen throughout the land through the messengers from Jabesh-Gilead, he repeated the act of the murdered woman’s husband. This stirred terrifying associations among the people and instilled such fear that everyone understood they could not stay out of the war, and they came to the king from everywhere, even the outlying regions.
It says: “Shaul counted them all at Bezek, and there were three hundred thousand of the children of Israel, and thirty thousand men of Yehudah” (I Samuel, chapter 11, 8).
This seemingly simple verse gives the commentators grounds for detailed analysis and debate. According to one opinion, Bezek is the name of a place. But in that case, it is unclear how Shaul could have counted the Jews who came to fight, since Judaism forbids counting people. Even the census that the Almighty instructed Moshe to conduct was taken not by “head count,” but through the contribution of half a sacred shekel, so that the life of each person counted would be preserved.
There is, however, a view that if counting is truly necessary, it is permitted even without the contribution of half a shekel.
Another opinion holds that bezek is a shard of pottery, or perhaps a pebble. Shaul could not violate the law forbidding the counting of people, so he instructed everyone who answered the king’s summons to hand in either a potsherd or a piece of stone. He asked for nothing more valuable: the Jews were too poor at the time, and King Shaul was entirely free of greed. He determined the size of the army by the number of shards. (Later, by the time the Jews assemble for war against Amalek (chapter 15), they will have become so wealthy that each of them will bring Shaul a sheep.)
However, there is a view that Shaul did not want to take anything from the people. He had no desire for wealth and was scrupulous about the laws. On the contrary, he gave each man a lamb from the royal flock to offer as a sacrifice, and by counting the decrease in the number of sheep, he learned how many soldiers had joined the army. (If that is indeed how it happened, we can see how wealthy King Shaul had become during this time.)
We know that 300000 men assembled, and 30 thousand of them were from Yehudah.
Why do you think this tribe is mentioned separately? To prepare us for the fact that the next kings will come specifically from the tribe of Yehudah. And another question: why did the tribe of Yehudah make up one tenth of all those mustered, rather than one twelfth, as would seem logical? Logical, but incorrect, because this was the largest tribe.
Shaul’s words quoted above—“whoever does not come out after me and Shmuel”—show that he is not yet confident enough in himself as king and is “hiding” behind Shmuel. Only after this war will he become the true king of the Jews.