The Israelites realize that the people of
Jabesh-gilead were not at the oath-taking ceremony; hence their daughters can still marry Benjamites.
Reading "and it was about a month" at the beginning of chapter 11 places the account of Nahash the Ammonite's siege of jabesh-gilead firmly in the earliest days of Saul's kingship.
The insertion given in 4QSam (a) gives additional background information for the account of the Ammonite campaign against Jabesh-gilead. Frank Moore Cross suggests that the addition helps to explain the severity of Nahash's behavior toward the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, gouging out their right eye, by explaining that they were harboring fugitives.
Instead, the Qumran material serves to intensify the horror of Nahash's attack on Jabesh-gilead. Not only was he threatening to take the region of Gilead, but he had already devastated all the Israelites who had settled on the far side of the Jordan and left no one there with both eyes.
When David heard about her actions, he eventually buried not just these bodies but also the bodies of Saul and Jonathan, which had been left hanging by the Philistines after they killed them, and which later had been stolen by the inhabitants of
Jabesh-Gilead. When David buried these bodies, the famine lifted from the land.
Subsequently, when Nahash, the Ammonite, threatens Jabesh-gilead, the men of Jabesh bargain for a reprieve of seven days in which to seek relief, failing which they will surrender.
Saul's downward fortunes begin an unspecified time after the great victory at Jabesh-gilead, the transmitted text being defective about the number of years he has reigned (1 Sam.
But when the men of Jabesh-gilead hear of it, remembering what Saul had earlier done for them in saving them from the savagery of Nahash the Ammonite (1 Sam.
We can glimpse this from the actions of the inhabitants of
Jabesh-gilead, who later risked their lives to give Saul a decent burial after the Philistines put his remains on display (I Sam.
When the men of
Jabesh-Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, they went and took Saul's corpse and his sons' corpses from the wall of Beth-shan.
Indeed, immediately following the story of the burial of Saul by the citizens of
Jabesh-Gilead, the Chronicler skips the story of the Amalakite who informs David about Saul's death and instead goes on to tell us that already David began his reign as king in Hebron (I Chron.
The Philistines do in fact desecrate the corpses of Saul and his sons, yet in the end he receives final honors from the men of
Jabesh-Gilead (31:11-13).