Catholic Commentary
Saul's Victory over the Ammonites
11On the next day, Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the middle of the camp in the morning watch, and struck the Ammonites until the heat of the day. Those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.
In 1 Samuel 11:11, Saul divides Israel's forces into three companies and launches a pre-dawn attack on the Ammonites, pursuing them relentlessly from early morning until midday and completely scattering them so that none remain together. This total victory demonstrates both Saul's military strategy and God's Spirit-empowered deliverance of Israel from the Ammonite threat of mutilation and shame.
Saul's dawn assault on the Ammonites models how God's chosen leaders act decisively in the dark hours—not waiting for perfect clarity, but moving when the Spirit compels.
Typological and Spiritual Senses The Church Fathers read this kind of royal deliverance as a type (typos) of Christ's liberation of humanity. Just as Saul led Israel in three companies at the dawn hour to shatter an enemy that sought to blind and disgrace God's people, Christ, the true and eternal King, acts in the darkest hour of human history — at the cross and in the dawn of the Resurrection — to scatter the enemies of the soul: sin, death, and the devil. Origen, commenting on related passages in the historical books, consistently reads Israel's military liberators as shadows of the one Liberator whose kingdom would have no end (De Principiis IV). The "morning watch" becomes, in this reading, a figure of the Resurrection itself, which the Gospels record happening "early, while it was still dark" (John 20:1).
The King as Instrument of Divine Deliverance
Catholic tradition insists that political and military power is always derivative — it flows from God, who is the ultimate Lord of history. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "God is the sovereign master of his plan" and that human history, including its political upheavals, is oriented toward the Kingdom of God (CCC §§ 303–314). Saul's victory in 1 Samuel 11:11 is a vivid illustration of this principle: the Spirit of God is the primary agent; Saul is the instrument. The king acts in God's name and within God's providential design, not by his own autonomous strength.
The Church Fathers saw a deeper typological pattern here. St. Ambrose, in De Officiis, drew on Israel's military leaders as models of the virtue of fortitudo (fortitude) rightly ordered — courage in service of justice and the protection of the innocent. Jabesh-gilead's citizens were the vulnerable; Saul's campaign was, in Ambrose's framework, a legitimate exercise of force in defense of the weak, an early expression of what would become the Church's theology of just war and rightful authority.
Pope St. John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus (§ 44), recalled that authority has its origin in God and must be exercised in service of the common good. Saul's dawn campaign models this: authority crystallized in a moment of crisis, directed outward in service of vulnerable neighbors. Yet the narrative also harbors a warning — Saul's obedience to the Spirit here stands in sharp contrast to his later disobedience (1 Samuel 15), reminding the Catholic reader that power exercised apart from God ultimately collapses. The passage thus encapsulates the dual Catholic conviction that legitimate authority is sacred and that its exercise demands ongoing docility to divine governance.
For the contemporary Catholic, 1 Samuel 11:11 speaks with particular force to the experience of crisis and decisive action. Saul did not delay or negotiate with the darkness — he moved at the morning watch, before full light, when action required trust more than certainty. Many Catholics face moments of spiritual, moral, or practical urgency — a family member in crisis, a community threatened, a moral stand that demands courage before the outcome is clear. This verse invites the believer not to wait for comfortable daylight before acting rightly.
The "morning watch" also resonates with the Catholic practice of morning prayer (Lauds), which the Church has always understood as a participation in the Resurrection dawn. Beginning the day with prayer before engagement with the world mirrors the theological logic of the text: God acts at dawn; those formed by the Spirit of God launch their day in God's time, not merely their own.
Finally, the total scattering of the enemy — "no two of them were left together" — challenges Catholics to take seriously the completeness of spiritual victory that Christ offers. Half-measures in the spiritual life, leaving pockets of sin intact and unconfronted, contradict the logic of salvation. The Sacrament of Confession is precisely this dawn assault on what remains.
Commentary
Verse 11 in Its Immediate Narrative Context
First Samuel 11 forms a decisive hinge in the early monarchy narrative. Nahash the Ammonite had threatened to gouge out the right eye of every man in Jabesh-gilead (11:2) — a grotesque act designed to shame Israel and render its men unfit for warfare. Saul's response in verse 6 was ignited by the Spirit of God rushing upon him (ruach Elohim), evoking the pattern of the charismatic judges (cf. Judges 3:10; 6:34; 14:6). It is against this Spirit-empowered backdrop that verse 11 must be read.
"He put the people in three companies" The division into three tactical groups is a recurring feature of Israelite and ancient Near Eastern warfare (cf. Judges 7:16; 9:43; 2 Samuel 18:2). The number three here is not merely tactical; in the typological imagination of the Church Fathers, it carried resonances of completeness and divine ordering. More concretely, the threefold division allowed for encirclement, preventing the Ammonites from consolidating or retreating in an orderly fashion. Saul here demonstrates genuine generalship, showing that the Spirit of God who seized him also ordered his practical intelligence.
"The morning watch" The morning watch (Hebrew: ashmōret ha-bōqer) designates the final division of the night, roughly the hours between 2 and 6 a.m. in ancient reckoning — the darkest hours just before dawn. This timing is theologically laden. Attacks at this hour exploit the disorientation and fatigue of the besieging army, but in the Old Testament, the early morning is also the time when God acts most decisively on behalf of Israel: the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 14:24), the manna appearing (Exodus 16:13–14), and the Psalmist's confidence that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). Saul's campaign, launched at this liminal, pre-dawn hour, participates in the pattern of divine reversal and rescue that defines Israel's history.
"Struck the Ammonites until the heat of the day" The phrase underscores the sustained and thorough nature of the assault. This is not a brief skirmish but an extended pursuit from pre-dawn into midday — from darkness through the full light of the sun. The relentlessness of the battle mirrors the complete deliverance God intends for his people. The Ammonites, who had threatened to disfigure Israel, are now themselves utterly broken.
"Those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together" This concluding clause is among the most emphatic expressions of total victory in the Old Testament. The scattering of enemies is a motif deeply embedded in Israel's liturgy: "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered" (Psalm 68:1). The language echoes the curse of Deuteronomy 28:25, where Israel itself was warned it would be "scattered" before its enemies if it proved faithless — here, however, it is the who is scattered, signaling God's faithfulness to his covenant people despite their having asked for a king. The irony is sharp: the very act of making a human king threatens the theocratic ideal, yet God vindicates his people through this king nonetheless.