The Serpent's Bargain and the Tears of Cowards Text: 1 Samuel 11:1-4
Introduction: The High Cost of a Cheap Peace
We live in an age that prizes negotiation above all else. We are told that compromise is the highest virtue, that dialogue is the ultimate good, and that any peace, no matter how degrading, is preferable to conflict. The modern evangelical church, sadly, has largely bought into this spirit of the age. We are constantly seeking a truce with the world, a negotiated settlement with modernity, a covenant that will allow us to keep our heads down and our chapels open, provided we agree to certain non-negotiable terms set by the enemy. We are told that if we are just reasonable, if we are just winsome, we can find a manageable arrangement with those who hate our God.
The men of Jabesh-gilead were modern men. They were pragmatists. When the enemy showed up at their gates, their first instinct was not to look to God, not to sharpen their swords, but to open negotiations. They wanted to cut a deal. And the enemy, as enemies always do, was more than happy to oblige. But the devil's bargains are always ruinous, and the peace offered by the world is always a peace of emasculation, humiliation, and reproach.
This story from the early days of King Saul's reign is not just some dusty piece of ancient history. It is a living parable for the church in every generation. It confronts us with a fundamental choice: will we make a covenant with God, which entails warfare, or will we attempt to make a covenant with the world, which entails servitude and shame? The enemy is at the gate. His name is Nahash, which means "serpent." And the serpent is always offering a deal. He is always promising a form of peace, a form of survival, if we will only agree to his terms. And his terms always involve bringing a reproach upon the people of God.
Today, we will see the anatomy of worldly compromise, the brutal terms of surrender demanded by the serpent, and the proper response of God's people, which begins not with negotiation, but with weeping. But we must distinguish between two kinds of tears: the tears of impotent despair, and the tears that prepare the ground for righteous anger and divine deliverance.
The Text
And Nahash the Ammonite came up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, "Cut a covenant with us, and we will serve you." But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, "I will cut it with you on this condition, that I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you, thus I will make it a reproach on all Israel." Then the elders of Jabesh said to him, "Let us alone for seven days, that we may send messengers throughout the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you." Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and spoke these words in the hearing of the people, and all the people lifted up their voices and wept.
(1 Samuel 11:1-4 LSB)
A Covenant with Death (v. 1-2)
We begin with the crisis and the craven proposal:
"And Nahash the Ammonite came up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, 'Cut a covenant with us, and we will serve you.'" (1 Samuel 11:1)
The enemy appears. Nahash the Ammonite. His name, as I said, means serpent. This is not accidental. The Ammonites were perennial enemies of Israel, descended from Lot's incestuous union with his younger daughter. They represent a corrupt, twisted branch of the family, a constant thorn in the side of God's people. And the serpent comes and lays siege to a city of God's people. This is what the world does. It surrounds, it pressures, it threatens.
And what is the immediate response of the men of Jabesh? Do they cry out to the Lord, as their fathers did in Egypt? Do they rally the troops and man the walls? No. Their first move is to seek a treaty. "Cut a covenant with us, and we will serve you." This is the language of utter surrender. A covenant in this context is a suzerain-vassal treaty. They are offering to switch their allegiance from Yahweh, their true King, to this pagan serpent-king. They are willing to become his slaves in exchange for their lives. This is a spiritual abdication of the highest order. They are attempting to make what the prophet Isaiah would later call "a covenant with death" (Isaiah 28:15).
This is the essence of all worldly compromise. It is the attempt to find security apart from God by serving His enemies. It is the church deciding that the sexual revolution is a battle we cannot win, so we might as well sue for peace and agree to serve the new masters of the age. It is the Christian academic agreeing to bracket his faith in order to have a seat at the table. It is the pastor who trims his sermons to avoid offending the wealthy donors in the pews. It is the offer to serve the serpent in exchange for a quiet life.
But the serpent is never satisfied with mere service. He desires humiliation. Look at his reply:
"But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, 'I will cut it with you on this condition, that I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you, thus I will make it a reproach on all Israel.'" (1 Samuel 11:2)
Here is the brutal honesty of evil. The world does not want a partnership with the church; it wants our eyes. Nahash's terms are both practical and symbolic. Practically, gouging out the right eye would render an Israelite warrior useless. An archer sighted with his right eye, and a swordsman looked over the right edge of his shield. This was a permanent, physical demilitarization. He was saying, "I will let you live, but you will never be a threat to me again."
Spiritually, the symbolism is even more stark. The eye is the lamp of the body. To lose an eye is to lose perspective, to lose depth perception, to be half-blind. The world wants a church that is half-blind. A church that can't see the threats clearly. A church that can't distinguish friend from foe. A church that has lost its heavenly perspective and can only see the dirt at its feet. The serpent wants to maim us so that we can never again be effective soldiers for the kingdom of God.
And notice his stated goal: "thus I will make it a reproach on all Israel." This was not just about subduing one city. It was about shaming the entire people of God. The world's attacks are never just personal. When a Christian leader falls, when a church compromises, when God's people are made to look foolish and weak, it brings reproach on the name of God and the whole body of Christ. The serpent wants to hang a sign on the men of Jabesh that says, "This is what happens to the people of Yahweh. Their God cannot protect them. They are weak, blind, and servile." Every compromise is an invitation for the world to mock our God.
Bargaining for Time (v. 3)
Faced with these horrific terms, the elders of Jabesh still do not repent. They do not cry out to God. They continue to negotiate. They are still operating within the framework of human solutions.
"Then the elders of Jabesh said to him, 'Let us alone for seven days, that we may send messengers throughout the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you.'" (1 Samuel 11:3)
They ask for a week. Seven days. A number of completion, of perfection. They are giving themselves one complete cycle of time to find a human savior. Their thinking is entirely horizontal. "Let us send messengers throughout the territory of Israel." Their hope is in their brothers, in the arm of the flesh. They are looking for a political or military solution.
And notice the despairing conclusion: "if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you." Their default position is surrender. Their plan B is to submit to the mutilation. This is the logic of men who have forgotten God. They have already accepted the enemy's premise. They believe that their only hope lies in a human rescuer, and if that fails, the serpent's terms are the only option left. They cannot conceive of a God who might intervene. They are practical atheists. Their worldview is bounded by what they can see and what men can do. This is the tragic end of all pragmatism. It begins by seeking a reasonable compromise and ends by agreeing to have your eyes gouged out because you can see no other way.
The Weeping of the Helpless (v. 4)
The messengers do as they are told, and they arrive at Gibeah, the hometown of Saul, the newly anointed but not-yet-acting king.
"Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and spoke these words in the hearing of the people, and all the people lifted up their voices and wept." (1 Samuel 11:4)
The response of the people is to weep. Now, weeping can be a good thing. It can be the sign of repentance, of a broken and contrite heart. But this is not that kind of weeping. This is the weeping of sheer helplessness. It is the wailing of despair. They hear the terms of the serpent, they recognize the reproach on their nation, and they see no solution. They are weeping because they are cornered. They are weeping because they are weak. They are weeping because they, like the men of Jabesh, are looking at the problem horizontally.
This is the condition of man without God. This is the state of the church when she forgets her King. She sees the overwhelming forces of the enemy, she hears his blasphemous and degrading terms, and all she can do is weep. It is the weeping of impotence. It is the emotional equivalent of the men of Jabesh's offer to surrender. It is an admission of defeat.
This weeping is the necessary prelude to salvation, but it is not salvation itself. It is the recognition of the disease. It is the bottoming out. Israel had demanded a king so they could be "like all the nations" (1 Samuel 8:20). And here is the result. They are faced with a threat, and they act just like any other pagan nation without a God. They are helpless. Their desire for a human king has, at this point, solved nothing. The whole nation is brought to a place of utter desperation. They have no savior. They have no hope in themselves. All they can do is weep.
The Unseen Savior
This is precisely the point where God loves to work. The story of the Bible is the story of God stepping into situations of human helplessness to provide a divine salvation. When Israel was in bondage in Egypt, they groaned under the slavery. When they were dying of thirst in the wilderness, they grumbled in despair. When they were oppressed by the Midianites, they cried out from the caves. God brings His people to the end of their own resources so that they will know, without any doubt, that the salvation that comes is from Him and Him alone.
The people of Israel are weeping because they are looking for a savior among men. "If there is no one to save us..." they said. But their premise was wrong. The question was never whether a man could save them. The question was whether God would save them. They had forgotten their covenant Lord, the one who had delivered them time and again.
And this is a picture of our condition in sin. We are besieged by an enemy far more terrible than Nahash. We are besieged by sin, death, and the devil. And the serpent offers us a bargain. He says, "You can have a kind of life, a kind of peace, if you will just serve me. Let me just gouge out your spiritual eye. Let me just make you useless for the kingdom of God. Agree that sin is normal, that rebellion is natural, and I will let you live out your days in relative comfort." And left to ourselves, we will either take that bargain, or we will sit down and weep in utter despair at our helplessness.
But the gospel is the news that a Savior has come. Not a savior we rustled up from among the tribes, but a Savior sent from Heaven. God did not send messengers to see if we could find a solution. He sent His Son. Jesus Christ is the true King who comes to us when we are besieged, helpless, and weeping. He does not negotiate with the serpent. He crushes the serpent's head.
The reproach that Nahash sought to put on Israel was a shadow of the reproach of our sin. But our King, Jesus, took all of that reproach upon Himself at the cross. He endured the ultimate shame, the ultimate humiliation, so that we would not have to. He did not come to make a deal with death; He came to destroy death. He did not come to offer terms to the enemy; He came to disarm him and make a public spectacle of him, triumphing over him by the cross (Colossians 2:15).
This scene in Gibeah, with the people of God weeping in the face of a terrible threat, is a portrait of the world without Christ. It is a world that has no answer to the serpent. But the story does not end here. The weeping is about to be turned into righteous anger, and that anger into a mighty deliverance. God is about to show up through His anointed king. And this is our hope as well. Our King has come. The Spirit has been poured out. And therefore, we are not to be a people who negotiate with evil, or a people who weep in despair. We are to be a people who stand in the victory that our true King has already won.