And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul;
When the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done. This city was situated nearly opposite Beth-shan, on the other side of Jordan; and its people, mindful of the important services which Saul had rendered them, gratefully and heroically resolved not to suffer such indignities to be inflicted on the royal family.`They deemed it,' says Josephus ('Antiquities,' b. 6:, ch. 14:, sec. 8), 'so horrid a thing to overlook this barbarity, and to suffer them to be without funeral rites, that the most courageous and hardy among them (and indeed that city had in it men that were very stout both in body and mind), formed the benevolent design of rescuing the mangled corpses of Saul and his sons from dishonourable exposure.'