It is likely that tension and threats from Nahash existed quite some time before his eventual attack on Jabesh-gilead.1 With their request for a king, the people of Israel specified the method in which future help should come to them. They put their confidence in a specific form of government rather than the Lord.2 In this they violated the terms of the old covenant since they did not believe in the Lord in the radical countercultural manner that he expected from them.3
12 And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the LORD your God was your king.