1 Samuel 11:8

8. Bezek At this place Judah had defeated Adoni-bezek. Judges 1:4. When Saul issued his call to all the tribes he probably designated this place as the rendezvous, where every warrior must report himself without the least delay. No traveller has yet satisfactorily identified Bezek with any modern site. From the next verse we infer that it was within a day’s journey of Jabesh, and therefore a very proper place to muster the army into battle array.

Israel… three hundred thousand… Judah thirty thousand This distinction between Judah and Israel is considered by many as clear evidence that this narrative was written after the division of the nation into two kingdoms; but it may also indicate that long before that division was completed there were growing rivalries and jealousies that silently prepared the way for it, so that in Saul’s time Judah and Israel began to reckon themselves apart, as if they were two different states. Compare 2 Samuel 2:10; 2 Samuel 19:41; 2 Samuel 20:1-2. Three hundred thousand men was indeed a vast army, but there is no sufficient reason to believe that the number is exaggerated. At the time of the march through the desert all that were able to go forth to war in Israel were six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty, (Numbers 1:46,) and it would have been exceedingly strange if now, from all the coasts of Israel, the call of Saul had brought together less than half that number.