It was so on the next day, that Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and struck the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it happened, that those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.
Saul wisely divided his troops into three companies. He attacked the besieging Ammonites early in the morning. The morning watch was the last of three night watches, and it lasted from about 2:00 to 6:00 a.m. These three watches had their origin in Mesopotamia, but all the western Asian nations observed them before the Christian era (cf. Lamentations 2:19; Judges 7:19). The only other place in the Old Testament where this phrase "at the morning watch" occurs in Hebrew is Exodus 14:24. Then God slew the Egyptian soldiers as they pursued the fleeing Israelites through the Red Sea. Perhaps the writer wanted his readers to view this victory as another miraculous deliverance at the beginning of a new phase of Israel’s existence.