1 Samuel 11
New English Translation
Saul Comes to the Aid of Jabesh
11 [a] Nahash[b] the Ammonite marched[c] against Jabesh Gilead. All the men of Jabesh Gilead said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us and we will serve you.”
2 But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “The only way I will make a treaty with you is if you let me gouge out the right eye of every one of you and in so doing humiliate all Israel!”
3 The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Leave us alone for seven days so that we can send messengers throughout the territory of Israel. If there is no one who can deliver us, we will come out voluntarily to you.”
4 When the messengers went to Gibeah (where Saul lived)[d] and informed the people of these matters, all the people wept loudly.[e] 5 Now Saul was walking behind the[f] oxen as he came from the field. Saul asked, “What has happened to the people? Why are they weeping?” So they told him about[g] the men of Jabesh.
6 The Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and he became very angry. 7 He took a pair[h] of oxen and cut them up. Then he sent the pieces throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, who said, “Whoever does not go out after Saul and after Samuel should expect this to be done to his oxen!” Then the terror of the Lord fell on the people, and they went out as one army.[i] 8 When Saul counted them at Bezek, the Israelites were 300,000 strong[j] and the men of Judah numbered 30,000.
9 They said to the messengers who had come, “Here’s what you should say to the men of Jabesh Gilead: ‘Tomorrow deliverance will come to you when the sun is fully up.’” When the messengers went and told the men of Jabesh Gilead, they were happy. 10 The men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will come out to you[k] and you can do with us whatever you wish.”[l]
11 The next day Saul placed the people in three groups. They went to the Ammonite camp during the morning watch and struck them[m] down until the hottest part of the day. The survivors scattered; no two of them remained together.
Saul Is Established as King
12 Then the people said to Samuel, “Who were the ones asking, ‘Will Saul reign over us?’ Hand over those men so we may execute them!” 13 But Saul said, “No one will be killed on this day. For today the Lord has given Israel a victory!” 14 Samuel said to the people, “Come on! Let’s go to Gilgal and renew the kingship there.” 15 So all the people went to Gilgal, where[n] they established Saul as king in the Lord’s presence. They offered up peace offerings there in the Lord’s presence. Saul and all the Israelites were very happy.
Footnotes
- 1 Samuel 11:1 tc 4QSama and Josephus (Ant. 6.68-71) attest to a longer form of text at this point. The addition explains Nahash’s practice of enemy mutilation, and by so doing provides a smoother transition to the following paragraph than is found in the MT. The NRSV adopts this reading, with the following English translation: “Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were 7,000 men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh Gilead. About a month later, Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead.” The variations may be explained as scribal errors due to homoioteleuton, in which case the scribe jumps from one word to another word with a similar ending later in the text. If the reading in 4QSama is correct, then perhaps the scribe of the MT skipped from the phrase ויהי כמחרישׁ (vayehi kemakharish) at the end of 1 Sam 10:27, which should possibly be ויהי כמו חרשׁ (vayehi kemo kheresh), and picked up after the phrase ויהי כמו חדשׁ (vayehi kemo khodesh, “it happened about a month later…”). Interestingly 4QSama itself involves a case of homoioteleuton in this passage. The scribe first skipped from one case of גלעד (Gilʿad, “Gilead”) to another, then inserted the missing 10 words between the lines of the 4QSama text. The fact that the scribe made a mistake of this sort and then corrected it supports the idea that he was copying from a source that had these verses in it. Also the 4QSama text first introduces Nahash with his full title, which is a better match to normal style See the discussions in E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd rev. ed. [Fortress Press, 2001] 342-344, P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 199, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 103. Though the external evidence for the additional material is limited, the internal evidence is strong.
- 1 Samuel 11:1 sn The name “Nahash” means “serpent” in Hebrew.
- 1 Samuel 11:1 tn Heb “went up and camped”; NIV, NRSV “went up and besieged.”
- 1 Samuel 11:4 tn Heb “to Gibeah of Saul.”
- 1 Samuel 11:4 tn Heb “lifted their voice and wept.”
- 1 Samuel 11:5 tn Or perhaps, “his oxen.” On this use of the definite article see Joüon 2:506-7 §137.f.
- 1 Samuel 11:5 tn Heb “the matters of.”
- 1 Samuel 11:7 tn Heb “yoke.”
- 1 Samuel 11:7 tn Heb “like one man.”
- 1 Samuel 11:8 tc The LXX and two Old Latin mss read 600,000 here, rather than the MT’s 300,000.
- 1 Samuel 11:10 tn The second masculine plural forms in this quotation indicate that Nahash and his army are addressed.
- 1 Samuel 11:10 tn Heb “according to all that is good in your eyes.”
- 1 Samuel 11:11 tn Heb “Ammon.” By metonymy the name “Ammon” is used collectively for the soldiers in the Ammonite army.
- 1 Samuel 11:15 tn Heb “and there in Gilgal.”
1 Samuel 11
Contemporary English Version
Saul Rescues the Town of Jabesh in Gilead
11 About this time,[a] King Nahash of Ammon came with his army and surrounded the town of Jabesh in Gilead. The people who lived there told Nahash, “If you will sign a peace treaty with us, you can be our ruler, and we will pay taxes to you.”
2 Nahash answered, “Sure, I'll sign a treaty! But not before I insult Israel by poking out the right eye of every man who lives in Jabesh.”
3 The town leaders said, “Give us seven days so we can send messengers everywhere in Israel to ask for help. If no one comes here to save us, we will surrender to you.”
4 Some of the messengers went to Gibeah, Saul's hometown. They told what was happening at Jabesh, and everyone in Gibeah started crying. 5 Just then, Saul came in from the fields, walking behind his oxen.
“Why is everyone crying?” Saul asked.
They told him what the men from Jabesh had said. 6 Then the Spirit of God suddenly took control of Saul and made him furious. 7 Saul killed two of his oxen, cut them up in pieces, and gave the pieces to the[b] messengers. He told them to show the pieces to everyone in Israel and say, “Saul and Samuel are getting an army together. Come and join them. If you don't, this is what will happen to your oxen!”
The Lord made the people of Israel terribly afraid. So all the men came together 8 at Bezek. Saul had them organized and counted. There were 300,000 from Israel and 30,000[c] from Judah.
9 Saul and his officers sent the messengers back to Jabesh with this promise: “We will rescue you tomorrow afternoon.” The messengers went back to the people at Jabesh and told them that they were going to be rescued.
Everyone was encouraged! 10 So they told the Ammonites, “We will surrender to you tomorrow, and then you can do whatever you want to.”
11 The next day, Saul divided his army into three groups and attacked before daylight. They started killing Ammonites and kept it up until afternoon. A few Ammonites managed to escape, but they were scattered far from each other.
12 The Israelite soldiers went to Samuel and demanded, “Where are the men who said they didn't want Saul to be king? Bring them to us, and we will put them to death!”
13 “No you won't!” Saul told them. “The Lord rescued Israel today, and no one will be put to death.”
Saul Is Accepted as King
14 “Come on!” Samuel said. “Let's go to Gilgal and make an agreement that Saul will continue to be our king.”
15 Everyone went to the place of worship at Gilgal, where they agreed that Saul would be their king. Saul and the people sacrificed animals to ask for the Lord's blessing,[d] and they had a big celebration.
Footnotes
- 10.27—11.1 But Saul … time: The Standard Hebrew Text; the Dead Sea Scrolls add “King Nahash of Ammon was making the people of Gad and Reuben miserable. He was poking out everyone's right eye, and no one in Israel could stop him. He had poked out the right eye of every Israelite man who lived east of the Jordan River. Only 7,000 men had escaped from the Ammonites, and they had gone into the town of Jabesh in Gilead. About a month later.”
- 11.7 the: Or “some other.”
- 11.8 300,000 … 30,000: The Dead Sea Scrolls and some ancient translations have different numbers.
- 11.15 sacrificed … blessing: This kind of sacrifice is described in Leviticus 3; 7.11-36; 19.5-8. People who offered these sacrifices were allowed to eat most of the meat, and they could invite others to share it with them.
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