1 Samuel 11:1-2

Saul Comes to the Aid of Jabesh

11:1 ¹ Nahash ²  the Ammonite marched ³  against Jabesh Gilead. All the men of Jabesh Gilead said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us and we will serve you.”

11:2 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!”

1 Samuel 12:12

12:12 “When you saw that King Nahash of the Ammonites was advancing against you, you said to me, ‘No! A king will rule over us’ – even though the Lord your God is your king!

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 10:1-3

Samuel Anoints Saul

10:1 Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s ⁴  head. Samuel ⁵  kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you ⁶  to lead his people Israel! You will rule over the Lord’s people and you will deliver them from the power of the enemies who surround them. This will be your sign that the Lord has chosen ⁷  you as leader over his inheritance. ⁸  10:2 When you leave me today, you will find two men near Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah on Benjamin’s border. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you have gone looking for have been found. Your father is no longer concerned about the donkeys but has become anxious about you two! ⁹  He is asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

10:3 “As you continue on from there, you will come to the tall tree of Tabor. At that point three men who are going up to God at Bethel ¹⁰  will meet you. One of them will be carrying three young goats, one of them will be carrying three round loaves of bread, and one of them will be carrying a container of wine.

[11:1]  ¹ tc 4QSam^a 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 seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.” This reading should not be lightly dismissed; it may in fact provide a text superior to that of the MT and the ancient versions. But the external evidence for it is so limited as to induce caution; the present translation instead follows the MT. However, for a reasonable case for including this reading in the text see the discussions in P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 199, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 103.

[11:1]  ² sn The name “Nahash” means “serpent” in Hebrew.

[11:1]  ³ tn Heb “went up and camped”; NIV, NRSV “went up and besieged.”

[10:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Samuel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you?” The question draws attention to the fact and is a rhetorical way of affirming the Lord’s choice of Saul. The translation reflects the rhetorical force of the question.

[10:1]  ⁷ tn That is, “anointed.”

[10:1]  ⁸ tc The MT reads simply “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you over his inheritance for a leader?” The translation follows the LXX. The MT apparently suffers from parablepsis, whereby a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the expression “the Lord has anointed you” to the second occurrence of this expression at the end of v. 1. This mistake caused the accidental omission of the intervening material in the LXX, which appears to preserve the original Hebrew text here.

[10:2]  ⁹ sn In the Hebrew text the pronoun you is plural, suggesting that Saul’s father was concerned about his son and the servant who accompanied him.

[10:3]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.