About a month later, King Nahash of Ammon led his army against the Israelite town of Jabesh-gilead. But all the citizens of Jabesh asked for peace. “Make a treaty with us, and we will be your servants,” they pleaded.
Parallel translations
- WEB Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabesh Gilead: and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you.”
- KJV Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabeshgilead: and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, Make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee.
- BSB Soon Nahash the Ammonite came up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.”
- NKJV Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you.”
- NASB Now Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us and we will serve you.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Nahash the Ammonite besieges Jabesh Gilead, and its men offer to make a servile covenant. The crisis sets the stage for Saul's first deliverance.
Overview
Ammon's aggression against Jabesh Gilead, a town east of the Jordan, threatens part of Israel. The men's willingness to submit reveals their desperation and the absence of a strong deliverer. This external threat becomes the occasion through which God validates Saul as the savior-king Israel needed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- 1 Sam 12:12“When you saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us;’ when Yahweh your God was your king.
- Ezek 17:13He took some of the royal offspring, and made a covenant with him. He also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land;
- 1 Kgs 20:34Ben Hadad said to him, “The cities which my father took from your father I will restore. You shall make streets for yourself in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria.” “I”, said Ahab, “will let you go with this covenant.” So he made a covenant with him, and let him go.
- Gen 26:28They said, “We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,
- Judg 21:8They said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up to Yahweh to Mizpah?” Behold, no one came from Jabesh Gilead to the camp to the assembly.
- Job 41:4Will he make a covenant with you, that you should take him for a servant forever?
- Exod 23:32You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
- Judg 10:7Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the children of Ammon.
- Deut 23:3An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into Yahweh’s assembly forever;
- 1 Sam 31:11–13When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
- Judg 11:8–33The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Therefore we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon. You will be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
- Isa 36:16Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;
- Judg 21:10–25The congregation sent twelve thousand of the most valiant men there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.
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Christ at the center
The rise of the anointed king after Israel's failed first choice points to the true Anointed One (Messiah means 'anointed'), the shepherd-king after God's own heart from Bethlehem.
How 1 Samuel 11:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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