translation_id: net-engnet

label: NET translator note

text: 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.


text: Heb “went up and camped”; NIV, NRSV “went up and besieged.”


text: Heb “to Gibeah of Saul.”


text: Heb “lifted their voice and wept.”


text: Or perhaps, “his oxen.” On this use of the definite article see Joüon 2:506-7 §137.f.


text: Heb “the matters of.”


text: Heb “yoke.”


text: Heb “like one man.”


label: NET textual note

text: The LXX and two Old Latin mss read 600,000 here, rather than the MT’s 300,000.


text: The second masculine plural forms in this quotation indicate that Nahash and his army are addressed.


text: Heb “according to all that is good in your eyes.”


text: Heb “Ammon.” By metonymy the name “Ammon” is used collectively for the soldiers in the Ammonite army.


text: Heb “and there in Gilgal.”