Articles
“Nahash the Ammonite”
1 Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.” 2 But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.” 3 The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days’ respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.”
1 Samuel 11:1-3
Last week’s article explored the significance of the Hebrew word nachash, translated “serpent” in Genesis 3:1. Satan, appearing in serpentine form in the Garden, successfully deceived the first human couple, introducing sin and death into creation. But God promised to destroy evil at its source. The seed of woman would come to crush the serpent’s head, while the serpent would strike his heel in a mutual destruction (Gen. 3:15). As Christians, we know Jesus fulfills this promise at the cross, but ancient Israelites reading Genesis would be left wondering about the identity of the snake crusher.
Fast forward to Israel’s nascent kingdom with Saul as its king. The previous chapter ended with naysayers badmouthing him, “How can this man save us?” (1 Sam. 10:27) Chapter 11 provides the answer: Saul can save them by the power of God’s Spirit. A theme emerges when we see words related to “save/salvation” three times (3, 9, 13).
And against whom does Saul make his military debut? An Ammonite king whose name, “Nahash,” is the very same Hebrew word for “serpent” back in Genesis 3:1. Notice the words and actions of this snake king. He besieges Jabesh Gilead, a fortified town about twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee near the banks of the Jordan. Nahash may have already been on a rampage conquering the Transjordan tribes. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Q4Sama) includes additional material before 1 Samuel 11:1:
“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.”
This may explain the eagerness of Jabesh Gilead to make peace with Nahash (1). The conditions were clear. He would spare them but only if they gouged out their right eyes. This would render them unfit for military service, putting them forever in a position of subservience (the left eye would normally be covered up by the shield in battle leaving the right eye to sight the enemy; you can’t fight what you can’t see). But Nahash didn’t just want to cripple Jabesh Gilead’s soldiers. He wanted to heap “disgrace on all Israel” (2). His goal was not just dominance but humiliation. Add to this the pride of Nahash who, apparently, was so sure of himself that he allowed the elders’ request in verse 3 for a weeklong reprieve to look for a savior.
When the report of this comes to Gibeah “all the people wept loudly” (4). Saul comes in from the field and gets the news (5) and “the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul” (6). He dices up a pair of oxen, sends out the bloody parts to rile the troops (7), gathers his army (8), promises deliverance to Jabesh Gilead (9-10), splits his forces into three groups and crushes the snake king (11).
Did you hear the echoes of the book of Judges throughout the text? Notice the Spirit of God “rushing” upon Saul, just as he had Samson (6; also 10:6, 10). True, the Spirit equipped other judges (e.g. Jdg. 3:10; 6:34; 11:29) but the verb “rush” was only used in connection with Samson (Jdg. 14:6, 19; 15:14). Saul’s division of his troops into groups of three (11) reminds us of Gideon (Jdg. 7:16). His hacking up the oxen (7) reminds us of the slaughter of the concubine in Gibeah (Jdg. 19:27), but instead of dividing Israel and igniting a civil war, Saul’s actions unite Israel and result in victory over their enemy. Saul is the “savior” (3) that Israel needed at the time, a word used of several Judges (Jdg. 3:9, 15). The point is, God’s Spirit took hold of this shy farmer and turned him into a super-judge to save his people.
Sadly, though Nahash resembles the serpent from the Garden, Saul was not the promised snake crusher of Genesis 3:15. His victory over Nahash was decisive but later Saul would fall prey to “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.” (Rev. 12:9) Saul turned out to be a rebellious king that God would replace with a “man after his own heart” (13:14), a humble shepherd from Bethlehem. David served the Lord with great faith but he also fell prey to the ancient serpent. Another war with the Ammonites broke out but David, instead of defending his people against the enemy, took Bathsheba and murdered one his mighty men (2 Sam. 11).
It was not until the coming of Jesus, born of woman (Gal. 4:4) and descended from David (Rom. 1:3), that the crushing blow was delivered to the serpent’s head. Today, Christ’s people also participate and share in his victory over the serpent (Rom. 16:20). All praise to the snake crusher, King Jesus!
