1 Samuel 11:1

Webster's Bible (1833)

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.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַיַּ֗עַל נָחָשׁ֙ הָֽעַמּוֹנִ֔י וַיִּ֖חַן עַל־יָבֵ֣שׁ גִּלְעָ֑ד וַיֹּ֨אמְר֜וּ כָּל־אַנְשֵׁ֤י יָבֵישׁ֙ אֶל־נָחָ֔שׁ כְּרָת־לָ֥נוּ בְרִ֖ית וְנַעַבְדֶֽךָּ

Transliteration

And wayyaʿal nāḥāš the ʿammônî and wayyiḥan against yābēš gilʿād and wayyōʾmərû all ʾanšê yābēš to nāḥāš kərāt-lānû bərît and wənaʿabdekā

Grammar Details

• *wayyaʿal*: waw consecutive + Qal imperfect 3rd masculine singular - and he went up
• *nāḥāš*: proper noun, masculine singular - Nahash
• *ʿammônî*: adjective, masculine singular - Ammonite
• *wayyiḥan*: waw consecutive + Qal imperfect 3rd masculine singular - and he encamped
• *yābēš*: proper noun - Jabesh
• *gilʿād*: proper noun - Gilead
• *wayyōʾmərû*: waw consecutive + Qal imperfect 3rd masculine plural - and they said
• *ʾanšê*: construct plural of *ʾîš* - men of
• *kərāt-lānû*: Qal imperative masculine singular + preposition + 1st person plural suffix - cut for us
• *bərît*: noun, feminine singular - covenant
• *wənaʿabdekā*: waw conjunction + Qal imperfect 1st person plural + 2nd person masculine singular suffix - and we will serve you

Word Meanings

• *nāḥāš*: Nahash (name meaning 'serpent')
• *yābēš gilʿād*: Jabesh-Gilead (city name)
• *bərît*: covenant/agreement/treaty
• *naʿabdekā*: serve you/be your subjects/be subservient to you

Referenced Verses

• Judg 21:8 : 8 They said, What one is there of the tribes of Israel who didn't come up to Yahweh to Mizpah? Behold, there came none to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly.
• 1 Sam 12:12 : 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.
• 1 Kgs 20:34 : 34 [Ben Hadad] said to him, The cities which my father took from your father I will restore; and you shall make streets for you 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.
• Ezek 17:13 : 13 and he took of the seed royal, and made a covenant with him; he also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land;
• Gen 26:28 : 28 They 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,
• Exod 23:32 : 32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
• Job 41:4 : 4 Will he make a covenant with you, That you should take him for a servant forever?
• Isa 36:16 : 16 Don't listen to Hezekiah: for thus says the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat you everyone of his vine, and everyone of his fig tree, and drink you everyone the waters of his own cistern;
• Deut 23:3 : 3 An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them enter into the assembly of Yahweh forever:
• Judg 10:7 : 7 The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the children of Ammon.
• Judg 11:8-9 : 8 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Therefore are we turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. 9 Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and Yahweh deliver them before me, shall I be your head? 10 The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Yahweh shall be witness between us; surely according to your word so will we do. 11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them: and Jephthah spoke all his words before Yahweh in Mizpah. 12 Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you to do with me, that you are come to me to fight against my land? 13 The king of the children of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan: now therefore restore those [lands] again peaceably. 14 Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon; 15 and he said to him, Thus says Jephthah: Israel didn't take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon, 16 but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh; 17 then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, Please let me pass through your land; but the king of Edom didn't listen. In the same way, he sent to the king of Moab; but he would not: and Israel abode in Kadesh. 18 Then they went through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; but they didn't come within the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. 19 Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, Let us pass, we pray you, through your land to my place. 20 But Sihon didn't trust Israel to pass through his border; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. 21 Yahweh, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. 22 They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan. 23 So now Yahweh, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them? 24 Won't you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever Yahweh our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess. 25 Now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them? 26 While Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along by the side of the Arnon, three hundred years; why didn't you recover them within that time? 27 I therefore have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me: Yahweh, the Judge, be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. 28 However the king of the children of Ammon didn't listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him. 29 Then the Spirit of Yahweh came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon. 30 Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be, that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. 32 So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand. 33 He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
• 1 Sam 31:11-13 : 11 When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard concerning him that which the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan; and they came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. 13 They took their bones, and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
• Judg 21:10-25 : 10 The congregation sent there twelve thousand men of the most valiant, 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. 11 This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain by man. 12 They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. 13 The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. 14 Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead: and yet so they weren't enough for them. 15 The people repented them for Benjamin, because that Yahweh had made a breach in the tribes of Israel. 16 Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for those who remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin? 17 They said, There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel. 18 However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin. 19 They said, Behold, there is a feast of Yahweh from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. 20 They commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, 21 and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come you out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. 22 It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, Grant them graciously to us, because we didn't take for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, else would you now be guilty. 23 The children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off: and they went and returned to their inheritance, and built the cities, and lived in them. 24 The children of Israel departed there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance. 25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.