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.”
A foreign army camps outside an Israelite town. The townsmen offer to hand themselves over before a single blow falls. Three questions follow: who is this attacker, why this town, and why did a people with a new king treat surrender as their only option?
Nahash and the Ammonites
The attacker's name matters. One writer ties it to a whole class of spiritual danger:
Samuel RidoutThe king of Ammon is Nahash, a name that means "serpent" above all. It carries with it the thought of sorcery, divination and other Satanic practices. So evil teaching is plainly tied to its author. The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field. It is Satan's cunning that has mixed some outward forms of truth with the deadly poison of error.
Ammon was no stranger to Israel — the two peoples were relatives. That closeness made the hostility worse, not better:
Samuel RidoutAmmon, the attacking power, was a descendant of Lot. By birth he was related to the very people he now wanted to overthrow. Far from making any bond of affection, that tie was the occasion of special hatred... In spiritual terms, we have learned to dread anything that can claim a kind of kinship with the things of God without truly being His.
Why Jabesh-gilead
The town lay on the far side of the Jordan. Where Israelites settled shaped how exposed they were:
W. W. FeredayBut it is dangerous to live on the wrong side of the Jordan. The two and a half tribes often found this out. In troubled times they were the first to meet the invader's attack, and the first the King of Assyria carried away captive (2 Kings 15:29). The men of Jabesh-Gilead were now in deep trouble.
An enemy looks for weakness, and the two names of the place spell it out:
Nahash attacks the weakest part of Israel, not the strongest. Jabesh-gilead sent no fighters to Israel's war against the tribe of Benjamin, and united Israel destroyed the city without mercy at that time. Since then it had recovered, but here it has little strength of faith to resist the enemy. Gilead means "the heap of witness." It speaks of a memory that should bear fruit, and the country itself is fruitful even today. But Jabesh means "dry," often "dried up, withered," and speaks of the opposite. Where the truth bears no fruit, and decline has begun in the soul, the attacks of error succeed most easily.
after
The offer of a treaty
The men of Jabesh do not fight. They ask for a treaty, which older translations call a covenant. One writer weighs what such an offer buys:
H. L. RossierTo avoid a fight, the men of Jabesh-Gilead offer the enemy an alliance, and their own slavery in exchange. Nahash answers the offer with nothing but scorn. That is all we ever gain by weak concessions to the world and by lack of faith! The men of Jabesh never even think of the deliverer God had just given them.
The verse gives no date. One writer sets the attack earlier than it first appears:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThis invasion took place before Saul was made king. From chapter 12:12 we learn that it was in fact the reason Israel demanded a king. In despair the people of Jabesh-gilead offered to make a covenant with this old enemy of Israel — the enemy Jephthah had once fought and beaten.
The old wound behind the surrender
That old destruction left a mark. Another writer traces the city's surrender back to it:
J. T. MawsonFrom that time the survivors of Jabesh Gilead must have felt cut off from the rest of the nation. That may be why they were willing to give in to Nahash and hand their city over to him. They may have reasoned: we have no friendship or fellowship with the rest of Israel, so why should we suffer trying to hold this outpost for the nation? Better to give in to the enemy and have peace.
What the crisis was not
Not every enemy at the gate is the enemy God is dealing with. One writer draws the line:
William KellyBut remember: dealing with the Ammonite was not what God had in view, either through man's king or God's king. The Philistine was not the Ammonite. Under the law the Ammonite was to be spared, not destroyed. That did not mean the Ammonites could attack the people of God and go unpunished. But it was not part of God's direct plan to put the Ammonites under Israel's yoke.
Summary
- Dryness invites attack. "Jabesh" means dry; the enemy struck where the witness had withered, not where Israel was strong.
- Distance weakens. Living on the wrong side of Jordan put these men first in the invader's path and first into later captivity.
- Kinship sharpens hostility. Ammon was Israel's relative, and that near-likeness made the enmity fiercer, not gentler.
- Isolation breeds surrender. Cut off from the nation by an old wound, Jabesh reasoned it had nothing worth defending and offered terms.
- Compromise gains nothing. They bargained instead of trusting the deliverer God had just given them. Scorn was all it bought.