¹ tn Heb “Look, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh Gilead to the assembly.”

³ sn Through battle. This probably refers to the battle against Jabesh Gilead, which only produced 400 of the 600 wives needed.

¹ tc 4QSam^a 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 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.” The variations may be explained as scribal errors due to homoioteleuton, in which case the scribe jumps from one word to another word with a similar ending later in the text. If the reading in 4QSam^a is correct, then perhaps the scribe of the MT skipped from the phrase ויהי כמחרישׁ (vay^ehi k^emakharish) at the end of 1 Sam 10:27, which should possibly be ויהי כמו חרשׁ (vay^ehi k^emo kheresh), and picked up after the phrase ויהי כמו חדשׁ (vay^ehi k^emo khodesh, “it happened about a month later…”). Interestingly 4QSam^a itself involves a case of homoioteleuton in this passage. The scribe first skipped from one case of גלעד (Gilʿad, “Gilead”) to another, then inserted the missing 10 words between the lines of the 4QSam^a text. The fact that the scribe made a mistake of this sort and then corrected it supports the idea that he was copying from a source that had these verses in it. Also the 4QSam^a text first introduces Nahash with his full title, which is a better match to normal style See the discussions in E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd rev. ed. [Fortress Press, 2001] 342-344, P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 199, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 103. Though the external evidence for the additional material is limited, the internal evidence is strong.

³ tn Heb “Gilead and Bashan belonged to him.”

² tn Heb “went up from Tirzah and arrived in Samaria and attacked Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria.”

⁴ tn Heb “leader of us and all who live in Gilead.”

¹ tn Heb “all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassehites, from Aroer which is near the Arnon Valley, and Gilead, and Bashan.”

⁴ sn The regions of Bashan and Gilead, located in Transjordan, were noted for their rich grazing lands.

⁴ tn Heb “they threshed [or “trampled down”] Gilead with sharp iron implements” (NASB similar).

³ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the inhabitants of Gilead) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn Heb “Should we go against Ramoth Gilead for war or should I refrain?”

¹ tn Heb “Should I go against Ramoth Gilead for war or should I refrain?”

² sn The land of Gilead was on the eastern side of the Jordan River.

³ tn Heb “From Mizpah in Gilead he passed through [to] the Ammonites.”

¹ tn Heb “Now he was the son of a woman, a prostitute, and Gilead fathered Jephthah.”

⁴ sn The Ammonites ripped open Gilead’s pregnant women in conjunction with a military invasion designed to expand their territory. Such atrocities, although repugnant, were not uncommon in ancient Near Eastern warfare.

³ tc The Hebrew text has “in the cities of Gilead.” The present translation has support from some ancient Greek textual witnesses.

² tn Heb “they call them Havvoth Jair to this day—which are in the land of Gilead.”

¹ sn Apparently the people of Gilead remained on the other side of the river and did not participate in the battle.

² tn Heb “to Makir, the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, for he was a man of war.”