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1. Nahash the Ammonite. The name Nahash is the familiar Hebrew word for “serpent.” The serpent was a prominent decoration in the heathen temples of Palestine. The children of Israel had seen fit to preserve the brazen serpent after their experience with the poisonous reptiles in the Wilderness of Zin, on their departure from Kadesh (Num. 20:1; 21:5-9; cf. 2 Kings 18:4). Seeing the importance placed upon the snake in all the religions of their neighbors, the Israelites before long were also venerating the serpent that they thought had saved them in the wilderness (cf. Eze. 8:7-12). Later, in the days of Hezekiah, the brazen serpent was destroyed because of such worship (2 Kings 18:4). Inasmuch as personal names were frequently compounded with those of various deities, Nahash was evidently given a name implying certain characteristics of the serpent, such as wisdom, cunning, and craftiness.

Jabesh-gilead. Scholars had previously assigned this town to the hills overlooking the Wadi Yābis (Jabesh) 7 mi. (11.5 km.) to the east of the river Jordan. But this would have been too far for the men of Jabesh-gilead to carry the bodies of Saul and Jonathan the same night they took the impaled torsos of these men down from the city wall of Beth-shan (ch. 31:11-13). The archeologist Nelson Glueck found several definite lines of evidence that led him to identify Jabesh-gilead with the modern mounds of Tell el-Meqbereh and Tell Abō« Kharaz, 2 2/3 mi. (4.3 km.) east of the Jordan, overlooking the river Yabis after it emerges from its deep gorge in the hills of Gilead and flows westward toward its union with the Jordan (The River Jordan, pp. 159-167). This city had been the home of the 400 virgins whose parents were slain because they did not participate in the civil war against Benjamin, and who were given as wives to the remnant of that tribe after its almost total destruction (Judges 21:8-14).

Many years earlier than Nahash, Israel had been in subjection to the Ammonites for 18 years. It would be natural that the Ammonites, still resenting their defeat at the hands of Jephthah, would be looking for an opportunity to regain control of Gilead. The Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh had rich soil, watered by the Jabbok, Yabis, and Yarmuk rivers. Well situated above the heat of the desert, their vineyards and fine pasturages were the envy of the peoples of the eastern deserts. Jabesh-gilead had risen from the ruin of earlier days, but its inhabitants had probably not forgotten their brutal punishment following the affair with Benjamin. But stronger than the feud between the men of Jabesh-gilead and their own kin was the hatred Ammon felt for all Israel as a result of the defeat administered them by Jephthah.