A Note on Nahash: An Exegetic Stalemate and Language Usage in 4Q51 (4QSama) 10:6–9

The long plus of 4Q51 at 1 Sam 10:27, describing the Ammonite attack on the Reubenites and Gadites and the flight of the fugitives to Jabesh-Gilead, has been accepted as original by Cross, Tov and others, whereas it has been viewed as a secondary expansion by other scholars, first and foremost Barthélemy. Since both sides have advanced important arguments, this discussion has led to a stalemate (Kratz). The present study shows that syntactic-stylistic analysis indicates significant differences between the style of the Jabesh tale (1 Sam 11) and the plus of the scroll. In particular one notes a series of long noun groups in antecedent and relative clause mentioning “anybody among the Israelites be[yond the Jordan wh]ose right eye was no[t go]uged out by Nahash, king of the Ammonites.” Since such constructions are extremely rare in 1–2 Samuel, and in classical biblical narrative in general (although they do occur in rhetorical discourse, such as Deut 4:8, and in headings and endings, such as Lev 26:46; Deut 4:45–46; Ezra 7:11), it is important to point out that expressions of such complexity are not infrequently found in Qumran texts, such as 1QS 5:8–10; 1QpHab 2:6–10. In biblical texts this constellation is so exceptional that it is impossible the disregard it. Thus, syntactic-stylistic analysis leads to the virtually inevitable conclusion that the long plus concerning Nahash represents secondary expansion, possibly inspired by 1 Chron 5:10, 18–22. The analysis of syntactic-stylistic features, then, is an indispensible part of textual study.