I Shemuel 11 Passage
Among the Qumran scrolls, there was a passage that was found, which was missing from the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. Where scribal tradition teaches that nothing is deleted and nothing added, that the scribes have been faithfully copying texts without error, many cases prove otherwise. This is one of them. Where it may not have been an intentional deletion, it appears to be an accidental deletion, due to the fact that the first word of the missing passage and the first word of the text we now have, both begin with Nahash. The scribes eye jumped to the next word and simply skipped a paragraph. It has been shown to have happened in other areas, but not as greatly as it happened here. The following verses are found in 4QSama.
I Shemuel 11
Nahash king of the Ammoniy oppressed the Gadiy and the Reubeniy viciously.
He put out the right eye of all of them and brought fear and trembling on
Yisrael. Not one of Yisrael in the region beyond the Yarden remained whose
right eye Nahash king of the Ammoniy did not put out, except seven thousand
men who had escaped from the Ammoniy and went up to Yabesh Gilead. Then after
about a month…
So the whole passage, from the beginning of chapter 11 would read:
"Nahash king of the Ammoniy oppressed the Gadiy and the Reubeniy viciously. He put out the right eye of all of them and brought fear and trembling on Yisrael. Not one of Yisrael in the region beyond the Yarden remained whose right eye Nahash king of the Ammoniy did not put out, except seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammoniy and went up to Yabesh Gilead. Then after about a month 1 Nahash the Ammonite went up and camped against Jabesh Gilead. and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, cut a covenant for us, and we will serve you. 2 and Nahash the Ammonite said to them, with this Iwill cut a covenant for you, when every right eye is dug out for you; and I will make it a reproach on all Yisrael. "
This passage was part of an older text that Josephus must
have had. He mentions it in the Antiquities of the Jews, Book 6, Chapter 5,
1.
"1. After one month, the war which Saul had with Nahash, the king of
the Ammonites, obtained him respect from all the people; for this Nahash had
done a great deal of mischief to the Jews that lived beyond Jordan by the
expedition he had made against them with a great and warlike army. He also
reduced their cities into slavery, and that not only by subduing them for
the present, which he did by force and violence, but by weakening them by
subtlety and cunning, that they might not be able afterward to get clear of
the slavery they were under to him; for he put out the right eyes (9) of those
that either delivered themselves to him upon terms, or were taken by him in
war; and this he did, that when their left eyes were covered by their shields,
they might be wholly useless in war. Now when the king of the Ammonites had
served those beyond Jordan in this manner, he led his army against those that
were called Gileadites, and having pitched his camp at the metropolis of his
enemies, which was the city of Jabesh, he sent ambassadors to them, commanding
them either to deliver themselves up, on condition to have their right eyes
plucked out, or to undergo a siege, and to have their cities overthrown. He
gave them their choice, whether they would cut off a small member of their
body, or universally perish. However, the Gileadites were so affrighted at
these offers, that they had not courage to say any thing to either of them,
neither that they would deliver themselves up, nor that they would fight him.
But they desired that he would give them seven days' respite, that they might
send ambassadors to their countrymen, and entreat their assistance; and if
they came to assist them, they would fight; but if that assistance were impossible
to be obtained from them, they said they would deliver themselves up to suffer
whatever he pleased to inflict upon them. "